There would be some signs with things like density and hardness of the coin even if the apocryphal legendary streaking of Archimedes didn't happen yet. Also th

There would be some signs with things like density and hardness of the coin even if the apocryphal legendary streaking of Archimedes didn't happen yet. Also the thing about inflation is that it doesn't matter if it was real or not (although signs of debasement would show with foreign trade) - even if they could pull new pure silver out of their togas it would still affect monetary supply - although it would retain strength relative to trading partners until their own supplies stabilized. I am reminded of Japan and how it was attractive to Portuguese traders - they would load ships full of silver to exchange with gold because the two were essentially equivalue in Japan at the time but gold was worth far more in Europe.