The Historians' History of the World 03

Everywhere in the ancient world, but in a higher or less degree in different countries, the necessaries of life upon the whole were cheaper than they are at the present day. But with regard to particular articles, examples enough of the contrary are found. The main causes of this comparative cheapness were the less amount of money in circulation, the uncommon fruitfulness of the southern countries which the Greeks inhabited, or with which they traded; countries which at that time were cultivated with an extraordinary degree of care, but are at present neglected; and the impossibility of exportation to the distant regions which had no intercourse, or but little, with the countries lying on the Mediterranean Sea. The last is especially the reason of the great cheapness of wine. The large quantities of the same which were produced in all southern regions, were not distributed over so considerable an extent of the earth as at present. Nevertheless in considering the prices of commodities in ancient times the difference of times and places must be well weighed. In Rome and Athens wine was not, in the most flourishing condition of the state, as cheap as it was in Upper Italy and in Lusitania. In Upper Italy, the Sicilian medimnus of wheat, which was equal to the Attic medimnus, and considerably less than the Prussian bushel (or than 1½ English bushels), was worth, even in the times of Polybius, according to the account of that historian, only four oboli. This price seems to rest upon an inaccurate comparison of the Roman with the Greek coin, and particularly upon the supposition that the modius, one-sixth of the medimnus, was worth two asses, the medimnus, therefore, worth twelve asses; which, estimating the denarius to be equivalent to the drachma, would be equal to 4½ oboli. To this last amount four ancient oboli of the standard of Solon (11.4 cents) may certainly be estimated as equivalent. The medimnus of barley was worth the half of this price, the metretes of wine (about ten English gallons), was worth as much as the medimnus of barley.

In the time of Solon, indeed, an ox was worth only five drachmæ, a sheep one drachma, and the medimnus of grain the same. But gradually the prices increased five fold; of several articles seven, ten and twenty fold. After the examples of modern times this will not appear strange. The amount of ready money was not only increased, but by the increase of population, and of intercourse, its circulation was accelerated: so that already in the age of Socrates, Athens was considered an expensive place of residence.

The cheapness of commodities, in ancient times, has generally been exaggerated by some, who supposed the assumption, that prices were on an average ten times lower than in the eighteenth century, to come the nearest to the truth. The prices of grain, according to which the prices of many other articles must be regulated, show the contrary. It is difficult to designate average prices, however; since so few, and those only very casual accounts, are extant. Letronne designates the value of the medimnus of grain at two and a half drachmæ as the average price in Greece, in particular at the city of Athens, about the year 400 B.C.; and in accordance with this, he assumes the value of grain, compared with that of silver, to have been in the relation of 1 to 3146; the same at Rome, fifty years before the Christian era, to have been in the relation of 1 to 2681, in France, before the year 1520 in the relation of 1 to 4320, and in the nineteenth century in the relation of 1 to 1050. This estimation, according to which the present prices of grain are three times as high as they were during the period of the most flourishing condition of Greece, appears the most probable.

The most temperate man needed daily, at least, an obolus for his food, one-fourth of an obolus for a chœnix of grain, according to the price of barley in the time of Socrates; together, annually, reckoning the year at 360 days, 75 drachmæ; for clothes and shoes at least 15 drachmæ. A family, therefore, of four adult persons must have needed at least 360 drachmæ (£12 or $60) for these necessaries of life. The sum requisite, however, in the time of Demosthenes, must have been 22½ drachmæ higher for each person; for 4 persons, therefore, 90 drachmæ (£3 or $15) higher. To this must be added the cost of a habitation, the value of which, estimated at least at 3 minæ, would involve, according to the common rate of interest (12 per cent.), an annual expense of 36 drachmæ (£1 or $5). So that the poorest family of 4 adult free persons, if they did not wish to live upon bread and water, needed upon an average about £17 or $85 annually.