The Historians' History of the World 03

In proportion to the cheapness of the necessaries of life, the wages of labour must have been less in ancient times than at present. And all the multitude of those who sought labour as the means of subsistence must have diminished its price, since competition everywhere produces this result. In this number, beside the thetes and aliens under the protection of the state, a great part of the slaves are to be included; so that the families of slaves belonging to the rich, lessened the profit of the poorer class of citizens. The Phocians, by whom the keeping of slaves is said to have been in the earlier periods of their state prohibited, not unjustly reproached Mnason, who possessed a thousand slaves and more, for depriving an equal number of poor citizens of the means of subsistence. After the Peloponnesian War even citizens who had been accustomed to a higher standing were compelled to support themselves, whatever it might have cost them to submit to it, as day labourers, or in some other way, by the labour of their hands. For they had lost their landed property in foreign states, and on account of the want of money, and the decrease of the population, rents had depreciated, and loans were not to be had.

Dress of a Greek Labourer

(After Hope)

Nevertheless, we do not find that daily wages were excessively low. Lucian represents the daily wages of an agricultural labourer or gardener, on a remote estate lying near the frontiers of Attica, to have been, in the time of Timon, four oboli (5¾d. or 11.4 cents). The wages of a porter are the same in Aristophanes, and of a common labourer, who carried dirt, they were three oboli. When Ptolemy sent to the Rhodians one hundred house builders, together with 350 labourers, in order to restore the buildings destroyed by an earthquake, he gave them fourteen talents annually for their food, three oboli a day for each man. We know not, however, by what standard the money was estimated. This was, if they were slaves, for other aliment beside grain; if they were free men, it was only a part of their wages, since a man needs something else besides his food. In 408 B.C., a sawyer (πρίστης) who sawed for a public building, received a drachma a day. A carpenter, who worked on the same building, received five oboli a day. We find that in the time of Pericles, as it seems, a drachma, as daily wages, was given to each of a number of persons working by the day. It is not at all probable that they were artisans, but only common labourers.

Persons in higher stations, or those who laboured with the pen, were, according to genuine democratic principles, not better paid. The architect of the temple of Minerva Polias received no more than a stone sawyer, or common labourer engaged upon the building, namely, a drachma (8½d. or 17 cents) daily. The undersecretary (ὑπογραμματεὺς) of the superintendents of the public buildings received daily five oboli (7¼d. or 14.25 cents). For particular services, in which a certain deference is manifested by the labourer to the person served, a high price was paid in Athens, as is the case in all large cities. When Bacchus in the Frogs

of Aristophanes wishes to have his bundle carried by a porter, the latter demands two drachmæ. When the god offers the ghost nine oboli, he replies that before he will do so, he must become alive again. If this conversation in the realm of departed spirits is not a scene from real life, it has no point. A living porter at Athens was probably just as shameless in his demands, and if less were offered, he might have said: “I must die before I do it.”

The fare for a voyage by sea, particularly for long voyages, was extraordinarily low. For sailing from Ægina to the Piræus, more than sixteen miles, two oboli (3d. or 6 cents) were paid in the time of Plato. For sailing from Egypt, or Pontus, to the Piræus, a man, with his family and baggage, paid in the same period at the most two drachmæ (1s. 5d. or 35 cents). This is a proof that commerce was very lucrative, so that it was not found necessary to take a high fare from passengers. In the time of Lucian four oboli were given for being conveyed from Athens to Ægina. The freight of timber seems to have been higher, according to Demosthenes, who mentions that for transporting a ship-load from Macedonia to Athens, 1,750 drachmæ were paid. The enormous vessel for conveying grain named Isis, which in the time of the emperors brought so much grain from Egypt to Italy, that, according to report, the cargo was sufficient to last the whole of Attica a year, earned in freight at least twelve talents annually. The freight of a talent in weight from Ceos, which lay directly opposite Sunium, to Athens, was an obolus.