The Historians' History of the World 03

The price of a bath, although it is not barely a compensation for labour was two oboli. A delicate little gentleman is represented by Philemon to have paid four persons each six chalci, as appears from a passage of Pollux, for plucking out the hair of his body with pitch, that he might have a feminine skin. Moreover, the rich had their own, and the Athenian people public baths.

The pay of the soldiers was different in different periods, and according to circumstances. It fluctuated between two oboli, and, including the money given for subsistence, two drachmæ for a hoplite and his servant. The cavalry received from twice to fourfold the pay of the infantry; officers, commonly twice, generals four fold the same. For, as in respect to labour performed for daily wages, the higher station had not a relatively higher estimation in the same degree, as at the present day. The money given for subsistence was commonly equal in amount to the pay. For from two to three oboli a day the soldier could maintain himself quite well, especially since in many places living was much cheaper than in Athens. His pay was partly as surplus, partly for clothes and weapons, and if booty were added, he might become rich. This explains the saying of the comedian Theopompus, that a man could support a wife on two oboli of pay daily; with four oboli a day his fortune was made. The pay alone of the soldier is here meant, without the money given him for subsistence.

The pay of the judges, and of those who attended the assemblies of the people (ἐκκλησιασταί) amounted at least to three oboli a day, and like the theoricon served only as an additional supply for the subsistence of the citizens. The heliast in Aristophanes shows clearly how difficult it was, with that sum, to procure bread, food, and wood for three persons. He does not include clothing and habitation, because he sustained the expenses for them out of his own property. The pay of senators and of ambassadors was higher. Persons engaged in the liberal arts and sciences, and prostitutes, were paid the highest prices.

The ancient states maintained public, salaried physicians; for example, Hippocrates is said to have been public physician at Athens. These, again, had servants, particularly slaves, who attended to their masters’ business among the poorer class, and among the slaves. The celebrated physician Democedes, of Croton, received, about 540 B.C. notwithstanding there was little money in circulation at that time, the high salary of a talent of silver (£211:10 or $1026, since Attic money seems to be meant). When called to Athens he received one hundred minæ (£350 or $1750), until Polycrates of Samos gave him two talents. In like manner, no doubt, practitioners in many other arts were paid by the state; as, for example, architects at Rhodes and Cyzicus, and certainly in every place of importance. For it cannot be supposed that all architects, particularly those invited from foreign countries, would have exercised their art, as several did at Athens, for daily wages.

The compensation of musicians, and of theatrical performers, was very high. Amœbeus, a singer of ancient Athens, received every time he sang in public, an Attic talent. That the players on the flute demanded a high price for their services, is well known. In a Corcyræan inscription, a late one indeed, but executed before the dominion of the Romans was established in that island, fifty Corinthian minæ were designated as the compensation, beside their expensive maintenance, for the services of three players on the flute, three tragedians, and three comedians at the celebration of a festival. The compensation of distinguished theatrical performers was not less, although, beside the period of their engagement at Athens, they earned large sums in travelling, and performing at the various cities and places on their route. For example, Polus or Aristodemus is said to have earned a talent in two days, or even in one day, or for performing in a single drama. All these artists received, in addition, prizes of victory. Also common itinerant theatrical performers, jugglers, conjurers, fortune-tellers, enjoyed a competency; although the sum paid by the individual spectator was small, a few chalci, or oboli, but sometimes even a drachma. The custom of paying fees for apprenticeship to the trades and arts, and also to the medical profession, was established even in the time of Socrates. For a part of the instruction in music, and for athletic exercises, it was the duty of the tribes in Athens to provide. Each tribe had its own teachers, whose lessons the youth of the whole tribe attended. In the other schools each individual paid for his instruction; we know not how much. The legislation of Charondas, in which the salaries of the teachers are said to have been permanently established, would have made an exception, if the laws from which Diodorus derived his information, had not been fictitious.