What things cost in Ancient Rome (2007)(constantinethegreatcoins.com)
constantinethegreatcoins.com
What things cost in Ancient Rome (2007)
https://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/edict/
73 comments
> So saying a haircut costs $50 in a big city now
The cheapest haircut I had was 1$ in Colombo, Sri Lanka on the street. It was actually pretty decent. You can get a haircut for 3-4$ on the street in some countries in SE Asia.
Also in countries with less sophisticated labour market there is a lot more barbers offering haircut and less Apple Stores.
Which makes calculations like yours very assumptions dependent.
New York is comparable size to Rome (only in 1974 amount of water used by the NY equaled amount of water delivered to Rome by aqueducts) but I think New York has different labour market dynamics. Just think of slaves and plebs on the dole in Rome. Also you have cars and public transport in NY, which affects labour market.
The cheapest haircut I had was 1$ in Colombo, Sri Lanka on the street. It was actually pretty decent. You can get a haircut for 3-4$ on the street in some countries in SE Asia.
Also in countries with less sophisticated labour market there is a lot more barbers offering haircut and less Apple Stores.
Which makes calculations like yours very assumptions dependent.
New York is comparable size to Rome (only in 1974 amount of water used by the NY equaled amount of water delivered to Rome by aqueducts) but I think New York has different labour market dynamics. Just think of slaves and plebs on the dole in Rome. Also you have cars and public transport in NY, which affects labour market.
I happend to make bricks in Sri Lanka, if I'd get 50$ for 4 bricks, I'd rent an apartment in Manhattan with my salary :-)
>>You can get a haircut for 3-4$ on the street in some countries in SE Asia.
You get one in Bangalore for $2.5, but it means nothing when you measure it in $ terms, people don't exactly earn in dollars in India. They earn in rupees.
Arguably its pretty much the same(in terms of affordability) when you look it from that perspective.
You get one in Bangalore for $2.5, but it means nothing when you measure it in $ terms, people don't exactly earn in dollars in India. They earn in rupees.
Arguably its pretty much the same(in terms of affordability) when you look it from that perspective.
I think you're benchmark may be off. Barbers were something often visited daily, primarily shaving beards.
Plus, those wages seem to be daily and the idea of a general laborer earning $625 a day is pretty nuts. Even assuming 12 hour days that's $50 an hour.
Plus, those wages seem to be daily and the idea of a general laborer earning $625 a day is pretty nuts. Even assuming 12 hour days that's $50 an hour.
Yeah, a clear direct comparison is elusive and maybe impossible. This Reddit thread [0] talks about the difficulties of converting value. I thought it would be thought provoking to see a rough comparison to today's costs through some frame of reference. Your sibling comment points out some other issues with this approach.
[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3x0b7o/how_m...
[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3x0b7o/how_m...
For context, the Edict on Maximum Prices was such a dismal failure that Diocletian ended up retiring shortly after issuing it... so take the restrictiveness and exact prices with a grain of salt (0.0001).
In Durrants The Lessons of History there is a whole chapter on price control. The gist of it: it works most of the times but when it fails ot fails dramatically taking down the whole state with it
This is super cool. I found the price of beef surprisingly low given the “minimum wage” of 25 per day, meaning a common laborer could’ve afforded two modern pounds of beef with some money left over. Of course people probably had many dependents per laborer and these were fixed prices so who knows what kind of shortages there were… In theory though, a min wage laborer with no dependents could have very comfortably had 1lb of beef per day if they wanted.
The median laborer was a farmer, and my understanding is they mostly what they ate
I love history like this. I want to read a history book that does normalized comparisons across time and place. For example, given how many calories you need, how much did a calorie cost in a given historical setting? This would help you understand how much surplus was available to most people.
In the last table for converting d.c. for gold, one gold aureus is about 8 grams of gold, which is about 512 usd in today’s dollars.
I feel gold might be a stable indicator to assess prices over time.
I feel gold might be a stable indicator to assess prices over time.
It would be interesting to see see it translated into modern money via gold prices.
What's the reasoning behind the odd payment structure for solders?
I am copying a previous comment of mine[-2] below. But first let me estimate the cost of food for one day in Diocletian's empire. I do not feel like solving a linear programming problem with ancient food so I substituted Roman ingredients from 301 A.D. for similar Polish ingredients from 2016 A.D.
400 g of rye bread = 400 g of rye flour = 0.95 liters[-1] = 7 d.c.
100 g of wheat flour = 0.2 liters[-1] = 2.5 d.c.
250 g of beans = 0.33 liters[-1] = 4 d.c
100 g of beef = 0.3 librae = 2.5 d.c
100 g of dessert grapes = 0.5 d.c
80 g of olive oil (second quality) = 0.09 liters[-1] = 4 d.c
1/2 litre of Egyptian beer = 4 d.c
Total: 24.5 denarii communes for raw ingredients. Add 20% for condiments and cooking, and get roughly 30 denarii communes for 1 trofa.
-----------------------------------
Here goes the previous comment[-2]:
A Polish numismatist, Zbigniew Żabiński, came up with trofa (from Greek trophe 'alimentation'), a universal measure of the value of money. One trofa is defined as an average person's daily ration of food typical for the given place and time. Altogether, it has 3000 kcal: 1800 kcal in 450 g of carbohydrates, 900 kcal in 100 g of fat, and 300 kcal in 75 g of protein.
For instance, in late 1970s' Poland, one trofa consisted of 400 g of rye bread, 100 g of wheat flour, 250 g of potatoes, 100 g of beef, 100 g of sugar, 80 g of butter, and 1/2 litre of milk. Assuming that its content has not changed, you take the cost of the food (8.70 PLN in 2016), add 20% for condiments and preparation, and get 10.50 PLN as the 2016 price of a trofa in Poland.[0]
In Octavian's times, one denarius could buy you 2 trofas (with content appropriate for ancient Mediterranean lands),[0] Judas's 30 pieces of silver were worth 60 trofas,[1] etc.
Unfortunately, Żabiński published in Polish behind the Iron Curtain so the trofa is virtually unknown outside Poland. The Big Mac index is its pale reflection.
More information in Polish:
[-2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777042
[-1] https://coolconversion.com/
[0] A table of trofa's price from Octavian's Rome to contemporary Poland: http://blognumizmatyczny.pl/2016/03/14/trofa-miernik-wartosc...
[1] Thirty pieces of silver: https://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Collectanea_Theologica/...
[2] The purchasing power in medieval Balkans: https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/8080/1/11_Zb...
[3] Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=Żabiński+trofa
400 g of rye bread = 400 g of rye flour = 0.95 liters[-1] = 7 d.c.
100 g of wheat flour = 0.2 liters[-1] = 2.5 d.c.
250 g of beans = 0.33 liters[-1] = 4 d.c
100 g of beef = 0.3 librae = 2.5 d.c
100 g of dessert grapes = 0.5 d.c
80 g of olive oil (second quality) = 0.09 liters[-1] = 4 d.c
1/2 litre of Egyptian beer = 4 d.c
Total: 24.5 denarii communes for raw ingredients. Add 20% for condiments and cooking, and get roughly 30 denarii communes for 1 trofa.
-----------------------------------
Here goes the previous comment[-2]:
A Polish numismatist, Zbigniew Żabiński, came up with trofa (from Greek trophe 'alimentation'), a universal measure of the value of money. One trofa is defined as an average person's daily ration of food typical for the given place and time. Altogether, it has 3000 kcal: 1800 kcal in 450 g of carbohydrates, 900 kcal in 100 g of fat, and 300 kcal in 75 g of protein.
For instance, in late 1970s' Poland, one trofa consisted of 400 g of rye bread, 100 g of wheat flour, 250 g of potatoes, 100 g of beef, 100 g of sugar, 80 g of butter, and 1/2 litre of milk. Assuming that its content has not changed, you take the cost of the food (8.70 PLN in 2016), add 20% for condiments and preparation, and get 10.50 PLN as the 2016 price of a trofa in Poland.[0]
In Octavian's times, one denarius could buy you 2 trofas (with content appropriate for ancient Mediterranean lands),[0] Judas's 30 pieces of silver were worth 60 trofas,[1] etc.
Unfortunately, Żabiński published in Polish behind the Iron Curtain so the trofa is virtually unknown outside Poland. The Big Mac index is its pale reflection.
More information in Polish:
[-2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777042
[-1] https://coolconversion.com/
[0] A table of trofa's price from Octavian's Rome to contemporary Poland: http://blognumizmatyczny.pl/2016/03/14/trofa-miernik-wartosc...
[1] Thirty pieces of silver: https://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Collectanea_Theologica/...
[2] The purchasing power in medieval Balkans: https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/8080/1/11_Zb...
[3] Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=Żabiński+trofa
> The cost of baking bread was very high to a poor Roman, so if no access to a communal, public oven could be had, the grain would be crushed and made into a porridge known as ‘puls’ that was likely similar in taste and texture to modern polenta
According to Wikipedia, "the variety of cereal used [in the dish Polenta] is usually yellow maize", which is a New World cereal, so not available to the Romans.
According to Wikipedia, "the variety of cereal used [in the dish Polenta] is usually yellow maize", which is a New World cereal, so not available to the Romans.
Now polenta is made with maize, because it is more tasteful.
However in the ancient Rome the meaning of the words was different.
"Polenta" was barley porridge and "puls" was emmer porridge. Both were eaten by those who could not afford bread.
"Polenta" was made from "alica", which was a kind of semolina made from barley.
However in the ancient Rome the meaning of the words was different.
"Polenta" was barley porridge and "puls" was emmer porridge. Both were eaten by those who could not afford bread.
"Polenta" was made from "alica", which was a kind of semolina made from barley.
> Now polenta is made with maize, because it is more tasteful.
Which means that the article's claim that it was "probably identical in taste and texture" is wrong. Which was my point.
Which means that the article's claim that it was "probably identical in taste and texture" is wrong. Which was my point.
I mean, the article says that puls was similar to polenta, not that it was polenta. Puls was typically made with farro.
Would it have been similar in taste and texture to a dish usually made from yellow maize?
Yes, crushed and boiled farro is similar to crushed and boiled corn.
I do not try it crushed, but I do try "modern" farro (due to classic seeds selection I can't really say how similar to ancient one it is) and it's not much similar to corn, grains are bigger, absorb more water, have a bit more taste. They are still not beans but definitively more tasty even if chewy.
However we also should consider that ancient eating habits were FAR different than actual ones, so was life. It's very hard to compare "prices" in completely different societies... In some part of our history there were a big abundance of certain products, in some other a big deficiency, in the '700 in western European countries most people eat FAR more than now to a point we can't probably sustain the rhythm today, in the '300 there was a very deep crisis and most people have nearly nothing to eat etc. Prices can't be a unique measure like today.
Just imaging a society where most families do have a bit of farm animals, for them does it matter their "price"? They raise chickens at home, so they have eggs and meat, what sense does the price of these "products" makes to them? They might just trade them to the few who travel at an accordingly high price, but local "poor" do have them in their own backyard for "free". Similarly if most people outside cities (so most people numerically in general) grow wheat in their own backyard how much it matter it's price? They trade it for wealthy people living in cities or as taxes, to create strategic stocks handled by their governments to cope with regular crisis, that's form the price, not what people have to pay really for it.
However we also should consider that ancient eating habits were FAR different than actual ones, so was life. It's very hard to compare "prices" in completely different societies... In some part of our history there were a big abundance of certain products, in some other a big deficiency, in the '700 in western European countries most people eat FAR more than now to a point we can't probably sustain the rhythm today, in the '300 there was a very deep crisis and most people have nearly nothing to eat etc. Prices can't be a unique measure like today.
Just imaging a society where most families do have a bit of farm animals, for them does it matter their "price"? They raise chickens at home, so they have eggs and meat, what sense does the price of these "products" makes to them? They might just trade them to the few who travel at an accordingly high price, but local "poor" do have them in their own backyard for "free". Similarly if most people outside cities (so most people numerically in general) grow wheat in their own backyard how much it matter it's price? They trade it for wealthy people living in cities or as taxes, to create strategic stocks handled by their governments to cope with regular crisis, that's form the price, not what people have to pay really for it.
> Just imaging a society where most families do have a bit of farm animals
That wasn't ancient Rome, though. Poor people in Rome lived in (or around) insulae - apartment buildings.
That wasn't ancient Rome, though. Poor people in Rome lived in (or around) insulae - apartment buildings.
Poor people in Rome were just a little fraction of poor. At that time Rome itself was what we call a small city today, vast majority of people living outside and poor people inside are mostly slaves of the rich inside, no "ordinary free Citizens". Beside that "apartments" never exists in Rome, there were various size of Domus (houses) with "apartments" for servant, surveillance etc but they were nothing like what we call apartments these days. The most similar thing conceptually can probably be named "colonial homes".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)
Only the very wealthy lived in a domus.
Only the very wealthy lived in a domus.
Yes, and Insula are for their servant, small commerce etc, but they are not like today's apartments, they just might look like. Upstairs people live, downstairs people commerce, produce bread, creates leather shoes, vases, ... with animals in internal courts since source food from outside is not that automatic and quick etc.
Years ago I see a reconstruction from a famous historian (Alessandro Barbero) about ordinary Roman's life, unfortunately I can't find it now...
Years ago I see a reconstruction from a famous historian (Alessandro Barbero) about ordinary Roman's life, unfortunately I can't find it now...
No, insulae were where everyone except the wealthy lived in urban environments including the upper middle classes. And what you're describing is what my city calls "mixed use" and is a corner stone of how apartments work in a lot of modern cities. Small apartments packed in tight above commerical spaces, with the commercial spaces disconnected economically from those living there except from sharing a landlord. The largest difference to today being that the moderately wealthy (ie. upper middle class that still lived in insulae) preferred the lower residential floors, which is a trend that continued until the advent of elevators.
> Just imaging a society where most families do have a bit of farm animals, for them does it matter their "price"?
These prices would in practice largely have applied to Rome the city (and other cities of the empire), where no-one had farm animals. Outside cities there would indeed have been more barter (though the Roman Empire was more 'globalised' than you'd think; Italy was heavily dependent on food imports from Egypt and elsewhere for most of the span of the empire), but no-one was producing food in Rome itself.
These prices would in practice largely have applied to Rome the city (and other cities of the empire), where no-one had farm animals. Outside cities there would indeed have been more barter (though the Roman Empire was more 'globalised' than you'd think; Italy was heavily dependent on food imports from Egypt and elsewhere for most of the span of the empire), but no-one was producing food in Rome itself.
Even in cities they have had animals, mostly poultry, some horses, some sheeps etc cities of the past have not much in common with modern cities. Transports in the past were far different than today and while long range commerce were the norm they where very different than today.
Cities in the past were just polluted agglomerates of people living nearby for defense, services, communications, ancient Rome can be seen in modern terms like a set of colonial houses with some "central" buildings for social life, nothing like a modern city.
Also at that time earth was far more fertile than now, at least we can deduct that from the common and ease of hunting: they do not have any "long range" weapons and still they hunt much just around, enough to even nourish a moving army, food in the past was not that abundant of course but enormously more abundant than now.
Cities in the past were just polluted agglomerates of people living nearby for defense, services, communications, ancient Rome can be seen in modern terms like a set of colonial houses with some "central" buildings for social life, nothing like a modern city.
Also at that time earth was far more fertile than now, at least we can deduct that from the common and ease of hunting: they do not have any "long range" weapons and still they hunt much just around, enough to even nourish a moving army, food in the past was not that abundant of course but enormously more abundant than now.
Normal people in Rome lived in these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building). Typically 6 to 9 stories.
Getting the horses and sheep up the stairs would perhaps be challenging.
> they do not have any "long range" weapons and still they hunt much just around, enough to even nourish a moving army
Wait, are you suggesting that Roman armies fed themselves by _hunting_? Where are you getting that from? A big part of the reason that Roman armies were so effective in general was their (for the time) excellent supply logistics.
Getting the horses and sheep up the stairs would perhaps be challenging.
> they do not have any "long range" weapons and still they hunt much just around, enough to even nourish a moving army
Wait, are you suggesting that Roman armies fed themselves by _hunting_? Where are you getting that from? A big part of the reason that Roman armies were so effective in general was their (for the time) excellent supply logistics.
Also, yes. Roman armies were more builders, farmers, hunters than soldiers in the classical sense: they made roads, they move goods, and they hunt while slowly moving around the earth, mostly by feet, war at that time were not modern wars, borders at that time were not borders like today. Many think that the gladio was not only a short sword but a multi-usage tool for various purpose just as an examples.
Insula's in Rome were just houses for the people serving the wealthy, for commerce etc again they were not apartments, they might appear that to us, but they were just places where people rest upstairs and work downstairs, animals were common in internal courts.
And that's was just a very small fraction of the population, most do not live in cities at that time. A classic sign of how they live is considered the fact that even poor houses around the territory do have roofs with shingles while after the Empire most poor roofs is believed they were straw and similar materials. People often forget that Rome is damn ancient not "just a bit more than the '700 or '600". Society have changed much since then.
Insula's in Rome were just houses for the people serving the wealthy, for commerce etc again they were not apartments, they might appear that to us, but they were just places where people rest upstairs and work downstairs, animals were common in internal courts.
And that's was just a very small fraction of the population, most do not live in cities at that time. A classic sign of how they live is considered the fact that even poor houses around the territory do have roofs with shingles while after the Empire most poor roofs is believed they were straw and similar materials. People often forget that Rome is damn ancient not "just a bit more than the '700 or '600". Society have changed much since then.
Eh? Practically everyone in Rome (the city) lived in insulae. Essentially the upper middle class on down. And the empire was pretty urbanised, particularly in Italy; out of about 14 million people in Italy in Diocletian’s time about a million lives in Rome. There were other large cities, too, with insulae; indeed contemporary commentary sometimes notes that the insulae in other cities were larger than in Rome (presumably because the height limits that were imposed for safety reasons usually only applied to Rome itself).
Honestly I'm from Italy, living in France and I do see many Roman's ruin, that do not correspond with such description at all, so the history I know does not state that, I do not really know where it came from...
European "modern-city like" development arrive far after the Romans...
European "modern-city like" development arrive far after the Romans...
I think you're being affected by survivorship bias here. As the insulae clustered in urban environments, they were much more likely to be replaced than rural buildings since the value of the land they're on is so much higher.
And depending on what you mean, "modern-city like" development is a concept that re-arrived in the early renaissance having disappeared after the fall of Rome. Rome itself had a population of over a million during the heydays of the empire, and some interpretations of that number have it as a million citizens, as the empire didn't really care to keep track of non-citizens except in the vaguest of terms.
And depending on what you mean, "modern-city like" development is a concept that re-arrived in the early renaissance having disappeared after the fall of Rome. Rome itself had a population of over a million during the heydays of the empire, and some interpretations of that number have it as a million citizens, as the empire didn't really care to keep track of non-citizens except in the vaguest of terms.
The crushing them before boiling is what makes them similar. It ends up being a starchy paste with little uncrushed nodules interspersed.
How do people know so many seemingly random things on HN is beyond me
Turning into starchy paste with uncrushed nodules interspersed is, like, what usually happens when you take starchy plant bits and crush and boil them.
> According to Wikipedia, "the variety of cereal used [in the dish Polenta] is usually yellow maize", which is a New World cereal, so not available to the Romans.
It's quite possible that "polenta" was a generic term for "seeds mushed and baked into a savoury cake" that later evolved into a more specialized use.
Sort of how the generic term "corn" now refers specifically only to maize (and to maize in general, so shedding all of its meaning in the process) in American English for some reason while its cognate "kernel" does not.
It's quite possible that "polenta" was a generic term for "seeds mushed and baked into a savoury cake" that later evolved into a more specialized use.
Sort of how the generic term "corn" now refers specifically only to maize (and to maize in general, so shedding all of its meaning in the process) in American English for some reason while its cognate "kernel" does not.
OK. My comment expresses scepticism that something made from sweetcorn tastes like something made from Old World wheat. It quoted a claim from the article that I didn't think likely to be true.
Many prices of goods are not dissimilar numbers to the numbers on Australian or American prices now. Print of beer 4, or a bottle of wine 8 to 20. This reminds me of The Economist Big Mac index (https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index). The income is of course lower, however.
>The income is of course lower, however.
Yes, but perhaps not as much as one might expect. Relevant Reddit post:
TIL that the Roman Empire in the year 150 was so wealthy that all of Western Europe may not have equaled its GDP until 1500 (<https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3prsxr/til_th...>)
Yes, but perhaps not as much as one might expect. Relevant Reddit post:
TIL that the Roman Empire in the year 150 was so wealthy that all of Western Europe may not have equaled its GDP until 1500 (<https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3prsxr/til_th...>)
I was hoping someone would take this data and calculate an approximate Big Mac index.
I big difference is the price of poultry vs beef, perhaps indicative of the industrialisation potential of poultry farming vs beef farming that has since been realised.
I’m surprised by how expensive chicken was. 8 for beef, 60 for chicken?
>>60 for chicken?
In India going back as early as 1960s, Chicken used to be a very expensive delicacy.
I think poultry farming at scale is kind of a recent phenomenon.
In India going back as early as 1960s, Chicken used to be a very expensive delicacy.
I think poultry farming at scale is kind of a recent phenomenon.
Cheap chicken is a very recent thing - like mid 1900s recent. Chickens need to feed on grain (unlike cattle), and chickens also produce eggs (unlike pigs), which means that they're both relatively expensive to raise (before industrial farming made grain cheap as well) and have a huge opportunity cost to slaughter for meat.
Two other items to add to the list:
Modern chickens have ridiculously bulked up, and their feeding has been highly optimised, with the fastest growing breeds you can turn out a 4lbs broiler in 6 weeks, roman chickens would be far less optimised for meat, and as you note feed grain would be scarcer, so turning out a chicken for meat would also take a lot more time (hence even more expenses).
Similarly, dairy cow had been far less optimised, and so had dairy “husbandry”. Furthermore, cow milk was considered quite inferior to goat or sheep (not to mention ancient rome would have had pretty high levels of lactose intolerance, which are less of an issue with sheep and especially goat milk — a fact sometimes noted by roman writers e.g. Pliny). Thus dairy cow husbandry would have little presence in Roman culture, instead cattle was mostly work (oxen) and meat. Therefore the only balance (and opportunity cost) would be between these two, not unlike horse.
Modern chickens have ridiculously bulked up, and their feeding has been highly optimised, with the fastest growing breeds you can turn out a 4lbs broiler in 6 weeks, roman chickens would be far less optimised for meat, and as you note feed grain would be scarcer, so turning out a chicken for meat would also take a lot more time (hence even more expenses).
Similarly, dairy cow had been far less optimised, and so had dairy “husbandry”. Furthermore, cow milk was considered quite inferior to goat or sheep (not to mention ancient rome would have had pretty high levels of lactose intolerance, which are less of an issue with sheep and especially goat milk — a fact sometimes noted by roman writers e.g. Pliny). Thus dairy cow husbandry would have little presence in Roman culture, instead cattle was mostly work (oxen) and meat. Therefore the only balance (and opportunity cost) would be between these two, not unlike horse.
Chickens do not need to feed on grain. They are omnivores that eat almost anything. You can just feed them table scraps and let them forage.
Table scraps, what? When food is half of income, table scraps are much more meager, much less left on the table, and there's a whole pecking order of who eats what cuts of meat (hopefully meat) and everything else. All the way from the breadwinner down to the pig.
Foraging? Yeah if you don't mind foxes eating them, which is like the favoritest thing a fox can want. They figure out chicken coops built with way higher production values with chicken wire and the like, in the present day, back in Rome it must have been a cakewalk. And I don't blame the foxes, nor do I blame native Chilean cats that do the same, rather it's just to easy to prey on this flightless bird humans feed to eat. The whole concept of animal domestication, really, it's fish in a barrel.
Foraging? Yeah if you don't mind foxes eating them, which is like the favoritest thing a fox can want. They figure out chicken coops built with way higher production values with chicken wire and the like, in the present day, back in Rome it must have been a cakewalk. And I don't blame the foxes, nor do I blame native Chilean cats that do the same, rather it's just to easy to prey on this flightless bird humans feed to eat. The whole concept of animal domestication, really, it's fish in a barrel.
Table scraps is not exactly a scalable solution. That's fine for a handful of chickens a particular family owns, but a) those chickens are not going to be slaughtered until they can produce no more eggs and b) they will likely be consumed by the family, not sold on the market as it is just a handful of animals.
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The price for beef is probably per libra (323 grams) and the price for chicken is probably for a whole chicken.
Chickens used to be smaller too though, like the 1950s chickens were 3 lbs, now I struggle to even find chickens less than 5 lbs at costco.
So a 3 lb chicken, it's still ~1360g, 1360g of beef would be ~33.
So a 3 lb chicken, it's still ~1360g, 1360g of beef would be ~33.
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Can someone explain the purple silk price and penalty?
Extremely expensive to make (made from a gland in some species of sea snail, so lots of work), which thus turned into a symbol of power, which then was reinforced by restrictions on its use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple#History
From that Wikipedia link, "for scale":
> In nature, the snails use the secretion as part of their predatory behavior in order to sedate prey and as an antimicrobial lining on egg masses.[14][b] The snail also secretes this substance when it is attacked by predators, or physically antagonized by humans (e.g., poked). Therefore, the dye can be collected either by "milking" the snails, which is more labor-intensive but is a renewable resource, or by collecting and destructively crushing the snails.
> David Jacoby remarks that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment."
> In nature, the snails use the secretion as part of their predatory behavior in order to sedate prey and as an antimicrobial lining on egg masses.[14][b] The snail also secretes this substance when it is attacked by predators, or physically antagonized by humans (e.g., poked). Therefore, the dye can be collected either by "milking" the snails, which is more labor-intensive but is a renewable resource, or by collecting and destructively crushing the snails.
> David Jacoby remarks that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment."
Purple dye in the day was made from hundreds of ground up snails. And the color was, as I understood it, an official representation of the emperor. So akin to falsely representing oneself as the emperor.
I'm sure someone else might have more details on the penalty and dye-making process.
I'm sure someone else might have more details on the penalty and dye-making process.
Hundreds? I think way more, the snails seem to have evolved to produce very little purple, it seems the Phoenicians killed the juicy ones preferentially. I've read the process in Medieval times required...don't know like tens of kilograms of snail for enough purple to die one item. Like bad economics.
> All data based on Diocletian’s “Edict of Maximum Prices” issued in 301 AD
> Not satisfied to execute just the seller, Diocletian decreed that the buyer was to be executed as well.
> Not satisfied to execute just the seller, Diocletian decreed that the buyer was to be executed as well.
Immediately after:
> As a final measure, if a seller refused to sell his goods at the stated price, the penalty was death.
So if you have something you don't want to sell, too bad? But then there's a simple loophole, too: once you've sold the thing, you can buy it back for the same price, and the original buyer, now the seller, can't refuse.
> As a final measure, if a seller refused to sell his goods at the stated price, the penalty was death.
So if you have something you don't want to sell, too bad? But then there's a simple loophole, too: once you've sold the thing, you can buy it back for the same price, and the original buyer, now the seller, can't refuse.
Not quite. You are leaving out the condition "if you are in the business of selling things, and this is a thing you have for sale". If you were a vegetable seller, you would not be required to sell your table or your wagon. If you were a cook buying vegetables, you would not be required to sell the vegetables that you just purchased.
As a slav I find it amusing how free grain from gov was called by "dole" by Romans where we have concept of "dola" which used to be your patron spirit quietly influencing your life but in modern times its basically something you've got that you've deserved (according to higher force or destiny), be it thing, health, wealth or life experience.
In the UK today being “on the dole” means to receive government benefits while you’re not working.
Also in Australia. (This was actually my first thought while reading grandparent.)
In the US as well, but it's considered archaic
also to "dole out" meaning to distribute
Here is general labor data in today's dollars