The Common People of Ancient Rome Part 7

33 Bearskin, large, unworked 43 "

39 Leopardskin, unworked $4.35 41 Lionskin, worked $4.35

IX

5a Boots, first quality, for mule-drivers and peasants, per pair, without nails 52 cents 6 Soldiers' boots, without nails 43 "

7 Patricians' shoes 65 "

8 Senatorial shoes 43 "

9 Knights' shoes 30.5 "

10 Women's boots 26 "

11 Soldiers' shoes 32.6 "

15 Cowhide shoes for women, double soles 21.7 "

16 Cowhide shoes for women, single soles 13 "

20 Men's slippers 26 "

21 Women's slippers 21.7 "

XVI

8a Sewing-needle, finest quality 1.7 cents 9 Sewing-needle, second quality .9 cent

XVII

1 Transportation, 1 person, 1 mile .9 cent 2 Rent for wagon, 1 mile 5 cents 3 Freight charges for wagon containing up to 1,200 pounds, per mile 8.7 "

4 Freight charges for camel load of 600 pounds, per mile 3.5 "

5 Rent for laden a.s.s, per mile 1.8 "

7 Hay and straw, 3 pounds .9 cent

XVIII

1a Goose-quills, per pound 43.5 cents 11a Ink, per pound 5 "

12 Reed pens from Paphos (10) 1.7 "

13 Reed pens, second quality (20) 1.7 "

XIX

1 Military mantle, finest quality $17.40 2 Undergarment, fine $8.70 3 Undergarment, ordinary $5.44 5 White bed blanket, finest sort, 12 pounds weight $6.96 7 Ordinary cover, 10 pounds weight $2.18 28 Laodicean Dalmatica [_i.e., a tunic with sleeves_] $8.70 36 British mantle, with cowl $26.08 39 Numidian mantle, with cowl $13.04 42 African mantle, with cowl $6.52 51 Laodicean storm coat, finest quality $21.76 60 Gallic soldier's cloak $43.78 61 African soldier's cloak $2.17

XX

1a For an embroiderer, for embroidering a half-silk undergarment, per ounce 87 cents 5 For a gold embroiderer, if he work in gold, for finest work, per ounce $4.35 9 For a silk weaver, who works on stuff half-silk, besides "keep," per day 11 cents

XXI

2 For working Tarentine or Laodicean or other foreign wool, with keep, per pound 13 cents 5 A linen weaver for fine work, with keep, per day 18 "

XXII

4 Fuller's charges for a cloak or mantle, new 13 cents 6 Fuller's charges for a woman's coa.r.s.e Dalmatica, new 21.7 "

9 Fuller's charges for a new half-silk undergarment 76 "

22 Fuller's charges for a new Laodicean mantle. 76 "

XXIII

1 White silk, per pound $52.22

XXIV

1 Genuine purple silk, per pound $652.20 2 Genuine purple wool, per pound $217.40 3 Genuine light purple wool, per pound $139.26 8 Nicaean scarlet wool, per pound $6.53

XXV

1 Washed Tarentine wool, per pound 76 cents 2 Washed Laodicean wool, per pound 65 "

3 Washed wool from Asturia, per pound 43.5 "

4 Washed wool, best medium quality, per pound 21.7 "

5 All other washed wools, per pound 10.8 "

XXVI

7a Coa.r.s.e linen thread, first quality, per pound $3.13 8 Coa.r.s.e linen thread, second quality, per pound $2.61 9 Coa.r.s.e linen thread, third quality, per pound $1.96

x.x.x

1 Pure gold in bars or in coined pieces, per pound 50,000 denarii 3 Artificers, working in metal, per pound $21.76 4 Gold-beaters, per pound $13.06

Throughout the lists, as one may see, articles are grouped in a systematic way. First we find grain and vegetables; then wine, oil, vinegar, salt, honey, meat, fish, cheese, salads, and nuts. After these articles, in chapter VII, we pa.s.s rather unexpectedly to the wages of the field laborer, the carpenter, the painter, and of other skilled and unskilled workmen. Then follow leather, shoes, saddles, and other kinds of raw material and manufactured wares until we reach a total of more than eight hundred articles. As we have said, the cla.s.sification is in the main systematic, but there are some strange deviations from a systematic arrangement. Eggs, for instance, are in table VI with salads, vegetables, and fruits. Bucher, who has discussed some phases of this price list, has acutely surmised that perhaps the tables in whole, or in part, were drawn up by the directors of imperial factories and magazines. The government levied tribute "in kind," and it must have provided depots throughout the provinces for the reception of contributions from its subjects.

Consequently in making out these tables it would very likely call upon the directors of these magazines for a.s.sistance, and each of them in making his report would naturally follow to some extent the list of articles which the imperial depot controlled by him, carried in stock. At all events, we see evidence of an expert hand in the list of linens, which includes one hundred and thirty-nine articles of different qualities.

As we have noticed in the pa.s.sage quoted from the introduction, it is unlawful for a person to charge more for any of his wares than the amount specified in the law. Consequently, the prices are not normal, but maximum prices. However, since the imperial lawgivers evidently believed that the necessities of life were being sold at exorbitant rates, the maximum which they fixed was very likely no greater than the prevailing market price.

Here and there, as in the nineteenth chapter of the doc.u.ment, the text is given in tablets from two or more places. In such cases the prices are the same, so that apparently no allowance was made for the cost of carriage, although with some articles, like oysters and sea-fish, this item must have had an appreciable value, and it certainly should have been taken into account in fixing the prices of "British mantles" or "Gallic soldiers' cloaks" of chapter XIX. The quant.i.ties for which prices are given are so small--a pint of wine, a pair of fowls, twenty snails, ten apples, a bunch of asparagus--that evidently Diocletian had the "ultimate consumer" in mind, and fixed the retail price in his edict. This is fortunate for us, because it helps us to get at the cost of living in the early part of the fourth century. There is good reason for believing that the system of barter prevailed much more generally at that time than it does to-day. Probably the farmer often exchanged his grain, vegetables, and eggs for shoes and cloth, without receiving or paying out money, so that the money prices fixed for his products would not affect him in every transaction as they would affect the present-day farmer. The unit of money which is used throughout the edict is the copper denarius, and fortunately the value of a pound of fine gold is given as 50,000 denarii. This fixes the value of the denarius as .4352 cent, or approximately four-tenths of a cent. It is implied in the introduction that the purpose of the law is to protect the people, and especially the soldiers, from extortion, but possibly, as Bucher has surmised, the emperor may have wished to maintain or to raise the value of the denarius, which had been steadily declining because of the addition of alloy to the coin. If this was the emperor's object, possibly the value of the denarius is set somewhat too high, but it probably does not materially exceed its exchange value, and in any case, the relative values of articles given in the tables are not affected.

The tables bring out a number of points of pa.s.sing interest. From chapter II it seems to follow that Italian wines retained their ancient pre-eminence, even in the fourth century. They alone are quoted among the foreign wines. Table VI gives us a picture of the village market. On market days the farmer brings his artichokes, lettuce, cabbages, turnips, and other fresh vegetables into the market town and exposes them for sale in the public square, as the country people in Italy do to-day. The seventh chapter, in which wages are given, is perhaps of liveliest interest. In this connection we should bear in mind the fact that slavery existed in the Roman Empire, that owners of slaves trained them to various occupations and hired them out by the day or job, and that, consequently the prices paid for slave labor fixed the scale of wages. However, there was a steady decline under the Empire in the number of slaves, and compet.i.tion with them in the fourth century did not materially affect the wages of the free laborer. It is interesting, in this chapter, to notice that the teacher and the advocate (Nos. 66-73) are cla.s.sed with the carpenter and tailor. It is a pleasant pa.s.sing reflection for the teacher of Greek and Latin to find that his predecessors were near the top of their profession, if we may draw this inference from their remuneration when compared with that of other teachers. It is worth observing also that the close a.s.sociation between the cla.s.sics and mathematics, and their acceptance as the corner-stone of the higher training, to which we have been accustomed for centuries, seems to be recognized (VII, 70) even at this early date. We expect to find the physician mentioned with the teacher and advocate, but probably it was too much even for Diocletian's skill, in reducing things to a system, to estimate the comparative value of a physician's services in a case of measles and typhoid fever.

The bricklayer, the joiner, and the carpenter (VII, 2-3a), inasmuch as they work on the premises of their employer, receive their "keep" as well as a fixed wage, while the knife-grinder and the tailor (VII, 33, 42) work in their own shops, and naturally have their meals at home. The silk-weaver (XX, 9) and the linen-weaver (XXI, 5) have their "keep" also, which seems to indicate that private houses had their own looms, which is quite in harmony with the practices of our fathers. The carpenter and joiner are paid by the day, the teacher by the month, the knife-grinder, the tailor, the barber (VII, 22) by the piece, and the coppersmith (VII, 24a-27) according to the amount of metal which he uses. Whether the difference between the prices of shoes for the patrician, the senator, and the knight (IX, 7-9) represents a difference in the cost of making the three kinds, or is a tax put on the different orders of n.o.bility, cannot be determined. The high prices set on silk and wool dyed with purple (XXIV) correspond to the pre-eminent position of that imperial color in ancient times. The tables which the edict contains call our attention to certain striking differences between ancient and modern industrial and economic conditions. Of course the list of wage-earners is incomplete. The inscriptions which the trades guilds have left us record many occupations which are not mentioned here, but in them and in these lists we miss any reference to large groups of men who hold a prominent place in our modern industrial reports--I mean men working in printing-offices, factories, foundries, and machine-shops, and employed by transportation companies.

Nothing in the doc.u.ment suggests the application of power to the manufacture of articles, the a.s.sembling of men in a common workshop, or the use of any other machine than the hand loom and the mill for the grinding of corn. In the way of articles offered for sale, we miss certain items which find a place in every price-list of household necessities, such articles as sugar, mola.s.ses, potatoes, cotton cloth, tobacco, coffee, and tea. The list of stimulants (II) is, in fact, very brief, including as it does only a few kinds of wine and beer.

At the present moment, when the high cost of living is a subject which engages the attention of the economist, politician, and householder, as it did that of Diocletian and his contemporaries, the curious reader will wish to know how wages and the prices of food in 301 A.D. compare with those of to-day. In the two tables which follow, such a comparison is attempted for some of the more important articles and occupations.