the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

190 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
serts."'0 Among the professions of freedmen, we have the record of a man and a
woman who were sesame-sellers at Athens in the fourth century B.C."0'
The maximum price of sesame in the Edict of Diocletian was 200 denarii for one
castrensis modius, which was double the price fixed for wheat.'02
14. orawv?v4 (II, 83, 88). Grapes, a bunch of grapes.'03 Quotations with reference
to several types of grape are given by Athenaeus, XIV, 653 b-654 a. The form
staphkvle Athenaeus regarded as Asiatic. It designates the ripe, fresh grape in contrast
with 6',t4taf, the unripe grape, and crrawis, the raisin. Cf. Anth. Pal., V, 304 (Paton's
translation): "When you were a green blade (omphax) you refused me; when you
were ripe (staphyle) you bade me be off, at least grudge me not a little of your raisin
(staphis)."
The grapes referred to in Stele II were sold on the vine. Pliny the Younger once
casually mentions having sold his hanging crop,'04 and his uncle in giving the price
that was paid for a crop notes that the grapes were sold on the vine.'05
Prices. In the Diocletian Edict, the price of table grapes is given as 4 denarii for
4 pounds,'06 which T. Frank states was equivalent to two pounds for one cent in terms
of the 1932 gold dollar.'07
15. OV'KOV (II, 83, 88, 134).108 Fig (fruit), Ficus Carica.'O? We know from
Theophrastos that the ancients discovered a very scientific remedy in the process called
'caprification ' (cross-fertilization of the cultivated fig with the wild by means of the
wasp) to prevent the dropping of the immature fruit."0 Athenaeus devotes a lengthy
section of Book III of the Deipnosophistai to the fig."' It seems to have grown everywhere,
and Attic figs, which were among the best,"2 were exported as far as Babylon."3
Because of the sugar content, figs made a highly sustaining army ration."4 Dried figs
100
XIV, 640 d: Greek trcgemata, 'things to chew,' i. e., nuts and dried fruits.
101 I.G., 112, 1554, line 40; and 1561, line 23.
102 Col. I, 26.
103
For the collective meaning and the etymology of staphyle, see Buck, Dictionary, p. 378.
104
Ep., VIII, 2, 1.
105
H.N., XIV, 50. Cf. Frank, Economic Survey, V, p. 150, note 17.
106 Col. VI, 80.
107 Economic Survey, I, p. 404.
108 For the derivation of the word, see Buck, Dictionary, pp. 377-378.
109 See Olck, R.E., s.v. Feige; V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen7, pp. 94-102; and Michell, Ec. of Anc.
Greece, pp. 77-78, 284.
110 H.P., IJ, 8, 1. For the history of caprification, which is today practised extensively, see Olck,
op. cit., 2100-2103.
74 c-80 e. Pliny, H.N., XV, 68-83, enumerates twenty-nine kinds.
112
Athenaeus, III, 74 d-e.
113
Plutarch, Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata, 173 C.
114
Polybios, XVI, 24, 5 and 9.