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

THE ATTIC STELAI 191
(t'uXaSe) were a cheap food for the poor,115 and choice ones appeared on the tables
of the well-to-do.116
Prices.'17 Teles in Stobaeus I, 98 (Hense) tells the anecdote, similar to the one
told of Sokrates in Plutarch,118 that Diogenes pointed out to a complaining friend the
cheapness of common necessities in Athens, including dried figs which were priced
at two chalkoi a choinix, or two drachmas a medimnos. The period of Diogenes is
toward the end of the third century B.C. On the authority of Varro, Pliny gives the
price of 30 pounds of dried figs in Rome in 150 B.C. as one as."19 About the same time,
Polybios gives the price of figs for lower Lusitania in Spain as a talent's weight for
three obols,120 but T. Frank has explained that this and other quoted prices seem so
preposterously low because the area was excluded from the markets for heavy goods.12'
All of these prices, it should be emphasized, are for dried figs. In the Edict of Diocletian
of A.D. 300, however, prices for figs of different types are given.122 The maximum
price for the best quality was 4 denarii for 25 pounds, and common figs were 4
denarii for 40 pounds. T. Frank has estimated this last figure as equal to 1.7 cents
in terms of the gold dollar of 1932.123
16. 4aKog (I, 125; II, 92). Lentil, Ervum Lens."24 Lentils, as other legumes,
were grown for food, fodder, and for the purpose of fertilizing the fields.125 Athenaeus
devotes several chapters to the humble lentil soup and gives many recipes.126
For the price of lentils, see below, p. 199.
17. xE'pXvo0 (KE'yXpog) (II, 138). Common millet,127 Panicum miliaceum. In
comparing kenchros with melinos, Theophrastos states that the former is the more
robust plant, the latter is sweeter.'28 We know from Xenophon that kenchros was
grown in Cilicia.'29 Pliny states that there is no food which the Pontic people prefer to
115 Columella, XII, 14.
116
For the Attic dried figs, which were very much esteemed, see Athenaeus, XIV, 652b-653b.
Cf. also Suetonius, Aug., 76, 1.
117
See Olck, op. cit., 2134-2135.
118
De tranquillitate animi, 470 F.
119 H.N., XVIII, 17.
120
Polybios, XXXIV, 8, 9.
121 Economic Survey, I, p. 196. Cf. Van Nostrand, " Roman Spain," ibid., III, pp. 140-141.
122 Col. VI, 78, 79, 84, 85, 88.
123 Economic Survey, I, p. 404.
124
See Hehn, Kulturpflanzen7, pp. 212, 218-219; Fournier, Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire,
s.v. Cibaria, 1144 b.
125
Columella, II, 10, 15-16; Pliny, H.N., XVIII, 123.
126 IV, 156 d-159 f.
127
See N. Jasny, " Wheats," p. 12.
128 H.P., VIII, 7, 3.
129 Anab., I, 2, 22.