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

192 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
Italian millet,130 but Galen comments on the superiority of kenchros.'3' Athenaeus
quotes a fragment from Anaxandrides (41, line 23: Kock, C.A.F., II, p. 151) in
which a pot of millet is listed as part of a dower which was contributed for a brilliant
banquet.132 For a beer made from kenchros, see Athenaeus, X, 447 d.
The maximum price of uncrushed kenchros in the Edict of Diocletian was 50
denarii for one castrensis modius; 100 denarii for crushed millet.'33
MEASURES
Plutarch (Mor. 416 B) observed that "often the measures and the things
measured are called by the same name, as, for example, the kotyle, choinix, amphoreus
and medimnos." That there were standards for dry and liquid measures of capacity in
the time of our inscriptions appears clearly from Andokides, De Mys., 83, Plato, Lg.,
746 D-E, and, more particularly, Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 10. Aristotle compared the
measures of his own day, which he believed to be the same as those of Solon, with
the pre-Solonian measures, which he believed to be Pheidonian. In this part of the
study of the Attic Stelai, we shall be concerned with the words only as they are used
in the sense of measures. The same words, where they are used of containers, will
be discussed by Mr. Amyx in Part III of this study.
The entire study of metrology is now very much in a state of flux. This results
from the probability, first, that individual city-states may have changed their official
measures throughout the course of antiquity; and, secondly, that capacities were not
necessarily uniform from one city-state to another. The situation may be much like
that with regard to the Greek festival calendars. It is quite obvious that there is
pressing need for study in this area, study which should be based on the archaeological
evidence; and the present writer can only regard his conclusions as very tentative.
In our lists, the dry measures, according to which grains, figs, and almonds were
sold, are as follows:
Measure
fIKlY aKtOV"
ft8aKiVtl
0p,uos
Product'34
Italian millet, sesame, common millet
Barley
Barley
Almonds, coriander, barley bitter
vetch, wheat, figs, lentils
130 H.N., XVIII, 101.
131 De aiim. fac., I 15, 3.
132 IV, 131 c.
133
Col. I, 4 and 5.
134
Listed in the order of the discussion above.
13-5 Also noted by Pollux (X, 169) as found in the Demtioprata.