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

THE ATTIC STELAI 201
the latter, 1255 choes, or 104.58 metretes. A metretes contains twelve choes. The
ratio of the quantities is 4.83: 1.
To determine the numerals which may reasonably be restored for the cost prices
of the two entries, the more significant figures for the prices of wine in classical
antiquity have been collected. For the fifth century, there are no Athenian prices for
wine preserved in literary sources unless we regard Hesychius' gloss on Trikotylos
oinos as reflecting the price in the period of Old Comedy, as V. Ehrenberg does.178
Trikotylos, which occurs in Aristophanes, Thesm., 743, and in adesp., 1320 (Kock,
C.A.F., III, p. 628) is defined by Hesychius as an obol's worth of wine. A metretes
at this rate would be worth eight drachmas. In a fragment of Alexis,179 the price of
wine is given as ten obols a chous, which is at the rate of twenty drachmas a metretes,
but the price appears to be an exaggeration in a comic author. Plutarch states that in
the time of Sokrates a costly Chian wine was worth one hundred drachmas the
metretes.180
From the fourth century, we have the statement in [Demosthenes], XLII,
Against Phainippos, 20, that wine was sold at a price of 12 drachmas a metretes, but
later in the same oration the speaker states that wine had been disposed of at three
times its former price.181 The latter price for the metretes would be only four
drachmas. In [Demosthenes], XXXV, Against Lakritos, 10 and 18, there is reference
to a marine loan, which usually amounted to fifty per cent of the capital required,182
on three thousand keramia of Mendaean wine at three thousand drachmas. The
borrowers gave out, moreover, that they possessed security for three hundred drachmas
more; 183 So the goods were valued at a price of two drachmas a keramion. In
this sum was included the cost of the vessels, for reference is made to the stowage of
the wine. If we assign a capacity of eight choes to the keramion as a unit of measurement,
the figure used by Larsen for his Delian estimates,184 the price of the wine
would amount to three drachmas a metretes.185
As instances of very low prices in extremely fertile areas outside of Greece,
178 op. cit., p. 223.
179 Kock, C.A.F., II, 301.
180De tranquillitate animi, 470 F.
181 XLII, 37. Clearly, the barley, quoted with the wine, sold at a price much higher than normal.
182
See G. M. Calhoun, Journal of Economic and Business History, II, 1930, p. 581.
183
See the commentary of Paley-Sandys, Select Private Orations of Demosthenes, 3rd edition,
Cambridge, 1898, pp. 71-72.
184
op. cit., pp. 393-395: " It is probable but not certain that when keramion was applied to a
unit smaller than the 12-choes metretes it meant par excellence an 8-choes measure (cf. Viedebantt,
s.v. Kepacptov, P.-W., XI, 254)." F. Heichelheim (Schwankungen, p. 111) regards the keramion as
equivalent to 6 choes.
185Apart from literary references, graffiti on ancient jars may sometimes be interpreted as
referring to the price of the contents. Some such were reported by L. Talcott in Hesperia, IV, 1935,
pp. 495-496, 515-516.