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

180 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
sented on vases or found in excavations. Where objects had previously been so
identified, a reference to the pertinent literature has sufficed. Unfortunately, most
studies of objects have been limited mainly to archaeological evidence, with little
thought for the philological aspects. A standard work on Greek furniture, for
example, makes no effort to canvass the literary material or to bring the objects
together with their Greek names. And indeed, the gap between archaeology and
philology has proved a very difficult one to bridge.
Where prices have been preserved on our Stelai, they have been compared with any
other ancient prices which the writer could collect. Because of the lack of indexes to
much of the vast epigraphical material, no claim can be made to completeness, although
it can truly be affirmed that the present work includes many prices which have not
appeared in previous economic studies. There is obviously need for a general evaluation
of Greek prices.
Any general economic conclusions which it has been possible to arrive at have
been offered at the beginnings of the relevant sections.
A word as to form. Italics have been used for the first occurrence of the transliterated
Greek names of the items in any given section, but not thereafter except to
distinguish the use of such names as terms from their use to denote actual objects.
The present study is necessarily restricted to the items listed in the Attic Stelai.
Ideally, each word should be interpreted in a context which includes all related words
and objects, so that a complete picture would emerge. But the painting of such a
broad picture must be the work of much future investigation. The Attic Stelai have
not yet yielded up all their secrets.
I. AGRICULT-URAL PRODUCTS
Sir A. Hort in his index to his edition of Theophrastos' Enquiry into Plants,
Vol. II, Loeb Classical Library, London and New York, 1916, has given correct
Latin and English botanical names of plants, which are repeated here for the sake of
convenience. These terms have been compared with those of E. Halacsy in " Conspectus
florae graecae," Magyar Botanikai Lapok, XI, 1912, pp. 115 ff. Halacsy cites
the sections of Greece in which the various plants were grown in 1912. One improvement
has been made in Hort's list: kenchros is 'common millet,' not 'millet.'" The
chief work on the subject of plants is still V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in
ihrem Uebergang aus Asien nach Griechenland und It alien sowie in dais uebrige
Europa, 7th edition, Berlin, 1902.2 For bibliographical references, including a list of
1 See N. Jasny, " The Wheats of Classical Antiquity," Johns Hopkins Univ. Stud. in Hist. and
Pol. Sc., LXII, 1944, no. 3, p. 12.
2The 8th edition of 1911 was not available to me. Also unavailable was a study in modern
Greek by P. Gennadeios, AEewLKOV 4VTOxo7tKOv, Athens, 1914.