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

184 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
has estimated that an olive grove would yield approximately three times the value of
a similar area planted in wheat.
Information concerning olive prices was not collected by Pease. In a passage of
Plutarch which relates that Sokrates led a complaining friend to places where the
common necessities of life were sold and pointed out the cheapness of the latter, it is
stated that a choinix of olives cost two chalkoi,29 which is at the rate of two drachmas
a medimnos. Some seven hundred years later, the Edict of Diocletian established the
price of ripe olives as 4 denarii an Italian pint (xestes), of olives in brine at 4 denarii
for forty pounds, and of olives from Tarsus at 4 denarii for twenty pounds.30
4. 4'Eatov (I, 123, 124). Oil. The most detailed treatment of elaion is the 1937
article of A. S. Pease in R.E., s.v. Oleum. Oil was used in ancient times for affording
light, in food, and in the exercises of the gymnasia.
Prices are given in cols. 2472-2473 of Pease's article. In Book II of the Oeconomics
ascribed to Aristotle,3" the price of a chous of oil at Lampsakos is given as
three drachmas (or one and one-half obols a kotyle; 36 drachmas a metretes). In an
Athenian inscription of the fourth century, which lists the tariff of fees for sacrifice,32
three kotylai of oil cost one and one-half obols (or one-half obol a kotyle; 12 drachmas
a metretes). Prices of oil at Delos are discussed by Larsen,83 and in Spaventa de
Novellis' I prezzi in Grecia e a Romra nell' antichita, pp. 51-54, there are listed in
tabular form 105 epigraphical references giving prices at Delos from 310 to 169 B.C.
At the close of the fourth century, oil brought the astonishingly high price of 55
drachmas a metretes.34 By 250 B.C. the price ranged between 16 and 18 drachmas, and
thereafter remained stable. The lowest price, of 11 drachmas, was reached in 190-180
B.C.35 For the Roman period, T. Frank has summarized the evidence concerning olive
oil as follows: " In the Catonian period oil sold wholesale at about one and a half
sesterces the liter.... In Diocletian's day the price of oil had about doubled in the
East. Ordinary oil was then about eighteen cents the liter, while the best grade sold
at about 30 cents. For Cicero's day it probably would be fair to assume a price of 2-3
sesterces the liter." 3 The prices of oil are given in par. III of the Edict. The figures
for one Italian pint of oil from unripe olives, second quality oil, and common oil are
40, 24, and 12 denarii respectively.
29
De tranquillitate animi, 470 F.
30
Col. VI, 89, 90, 91.
31
1347a, 33.
32
I.G., II2, 1356. For the fixed prices in this and other sacred laws, see below, p. 198, note 170.
33 t Roman Greece," Economic Survey, IV, pp. 388-390.
34 The notorious uncertainty of the olive crop might account for violent fluctuations in price in
antiquity as in modern times when a good harvest may be followed by a complete and utter failure,-
a few days of rainy weather at the critical time of blossom may bring disaster.
35 Insc. De'los, 440, line 22.
36 Economic Survey, I, p. 404. Cf. also pp. 192-193 and 284.