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

260 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
another sacred calendar, this from the Attic Epakria and dated in the first half of the
fourth century (I.G., IJ2, 1358), the prices for sheep are given as 11, 12, 16 and 17
drachmas.4" Eleven drachmas was the price for the ewe to a female divinity, twelve
drachmas for the ewe to a male divinity and for the ram. Sixteen and seventeen
drachmas were the prices for sheep with young. The price of sacrificial sheep in the
famine year 329/8 B.C. is given as 30 drachmas in an Eleusis inscription.42 Two years
later (327/6 B.C.) in a similar Eleusis inscription, the price of a sacrificial sheep (ois)
is twice given as 12 drachmas; the price of a ram (krios) for Kore as 17 drachmas.43
In a sacrificial list from Delos (ca. 200 B.C.),44 the price of a lamb, specified as white
and uncastrated, is given as 20 drachmas.
In Rome in the fourth and third centuries, sheep were early reckoned at onetenth
the price of oxen, or at six denarii.5 For much later prices in Egypt where the
average was about 18 drachmas for sheep, see A. C. Johnson, Economic Survey, II,
pp. 231-232.46
4. p6o-Xog (VI, 70). Calf. The number of calves belonging to the four cattle-
(Stele VI, line 70) is not known. The line may well be completed with the restoration
FO [rXot
TovToV].
5. oupvoa (VI, 66). Beehives. Solon specified that beehives of one proprietor
must be at least 300 feet away from those of another,47 and we may assume from this
prescription that beekeeping was a widespread industry in Attica at a time when
Mount Hymettos was covered with thyme. According to one estimate there were in
the fifth century twenty thousand stocks of bees in Attica.48
Sir George Wheler (A Journey into Greece, London, 1682, p. 412) in the seventeenth
century described the Athenian beehive as made of wicker, with combs which
were built down from bars placed across the top, and this type was normal in Greece
up to World War II. It may well have resembled the ancient type. Aristotle knew a
beehive of which the interior could be seen, for he watched the ruler, the development
of the brood, and the feeding of the grubs, and it has been noted that the type of
hive described by Wheler would have permitted such observations."'
41 Cf. Segre, op. cit., pp. 168-169.
42I.G., II2, 1672, line 289. See above, p. 258.
431 I.G., 112 1673, line 62.
44
Syll.3, 1024, line 9.
45 Economic Survey, I, pp. 47-48.
46 For prices in Roman Syria, see Heichelheim, Economic Survey, IV, P. 155.
47 Plutarch, Solon, XXIII.
48A. Gmelin, in J. Witzgall's Das Buch von der Biene, Stuttgart, 1898, p. 21. One beehive
would produce one to two and a half choes of honey at one harvesting. For taxes on beehives, see
Andreades, Hist. of Gr. Pub. Finance, I, p. 157; and Rostovtzeff, Soc. and Ec. Hist. of Hell. World,
III, pp. 1386-1387, note 99.
49 See H. M. Fraser, Beekeeping in Antiquity, 2nd edition, London, 1951, p. 17.