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

186 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
For a general discussion of krithe, see Orth, R.E., s.v. Gerste.48 Athenaeus
devotes a lengthy section in Book III (109 b ff.) of the Deipnosophistai to a description
of many kinds of bread, including that made with barley. Lesbian barley was the
best for this purpose (112 a), but Athenian bread was varied and choice (112 c).
Barley bread or cake was called maza, and alphita usually denoted barley groats.49
Evidence for the prices of barley is collected by Jarde, Ceredales, pp. 180-183;
Heichelheim, Wirtschaftliche Schwankungen, Jena, 1930, pp. 51-52; Spaventa de
Novellis, I prezzi in Grecia e a Roma nell' antichita, p. 50; and Larsen, Economic
Survey, IV, pp. 384-385.5? Barley frequently sold for half the price of wheat,
although Larsen has warned that this observation must not be made into a hard and
fast rule.5" Ca. 330 B.C. the price of barley was five drachmas a medimnos.52 According
to the [Demosthenes] speech Against Phainippos of the same period, the price of
barley must have been six drachmas, for eighteen drachmas are said to have been
three times the former price; b3 but in 329/28 B.C., in the accounts of the epistatai of
Eleusis, barley is priced at three drachmas a medimnos.54 For Delos, the statistics are
presented by Heichelheim 5 and by Larsen.56 The lowest price known was two
drachmas; the most common price was four. In the Edict of Diocletian, the price for
the sale of barley which no one mnight exceed was 60 denarii for one castrensis
modius,57 which was at the rate of 180 denarii a medimnos. For prices at Rome, see
Frank, Ecolnomic Survey, I, pp. 48-49, 98, 192.
8. uEXtEMV (II, 139). Italian millet, Setaria italica. We know from Demosthenes
that Italian millet was one of the principal crops of Thrace,58 and from Xenophon
that it was grown in Cilicia 5 and in that part of the Black Sea which is termed
'Thrace-in-Asia' (Bithynia)."6 Generally yielding only a small return, millet could
1945, p. 516. The relative positions of the two grains is perhaps most succinctly illustrated by the
practice in the Prytaneion: barley loaf on normal days supplemented by a wheaten loaf on festivals;
see Solon's ordinance quoted by Athenaeus (IV, 137 e).
48 For a classification of krithe as husked and naked grain, see Moritz, Class. Quar., XLIX,
1955, pp. 130-134.
49 See Orth, R.E., s.v. Gerste, 1281.
50 See also below, p. 199.
51 Op. cit., p. 385. In the time of Cicero (Verr., III, 188), barley was reckoned at one-half the
price of wheat.
52 I.G., II2, 408, lines 13-14. xptOat is a restoration, but it appears certain.
53 XLII, 20 and 31.
54 I.G., II2, 1672, line 283.
5 Wirtschaftliche Schwankungen, Table XIV, pp. 128 ff.
56
Op. cit., pp. 384-386.
57 Col. I, 2.
58 VIII, On the Chersonesos, 45; and X, Against Philip, IV, 16. Xenophon (Anab., VI, 5, 12)
refers to a tribe in Thrace as the ' Millet-eaters.'
59 Anab., I, 2, 22.
60
Anab., VI, 4, 6.