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

274 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
obligations for which values of real property are given on horoi, we have one example
from the year 367/6 B.C. where a house, ultimately sold for 575 drachmas, had one
hypotheke for only 150 drachmas and two praseis epi lysei for 100 and 24 drachmas,
respectively.89 In a speech prepared by Demosthenes for Nikoboulos, defendant in a
suit against Pantainetos, the speaker says, addressing his accuser directly, " And upon
a property on which you have never been able to borrow more than 10,000 drachmas
and which you have sold out and out for 20,000 drachmas - - 90 John Day has
concluded that in the case of loans very substantial security would be required and
that the true value of mortgaged properties may be approximated by multiplying all
sums on the mortgage-horoi by two.9' In the figures presented in Finley's tables, the
median of the sums preserved in dotal obligations averages fairly consistently 50 per
cent higher than the median figures in the hypotheke and prasis epi lysei groups.
Prices of so-called undivided land properties as reported in the Attic orators are
collected by P. Guiraud 92 and Day.93 Unfortunately their presentations make no distinction
between the various types of land.
For prices of real estate outside of Attica " some figures have been collected for
Halikarnassos and Iasos by G. Glotz, Le travail dans Ic Grece ancienHe, Paris, 1920,
pp. 297-298.95 For an estimate of the value of houses at Delos during the period of
independence, reference may be made to the special study by Molinier, Les " Maisons
sacrees" de De'los, au temps de l'ind6pendence de l'ile (315-166/5 av. J. C.), Paris,
1914, pp. 86 ff.96 Finally, D. M. Robinson has published Olynthian inscriptions which
record deeds of sale.97 One of these is for the sale of a house for an amount which is
interpreted as 2000 drachmas. Robinson and Graham have identified this particular
house in their report of the excavations.98 The date of the inscription is the first half
of the fourth century B.C. The price of 2000 drachmas is the same as the median
price of houses in our Table C. The house was unpretentious, lacking plastered walls,
89 Hesperia, X, 1941, pp. 14-16, lines 1-39. For the interpretation of this text, see Finley in
Studi in onore di Vincenzio Aragio-Ruiz, III, Naples, 1952, pp. 473-491.
90 Demosthenes, XXXVII, Against Pantainetos, 50. Demosthenes' figures have been corrected
into drachmas. The actual sale price was 20,600 drachmas; see paragraph 31.
91 Ec. Hist. of Athens, pp. 226-227.
92 Op. cit., pp. 392-393.
O3 Op. cit., p. 227.
94For prices outside of the Greek area, see the tables in F. Heichelheim, Wirtschaftliche
Schwankungen der Zeit von Alexander bis Augustus, pp. 113 ff.
9No complete documentation of the evidence concerning values of real estate throughout
Greece is here intended; for such evidence is extensive. See, for example, the great catalogue of
the sales of real property at Tenos, I.G., XII, 5, 872.
96 On land values at Delos, see J. A. 0. Larsen, " Roman Greece," Economic Survey, IV, pp.
402-407.
97 T.A.P.A., LXII, 1931, pp. 42 ff.
98 Olynthus, VIII, p. 83 and plates 21, 91. Cf. also p. 97.