1 Pure gold in bars or in coined pieces, per pound 50,000 denarii
3 Artificers, working in metal, per pound $21.76
4 Gold-beaters, per pound $13.06
Throughout the lists, as one may see, articles are grouped in a systematic
way. First we find grain and vegetables; then wine, oil, vinegar, salt,
honey, meat, fish, cheese, salads, and nuts. After these articles, in
chapter VII, we pass rather unexpectedly to the wages of the field
laborer, the carpenter, the painter, and of other skilled and unskilled
workmen. Then follow leather, shoes, saddles, and other kinds of raw
material and manufactured wares until we reach a total of more than eight
hundred articles. As we have said, the classification is in the main
systematic, but there are some strange deviations from a systematic
arrangement. Eggs, for instance, are in table VI with salads, vegetables,
and fruits. Bücher, who has discussed some phases of this price list, has
acutely surmised that perhaps the tables in whole, or in part, were drawn
up by the directors of imperial factories and magazines. The government
levied tribute "in kind," and it must have provided depots throughout the
provinces for the reception of contributions from its subjects.
Consequently in making out these tables it would very likely call upon the
directors of these magazines for assistance, and each of them in making
his report would naturally follow to some extent the list of articles
which the imperial depot controlled by him, carried in stock. At all
events, we see evidence of an expert hand in the list of linens, which
includes one hundred and thirty-nine articles of different qualities.
As we have noticed in the passage quoted from the introduction, it is
unlawful for a person to charge more for any of his wares than the amount
specified in the law. Consequently, the prices are not normal, but maximum
prices. However, since the imperial lawgivers evidently believed that the
necessities of life were being sold at exorbitant rates, the maximum which
they fixed was very likely no greater than the prevailing market price.
Here and there, as in the nineteenth chapter of the document, the text is
given in tablets from two or more places. In such cases the prices are the
same, so that apparently no allowance was made for the cost of carriage,
although with some articles, like oysters and sea-fish, this item must
have had an appreciable value, and it certainly should have been taken
into account in fixing the prices of "British mantles" or "Gallic
soldiers' cloaks" of chapter XIX. The quantities for which prices are
given are so small--a pint of wine, a pair of fowls, twenty snails, ten
apples, a bunch of asparagus--that evidently Diocletian had the "ultimate
consumer" in mind, and fixed the retail price in his edict. This is
fortunate for us, because it helps us to get at the cost of living in the
early part of the fourth century. There is good reason for believing that
the system of barter prevailed much more generally at that time than it
does to-day. Probably the farmer often exchanged his grain, vegetables,
and eggs for shoes and cloth, without receiving or paying out money, so
that the money prices fixed for his products would not affect him in every
transaction as they would affect the present-day farmer. The unit of money
which is used throughout the edict is the copper denarius, and fortunately
the value of a pound of fine gold is given as 50,000 denarii. This fixes
the value of the denarius as .4352 cent, or approximately four-tenths of a
cent. It is implied in the introduction that the purpose of the law is to
protect the people, and especially the soldiers, from extortion, but
possibly, as Bücher has surmised, the emperor may have wished to maintain
or to raise the value of the denarius, which had been steadily declining
because of the addition of alloy to the coin. If this was the emperor's
object, possibly the value of the denarius is set somewhat too high, but
it probably does not materially exceed its exchange value, and in any
case, the relative values of articles given in the tables are not
affected.
The tables bring out a number of points of passing interest. From chapter
II it seems to follow that Italian wines retained their ancient
pre-eminence, even in the fourth century. They alone are quoted among the
foreign wines. Table VI gives us a picture of the village market. On
market days the farmer brings his artichokes, lettuce, cabbages, turnips,
and other fresh vegetables into the market town and exposes them for sale
in the public square, as the country people in Italy do to-day. The
seventh chapter, in which wages are given, is perhaps of liveliest
interest. In this connection we should bear in mind the fact that slavery
existed in the Roman Empire, that owners of slaves trained them to various
occupations and hired them out by the day or job, and that, consequently
the prices paid for slave labor fixed the scale of wages. However, there
was a steady decline under the Empire in the number of slaves, and
competition with them in the fourth century did not materially affect the
wages of the free laborer. It is interesting, in this chapter, to notice
that the teacher and the advocate (Nos. 66-73) are classed with the
carpenter and tailor. It is a pleasant passing reflection for the teacher
of Greek and Latin to find that his predecessors were near the top of
their profession, if we may draw this inference from their remuneration
when compared with that of other teachers. It is worth observing also that
the close association between the classics and mathematics, and their
acceptance as the corner-stone of the higher training, to which we have
been accustomed for centuries, seems to be recognized (VII, 70) even at
this early date. We expect to find the physician mentioned with the
teacher and advocate, but probably it was too much even for Diocletian's
skill, in reducing things to a system, to estimate the comparative value
of a physician's services in a case of measles and typhoid fever.
The bricklayer, the joiner, and the carpenter (VII, 2-3a), inasmuch as
they work on the premises of their employer, receive their "keep" as well
as a fixed wage, while the knife-grinder and the tailor (VII, 33, 42)
work in their own shops, and naturally have their meals at home. The
silk-weaver (XX, 9) and the linen-weaver (XXI, 5) have their "keep" also,
which seems to indicate that private houses had their own looms, which is
quite in harmony with the practices of our fathers. The carpenter and
joiner are paid by the day, the teacher by the month, the knife-grinder,
the tailor, the barber (VII, 22) by the piece, and the coppersmith (VII,
24a-27) according to the amount of metal which he uses. Whether the
difference between the prices of shoes for the patrician, the senator, and
the knight (IX, 7-9) represents a difference in the cost of making the
three kinds, or is a tax put on the different orders of nobility, cannot
be determined. The high prices set on silk and wool dyed with purple
(XXIV) correspond to the pre-eminent position of that imperial color in
ancient times. The tables which the edict contains call our attention to
certain striking differences between ancient and modern industrial and
economic conditions. Of course the list of wage-earners is incomplete. The
inscriptions which the trades guilds have left us record many occupations
which are not mentioned here, but in them and in these lists we miss any
reference to large groups of men who hold a prominent place in our modern
industrial reports--I mean men working in printing-offices, factories,
foundries, and machine-shops, and employed by transportation companies.
Nothing in the document suggests the application of power to the
manufacture of articles, the assembling of men in a common workshop, or
the use of any other machine than the hand loom and the mill for the
grinding of corn. In the way of articles offered for sale, we miss certain
items which find a place in every price-list of household necessities,
such articles as sugar, molasses, potatoes, cotton cloth, tobacco, coffee,
and tea. The list of stimulants (II) is, in fact, very brief, including as
it does only a few kinds of wine and beer.
At the present moment, when the high cost of living is a subject which
engages the attention of the economist, politician, and householder, as it
did that of Diocletian and his contemporaries, the curious reader will
wish to know how wages and the prices of food in 301 A.D. compare with
those of to-day. In the two tables which follow, such a comparison is
attempted for some of the more important articles and occupations.