Unskilled workman 10.8 cents (k)[92] $1.20-2.24[93]
Bricklayer 21.6 " (k) 4.50-6.50
Carpenter 21.6 " (k) 2.50-4.00
Stone-mason 21.6 " (k) 3.70-4.90
Painter 32.4 " (k) 2.75-4.00
Blacksmith 21.6 " (k) 2.15-3.20
Ship-builder 21-26 " (k) 2.15-3.50
We are not so much concerned in knowing the prices of meat, fish, eggs,
and flour in 301 and 1911 A.D. as we are in finding out whether the Roman
or the American workman could buy more of these commodities with the
returns for his labor. A starting point for such an estimate is furnished
by the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, on the "Cost
of Living and Retail Prices of Food" (1903), and by Bulletin No. 77 of the
Bureau of Labor (1908). In the first of these documents (pp. 582, 583) the
expenditure for rent, fuel, food, and other necessities of life in 11,156
normal American families whose incomes range from $200 to $1,200 per year
is given. In the other report (p. 344 _f._) similar statistics are given
for 1,944 English urban families. In the first case the average amount
spent per year was $617, of which $266, or a little less than a half of
the entire income, was used in the purchase of food. The statistics for
England show a somewhat larger relative amount spent for food. Almost
exactly one-third of this expenditure for the normal American family was
for meat and fish.[94] Now, if we take the wages of the Roman carpenter,
for instance, as 21 cents per day, and add one-fourth or one-third for his
"keep," those of the same American workman as $2.50 to $4.00, it is clear
that the former received only a ninth or a fifteenth as much as the
latter, while the average price of pork, beef, mutton, and ham (7.3 cents)
in 301 A.D. was about a third of the average (19.6 cents) of the same
articles to-day. The relative averages of wheat, rye, and barley make a
still worse showing for ancient times while fresh fish was nearly as high
in Diocletian's time as it is in our own day. The ancient and modern
prices of butter and eggs stand at the ratio of one to three and one to
six respectively. For the urban workman, then, in the fourth century,
conditions of life must have been almost intolerable, and it is hard to
understand how he managed to keep soul and body together, when almost all
the nutritious articles of food were beyond his means. The taste of meat,
fish, butter, and eggs must have been almost unknown to him, and probably
even the coarse bread and vegetables on which he lived were limited in
amount. The peasant proprietor who could raise his own cattle and grain
would not find the burden so hard to bear.
Only one question remains for us to answer. Did Diocletian succeed in his
bold attempt to reduce the cost of living? Fortunately the answer is given
us by Lactantius in the book which he wrote in 313-314 A.D., "On the
Deaths of Those Who Persecuted (the Christians)." The title of
Lactantius's work would not lead us to expect a very sympathetic treatment
of Diocletian, the arch-persecutor, but his account of the actual outcome
of the incident is hardly open to question. In Chapter VII of his
treatise, after setting forth the iniquities of the Emperor in constantly
imposing new burdens on the people, he writes: "And when he had brought on
a state of exceeding high prices by his different acts of injustice, he
tried to fix by law the prices of articles offered for sale. Thereupon,
for the veriest trifles much blood was shed, and out of fear nothing was
offered for sale, and the scarcity grew much worse, until, after the death
of many persons, the law was repealed from mere necessity." Thus came to
an end this early effort to reduce the high cost of living. Sixty years
later the Emperor Julian made a similar attempt on a small scale. He fixed
the price of corn for the people of Antioch by an edict. The holders of
grain hoarded their stock. The Emperor brought supplies of it into the
city from Egypt and elsewhere and sold it at the legal price. It was
bought up by speculators, and in the end Julian, like Diocletian, had to
acknowledge his inability to cope with an economic law.