DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF THE ROMANS IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.
A recent discovery has added to our information the most extensive series of statistical data, which make known from an official act, and by numerical figures, the state of the Roman empire 1500 years ago; the price of agricultural and ordinary labour; the relative value of money; the abundance or scarcity of certain natural productions; the use, more or less common, of particular sorts of food; the multiplication of cattle and of flocks; the progress of horticulture; the abundance of vineyards of various qualities; the common use of singular meats, and dishes, which we think betrays a corruption of taste; in short the relation of the value existing between the productions of agriculture and those of industry, from whence we obtain a proof of the degree of prosperity which both had reached at this remote period.
This precious archaeological monument is an edict of Diocletian, published in the year 303 of our era, and fixing the price of labour and of food in the Roman empire. The first part of this edict was found by Mr. William Hanks, written upon a table of stone, which he discovered at Stratonice, now called Eskihissar in Asia Minor. The second part, which was in the possession of a traveller lately returned from the Levant, has been, brought from Rome to London by M. de Vescovali, and Colonel Leake intends to publish a literal translation of it. This agreement of so many persons of respectable character, and known talents, excludes all doubts respecting the authenticity of the monument.
The imperial edict of Diocletian is composed of more than twenty-four articles. It is quite distinct from that delivered the preceding year for taxing the price of corn in the eastern provinces, and it contained no law upon the value of corn. It fixed for all the articles which it enumerated a maximum, which was the price in times of scarcity. For all the established prices it makes use of the Roman Denarii; and it applies them to the sextarius for liquids, and to the Roman pound for the things sold by weight.
Before the Augustan age, the denarius was equal to eighteen sous of our money; but it diminished gradually in value, and under Diocletian its value was not above nine sous of French money, and 45 centimes. The Roman pound was equivalent to 12 ounces, and the sextarius which was the sixth part of a conge, came near to the old Paris chopin, or half a litre.
Proceeding on these data, M. Moreau de Jonnes has formed a table, showing, 1. the maximum in Roman measures, the same as the established imperial edict; and 2. the mean price of objects formed from half the maximum, and reduced into French measures.
The following is the table drawn up by M. Moreau de Jonnes. The slightest inspection of it will enable us to appreciate the importance of this archaeological discovery, for no monument of antiquity has furnished so long a series of numerical terms, of statistical data, and positive testimony of the civil life and domestic economy of the Greeks and Romans:—
We are much surprised at the very high prices in this table. Labour and provisions cost ten and twenty times as much as with us. But when we come to compare the price of provisions with the price of labour the dearness of all the necessaries of life appears still more excessive. M. Moreau de Jonnes makes this comparison. He brings together from the edicts of Diocletian a great many facts given by historians, and he shows, that, if the abundance of the precious metals has any influence on raising the prices, the want of labour, industry, and of produce, must cause it also.
These considerations point out in the strongest manner the poverty of this royal people, of whom two-thirds, if not three-fourths, were reduced to live on fish and cheese, and drink piquette, when the expense of the table of Vitellius amounted, in a single year, to 175 millions of Francs.—Brewster's Journal of Science.