The fare for a voyage by sea, particularly for long voyages, was extraordinarily low. For sailing from Ægina to the Piræus, more than sixteen miles, two oboli (3d. or 6 cents) were paid in the time of Plato. For sailing from Egypt, or Pontus, to the Piræus, a man, with his family and baggage, paid in the same period at the most two drachmæ (1s. 5d. or 35 cents). This is a proof that commerce was very lucrative, so that it was not found necessary to take a high fare from passengers. In the time of Lucian four oboli were given for being conveyed from Athens to Ægina. The freight of timber seems to have been higher, according to Demosthenes, who mentions that for transporting a ship-load from Macedonia to Athens, 1,750 drachmæ were paid. The enormous vessel for conveying grain named Isis, which in the time of the emperors brought so much grain from Egypt to Italy, that, according to report, the cargo was sufficient to last the whole of Attica a year, earned in freight at least twelve talents annually. The freight of a talent in weight from Ceos, which lay directly opposite Sunium, to Athens, was an obolus.
The price of a bath, although it is not barely a compensation for labour was two oboli. A delicate little gentleman is represented by Philemon to have paid four persons each six chalci, as appears from a passage of Pollux, for plucking out the hair of his body with pitch, that he might have a feminine skin. Moreover, the rich had their own, and the Athenian people public baths.
The pay of the soldiers was different in different periods, and according to circumstances. It fluctuated between two oboli, and, including the money given for subsistence, two drachmæ for a hoplite and his servant. The cavalry received from twice to fourfold the pay of the infantry; officers, commonly twice, generals four fold the same. For, as in respect to labour performed for daily wages, the higher station had not a relatively higher estimation in the same degree, as at the present day. The money given for subsistence was commonly equal in amount to the pay. For from two to three oboli a day the soldier could maintain himself quite well, especially since in many places living was much cheaper than in Athens. His pay was partly as surplus, partly for clothes and weapons, and if booty were added, he might become rich. This explains the saying of the comedian Theopompus, that a man could support a wife on two oboli of pay daily; with four oboli a day his fortune was made. The pay alone of the soldier is here meant, without the money given him for subsistence.
The pay of the judges, and of those who attended the assemblies of the people (ἐκκλησιασταί) amounted at least to three oboli a day, and like the theoricon served only as an additional supply for the subsistence of the citizens. The heliast in Aristophanes shows clearly how difficult it was, with that sum, to procure bread, food, and wood for three persons. He does not include clothing and habitation, because he sustained the expenses for them out of his own property. The pay of senators and of ambassadors was higher. Persons engaged in the liberal arts and sciences, and prostitutes, were paid the highest prices.
The ancient states maintained public, salaried physicians; for example, Hippocrates is said to have been public physician at Athens. These, again, had servants, particularly slaves, who attended to their masters’ business among the poorer class, and among the slaves. The celebrated physician Democedes, of Croton, received, about 540 B.C. notwithstanding there was little money in circulation at that time, the high salary of a talent of silver (£211:10 or $1026, since Attic money seems to be meant). When called to Athens he received one hundred minæ (£350 or $1750), until Polycrates of Samos gave him two talents. In like manner, no doubt, practitioners in many other arts were paid by the state; as, for example, architects at Rhodes and Cyzicus, and certainly in every place of importance. For it cannot be supposed that all architects, particularly those invited from foreign countries, would have exercised their art, as several did at Athens, for daily wages.
The compensation of musicians, and of theatrical performers, was very high. Amœbeus, a singer of ancient Athens, received every time he sang in public, an Attic talent. That the players on the flute demanded a high price for their services, is well known. In a Corcyræan inscription, a late one indeed, but executed before the dominion of the Romans was established in that island, fifty Corinthian minæ were designated as the compensation, beside their expensive maintenance, for the services of three players on the flute, three tragedians, and three comedians at the celebration of a festival. The compensation of distinguished theatrical performers was not less, although, beside the period of their engagement at Athens, they earned large sums in travelling, and performing at the various cities and places on their route. For example, Polus or Aristodemus is said to have earned a talent in two days, or even in one day, or for performing in a single drama. All these artists received, in addition, prizes of victory. Also common itinerant theatrical performers, jugglers, conjurers, fortune-tellers, enjoyed a competency; although the sum paid by the individual spectator was small, a few chalci, or oboli, but sometimes even a drachma. The custom of paying fees for apprenticeship to the trades and arts, and also to the medical profession, was established even in the time of Socrates. For a part of the instruction in music, and for athletic exercises, it was the duty of the tribes in Athens to provide. Each tribe had its own teachers, whose lessons the youth of the whole tribe attended. In the other schools each individual paid for his instruction; we know not how much. The legislation of Charondas, in which the salaries of the teachers are said to have been permanently established, would have made an exception, if the laws from which Diodorus derived his information, had not been fictitious.
The teachers of wisdom and eloquence, or sophists, were not paid by the state until later times. But in earlier periods, they required large sums from their scholars. In this they imitated the mercenary lyric poets, whose inspiration frequently slumbered until incited by gold. Protagoras of Abdera is said to have been the first who taught for money. He required from each scholar, for a complete course of instruction, an hundred minæ (£350 or $1750). Gorgias asked the same price, and yet his property at his death amounted to only one thousand staters. Zeno of Elea, in other respects unlike the sophists, required the same amount. Since the price for teaching wisdom was so high, it was natural that there should be chaffering about it, and that an agreement upon reasonable terms should be sought. Hippias earned, while yet a young man, in connection with Protagoras, in a short time, 150 minæ. Even from a small city he earned more than twenty minæ, not by long courses of lessons, as it seems, but by a shorter method of proceeding. But gradually the increased number of teachers reduced the price. Evenus of Paros, as early as the time of Socrates, required, to the general derision, only ten minæ (£35 or $175); while for the same sum Isocrates taught the whole art of oratory. And this appears to have been in the age of Lycurgus, the usual honorary of a teacher of eloquence. At length the Socratic philosophers found it convenient to teach for a compensation. Aristippus was the first who did so. Moreover, payment was also sometimes required from each auditor for single discourses, as, for example, by Prodicus, one, two, four, to fifty drachmæ. Antiphon was the first who wrote speeches and orations for money. He required high prices for them.[b]
SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, AND BOOKS
It is remarkable that the frequent notices which occur of schoolmasters and their schools, supply so little clear information as to the habits or social position of this important part of the community; nor does it appear whether they were a distinct class, or merely a lower grade of sophists or rhetors. They seem, however, to have belonged to the upper rank of citizens in some states, and to have been received in the best circles. Such as they were, the lessons they taught were limited to the Greek tongue. Instruction in foreign languages was never esteemed in Greece either a necessary or an important branch of general education. This is a peculiarity which forms also a signal defect of Greek culture as compared with that of modern times.
In Athens, and probably in other Greek republics, every citizen was under at least a moral obligation to provide his sons with a competent knowledge of letters. The discipline of the schools was also under state control. Yet the government nowhere seems to have provided or maintained them, or to have appointed or paid the schoolmasters, whose livelihood depended on the fees of their pupils. The amount of those fees has not been recorded. But more distinct notices have been transmitted of the charges made by literary professors of the higher class. The fees said to have been paid for a course of instruction to some of the earlier and more distinguished sophists and philosophers are so extravagant as to be scarcely credible, even when attested, as they are in some instances, by the best contemporaneous authority. Protagoras is taunted by Plato as the first professor of the higher branches of learning who taught for hire. If this imputation be well founded, his older contemporaries, Zeno and Gorgias, must have been speedily led to follow his example: for Zeno is said by Plato himself to have been paid 100 minæ, or upwards of £400 [$2000], by each disciple, for a course of lectures; and Gorgias also to have been richly remunerated by his pupils. The fees of both Protagoras and Gorgias are rated by other authorities at the same amount as those of Zeno. This sum, taking into account the high value of the precious metals in ancient times, would be equal to about £2000, or $10,000. But prices were afterwards greatly reduced, as the number of professors increased, and the former blind veneration for their magic powers of communicating knowledge, or for the value of the knowledge communicated, declined. Isocrates, the younger contemporary of Protagoras, and probably the better master of the two, was satisfied with ten minæ [£40 or $200] for the course; which sum seems afterwards to have remained the ordinary rate of payment.