INQUIRY INYO THE PURCHASING POWER OP THE DRACHMA IN ANCIENT GREBCi . THE PURPOSE OP DETERMINING, IP POSSIBLE, THE MATERIAL CONDITIONS HCH PREVAILED IN ATHENS DURING HER EXISTENCE AS AN INDEPENDENT STA' ProQuest Number: 13850489 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13850489 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ?RJSFACE» I have derived my information from the following sources: Aeschines - Against Timarchus; Against Ctesiphon. Andocides - Concerning the Mysteries. Pseudo—Andocides - Against Alcihiades. Aristophanes - Acharnians; Knights; Clouds; Wasps; Peace; Birds; Lysistrata; Thesmophoriazusae; Frogs; Ecclesiazusae; P lutus. Aristotle - Constitution of Athens; Rhetoric; Politics. Pseudo-Aristotle - Oeconomica. Athenaeus - The Deipnosophists. ■ Demosthenes - Speeches, XIV;XVIII;XXI;XXII;XXVII;XXVIII;XXIX;XXX;XXXI XXXIV; XXXV; XXXVI; XXXVII; XL; XLI; XLII; XLV; L; LIII; LIX. Diogenes Laertius - Lives of the Philosophers. Harpocration - Lexicon to the Ten Orators. ' Herodas - Mimes. Herodotus - History. Hesychius - Lexicon. Isaeus - Speeches, II;III;IV;V;VI;VII;VI1I;X;XI. Isocrates - Concerning the Team of Horses; Antidosis. Lucian - Dialogues of Courtesans. Lycurgus - Against Leocrates. Lysias - Speeches, III;XIV;XVT;XVII;XIX;XXIV;XXVI;XXXII. Menander - The A rbitration; The Shorn G irl; v . , a lso , Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta. Cornelius Repos - Life of Alcibiades. Plato - Apology; Phaedo; Republic; Epistle XIII. Plutarch - Moralia; Solon; Demetrius; Aristides; Alcibiades; Themis to- Pseudo-Plutarch - Lives of the Ten Orators. Pollux - Onomasticon. ■Suidas - Lexicon. * T e le s in Joh. Stob. Florileg. (as quoted by Bockh) Theophrastus - Characters. Thucydides - History. Xenophon - Memorabilia; Anabasis; Oeconomicus; Revenues. : H is io r ia -C ritica Comicorum Graecorum. Augustus Meineke. 1839. Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta. Theodorus Kock. Teubner 3 vols. 1880-8 Poetae lyrici Graeci. Theodorus Bergk. Inscriptiones Graecae, Editio Minor. Inscriptions Iuridiques Grecques. Dareste, Haussoullier, Reinaeh. Recueil d!Inscriptions Grecques. Michel. Greek Historical Inscriptions, edited by Marcus Tod. Bulletin de Correspondence Hellenique, vol. XIV. Hesperia, vols. Ill, IV, and V. B&ckh, Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener (translated in 185r£from the second German edition,by Anthony Lamb). Gomme, A.W ., The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C. Harvey, Sir Paul, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Michell, H. The Economics of Ancient Greece. Rose, H .J., A Handbook of Greek Literature. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Bncyclop&die. Taylor, A.E., Plato, the Man and his Work; Socrates. Whibley, Leonard, Companion to Greek Studies. (continued overleaf) N INQUIRY INTO THE PURCHASING POWER OF THE DRACHMA IN ANCIENT GREECE, ;|OR THE PURPOSE OF DETERMINING, IF POSSIBLE, THE MATERIAL CONDITIONS -falCH PREVAILED IN ATHENS DURING HER EXISTENCE AS AIT INDEPENDENT STATE. 5 INTRODUCTION. 5 During 1940-41 the deeds of the Greeks proclaimed their deathless Isritage - consciousness of the spiritual values as ultimate, and the Jourage to assert their finality by the loss of life itself. The heroism jf the spectacular winter campaign against the Italians, successfully pmpleted on March 16, 1941, and the proud martyrdom that follow ed the ;erman invasion of Greece on April 6 - an invasion foreseen by the Greek bvernment as the inevitable sequel to their yet unhesitating rejection Y the Italian Minister’s Ultimatum on October 28, 1940 - were alike pcpressions of the belief that the freedom of the spirit to -pursue truth, jajoyjbeauty, and practise goodness is the proper privilege of man. Vrlier in 1940, the conduct of the pilots in the Battle of Britain had iuilar significance. The Implication was, however, more readily ecognized, in the exploits of the Greeks - perhaps because it had, so arly as the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., been made explicit by men f their race. - and (profession of Christianity apart) it is by the claim :o be co-heirs with them in the legacy of ancient Greece that we make our ost conscious acknowledgement of the supremacy of the spirit. That in te r , broadcasts by the B.B.C. of excerpts from the old Greek authors, : nd from those of our own poets who admired and understood the Greek enius, made their appeal to head and heart; the intellect was exercised., die imagination fired, and the will strenghthened for the practice of the oral virtues. Now, towards the end of 1944, in the post-war planning which is the oneern of so many, little account seems to be taken of the belief in the trpremacy of the spiritual values implicit in the action of those who, by noosing"to resist Nazi aggression, made that planning possible. The tnphasis is rather on material comfort, while education - a topic to tnch much lip-service is paid* - is by many regarded solely as a means D the end of wage-earning. That, at any rate, would seen to be the irport of the stress laid on the practical value of siibjects to be ■ aeluded in the curriculum. It is no doubt true that in banishing the ear of want from the minds of its citizens, in caring for the health of aeir bodies, in providing surroundings that delight the eye, a nation ay practise the goodness in which it believes and create the beauty aich It enjoys, but its efforts by way of legislation are necessarily/ In view of the present brevity of the future teacher’s course of study t University and Training College to doubt the sincerity of current potestations of interest in the better schooling of the yomi.g i s not Treasonable... How, one wonders, would the public react to a similarly a rtailed course for ph ysician s and surgeons? The impact of immature ad hastily equipped minds on those of the rising generation is surely as [stressing in its results as the unskilful diagnosis or treatment of aysical disease? Ohio observation was made in 194*4. My work suffered a second unavoidab ±e Interruption in January, 1945.. By that time the preface had been somoleted, hut the committing to paper of the inquiry proper was not )e.oun until June of tnau year. ) NTRODUCTION (contd.). ecessarily abortive so long as its individual members fail to recomaize hose values _ in their own way of life. Material well-being to those"" reoccupied in compassing it may seem to be the prerequisite of such ecognition. But is it? That integrity of spirit is not dependent on 'pdily comfort or ease of mind has surely been demonstrated over and over gain, not only by philosophers, p oets, sa in ts and martyrs whose names pe known to h isto r y , but by the liv e s of countless men and women unknown teve to their ov;n immediate cir\cle. The power to order one’s days so thd pe principles which inform one’s thoughts and actions are love of truth, Aspect for goodness, and joy in beauty comes from within, end is evoked' id fostered by right training.' External circumstances may help or tnder its growth, but cannot give it birth. Nor is it necessarily posperity that helps, adversity that hinders. Yet, as was earlier enlarged, so c ia l reforms seem to be the p ra ctica l outcome of th is msciousncss of values which they do not condition, but which they may ffect by rendering it either keener2 or more dull.3 These are the considerations and reflections that: have" led. me to isume an inquiry, interrupted at the outbreak of war, into the irehasing power of the drachma in ancient Greece. It is knowledge of the »achraa* s purchasing power in ancient Greece that provides the clue to iterial conditions in Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., and tat these were it would be particularly interesting to know, since yere, as perhaps nowhere else, the spiritual values were recognized, and hind expression in the work of dramatists, architects, sculptors and linkers unsurpassed, and seldom matched, in later ages. : It is, of course, impossible to make a categorical statement about the tpression they found in the life of the man in the street, but that he is not unresponsive to the leading of his gifted contemporaries - so ny, in so short a tine, in so small a cmty - may readily be argued. 4 was the man in the street who judged the plays of Aeschylus - JscJiylus who so grandly contrasts the transience of earthly greatness ;th the triumphant resurgence of man’s spirit* - of Sophocles, conscious ' the divine power in man,5" of Eurixoides - the rationalist whose peal is never to the intellect alone; to illustrate Euripides would Ty the -painter’s sk ill.6 It was the man in the street to whom Pericles/ Educational reform should begin with the teachers, not with the taught, re again, though higher salaries would reflect a juster estimate of the acher* s importance to the community, it is the teacher’s own preciation of the worth of his calling (with the consequent desire to uip himself for it as well as possible and the spurning of a hastily quired paper qualification secured by means of easy options) that is quired. Free education, for example, affords to all the opportunity of creasing their understanding, 3 lout may lead to less eager use of the portunity provided,in so far as instruction once prized as a privilege ,heB, as a rftght, to be lightly regarded.