The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]

Dress of a Greek Labourer

(After Hope)

Nevertheless, we do not find that daily wages were excessively low. Lucian represents the daily wages of an agricultural labourer or gardener, on a remote estate lying near the frontiers of Attica, to have been, in the time of Timon, four oboli (5¾d. or 11.4 cents). The wages of a porter are the same in Aristophanes, and of a common labourer, who carried dirt, they were three oboli. When Ptolemy sent to the Rhodians one hundred house builders, together with 350 labourers, in order to restore the buildings destroyed by an earthquake, he gave them fourteen talents annually for their food, three oboli a day for each man. We know not, however, by what standard the money was estimated. This was, if they were slaves, for other aliment beside grain; if they were free men, it was only a part of their wages, since a man needs something else besides his food. In 408 B.C., a sawyer (πρίστης) who sawed for a public building, received a drachma a day. A carpenter, who worked on the same building, received five oboli a day. We find that in the time of Pericles, as it seems, a drachma, as daily wages, was given to each of a number of persons working by the day. It is not at all probable that they were artisans, but only common labourers.

Persons in higher stations, or those who laboured with the pen, were, according to genuine democratic principles, not better paid. The architect of the temple of Minerva Polias received no more than a stone sawyer, or common labourer engaged upon the building, namely, a drachma (8½d. or 17 cents) daily. The undersecretary (ὑπογραμματεὺς) of the superintendents of the public buildings received daily five oboli (7¼d. or 14.25 cents). For particular services, in which a certain deference is manifested by the labourer to the person served, a high price was paid in Athens, as is the case in all large cities. When Bacchus in the Frogs of Aristophanes wishes to have his bundle carried by a porter, the latter demands two drachmæ. When the god offers the ghost nine oboli, he replies that before he will do so, he must become alive again. If this conversation in the realm of departed spirits is not a scene from real life, it has no point. A living porter at Athens was probably just as shameless in his demands, and if less were offered, he might have said: “I must die before I do it.”

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.