158 PRICES IN GREECE. CHAP. vi. 



another there has been a great difference in 

 different times and kingdoms. At one period 

 wheat, at another barley, and at another oats 

 have been the chief food ; and in the early ages, 

 in thinly peopled countries, the spontaneous 

 fruits, such as chestnuts and acorns, must have 

 formed a portion of the food. 



These considerations are not of sufficient force 

 to prevent an examination of the increase of the 

 price of corn in Greece simultaneously with the 

 increase in quantity of the precious metals. All 

 that can be extracted from ancient authors is 

 utterly incompetent to inspire confidence in 

 the precision or accuracy of the comparison. It 

 would be folly to pretend to exactness in a case 

 which will merely admit of an approximation 

 to it. 



The historians of Greece were too much oc- 

 cupied with the great events of war, or with, 

 to them, their more interesting political dis- 

 cussions and intrigues, to take much notice of 

 the prices of the commodities. 



" In the time of Solon (550 years before 

 Christ) an ox in Athens cost five drachmas, or 

 nearly three shillings ; a sheep, one drachma, or 

 seven-pence three farthings; and a medimnus of 

 corn, or one bushel and three gallons, the same 

 as a sheep: but prices rose gradually to five 

 times, in many cases to ten or twenty times, 

 their former amount, which after the example 



