DEPRECIATION OF MONEY 337 
the big markets, averages (I am informed) } lb., the con- 
clusion of the whole matter is that in the era mentioned 
1 Ib., or two fish, cost =9,, or ‘45 of a penny. In pre-war days the 
average marketable price worked out at 2°954 pence per lb., 
so the Egyptian Mugil in 1913 cost about 6} times more than 
c. 1200 B.C., while the English Mugil in 1913, which (according 
to figures kindly furnished me by the Fishmongers Company) 
averaged Io to 12 pence per lb., cost about 24 times more. 
The Egyptian correlation of 64 to 1 cannot, it is true, 
be definitely established until we have data proving that the 
kite was exactly 9° grammes, nor can it be accurately applied 
to other commodities, but it may help us to a rough approxima- 
tion of what some of their prices were in the XXth Dynasty.! 
The depreciation of money between the XVIIIth and XXth 
Dynasties, heavy as it seems, was as nothing to that which ensued 
in subsequent centuries. Examples of this can be observed 
in the fall of the Gallienus ¢etradvachm from about half a crown 
to one halfpenny in less thana century. Again under Macrianus 
(260 A.D.) the coinage was so bad and so worthless that the 
banks closed their doors, but were compelled by the king to 
open and continue “his divine coinage.” At the time of 
Diocletian’s Edict on maximum prices (30I A.D.) a denarius 
(4 drachma) was reckoned at soho of a litva of gold, but in 
Egypt after Constantine’s reign it fell much lower, e.g. 432,000 
denarit equalled x pound. 
From the Papyrus Oxyrh. 1223 we find the solzdus computed 
at 2,020 X10,000=20,200,000, (!) denavit at the end of the 
fourth century.? 
Billon Denarit, 1.e. made out of copper and very little 
silver, ceased to be coined at Alexandria after a.D. 297, and got 
utterly depreciated. 
We get little farther in our quest of correlation of prices 
1 The information as to the average prices and weights of the Mugil capito, 
on which the above calculations were grounded, was obtained from the Depart- 
ment of Supplies in Egypt. ‘‘ In the markets of Alexandria the weight of the 
grey mullet varies from 8 to 3 to the oke (2°75 lbs.), say 54 to 14} oz. each. 
The pre-war retail price was for large fish, 3 or 4 to the oke, 8 Piastres; for small, 
8 to the oke, 5 Piastres.’”” The prices in August, 1920, had increased to 20 and 
16 Piastres respectively, or nearly two-thirds more. 
2 Cf. Pap. Oxyrh. 1430, Introd. 
