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Finances, figures and fiction1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Walter Scheidel
Walter Scheidel
Affiliation:
University of Michigan/Darwin College, Cambridge
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Extract

Whether out of an understandable reluctance to neglect any of the scarce available sources or simply for want of more trustworthy evidence, classical scholars nolentes volentes tend to rely to a large extent on references to amounts of money in the ancient literary sources whenever they aim at quantifying, however roughly and shielded by appropriate disclaimers, some fundamental features of Roman economy and society. In view of this, the almost complete lack of systematic enquiries into the very nature of these particular data is almost as inexplicable as it seems inexcusable. While several studies have been devoted to the use of rounded numbers in Greek and Roman literature in general, none of these has specifically addressed the stylization of monetary valuations. The only notable exception is provided by the work of Richard Duncan-Jones who in a pioneering survey of prices in the Latin novel above all showed beyond reasonable doubt that in this genre, prices expressed in multiples of thirty (up to thirty million) should best be understood as purely conventional valuations. In his latest book, he has subjected the ancient numerical evidence for two areas of major concern—the public treasury and state expenditure during the Principate—to an analogous examination that has highlighted the stylized character of many relevant references and has thus largely confirmed his previous findings. Even so, owing to the limitation of these studies to a small number of authors and subject matters, a vast pool of similar data from ancient literature has hitherto been left virtually untapped. What is more, Duncan-Jones did not attempt to complement his re-evaluation of multiples of thirty with a systematic exposition of complementary patterns of stylization. In this paper, I hope to demonstrate the need for a more extensive and much more radical reassessment of much of the available evidence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , May 1996 , pp. 222 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

2 See most notably T., Frank (ed.), An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, I-V (Baltimore, MD 1933–40);Google ScholarShatzman, I., Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics (Bruxelles, 1975);Google Scholarvon Freyberg, H.-U., Kapitalverkehr und Handel im römischen Kaiserreich (27 v. Chr.–235 n. Chr.) (Freiburg i. Br., 1989);Google ScholarMratschek-Halfmann, S., Divites et praepotentes. Reichtum und soziale Stellung in der Literatur der Prinzipatszeit (Stuttgart, 1993).Google Scholar

3 The most comprehensive surveys are provided by Wolfflin, E., ‘Sescenti, mille, centum, trecenti als unbestimmte und runde Zahlen’, Archiv für Lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik 9 (1896), 177–192; idem, ‘Zur Zahlensymbolik’, loc. cit., 333–51; idem, ‘Das Duodecimalsystem’, loc. cit., 527–44. See also E. B. Lease, ‘The Number Three, Mysterious, Mystic, Magic’, CPh 14 (1919), 56–73;Google ScholarDreizehnter, A., Die rhetohsche Zahl. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen anhand der Zahlen 70 und 700 (Munich, 1978).Google Scholar

4 Duncan-Jones, R., The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 238–56.Google Scholar

5 Duncan-Jones, R., Money and Government in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 16–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The following exposition is based on my own perusal of the standard editions and translations of ancient literary texts. For a full collection of all relevant data from the literary sources, readers are referred to a research project funded by the ‘Österreichische Nationalbank’, directed by W. Szaivert and carried out by R. Wolters and the present author that should be presented in print within the next few years.

7 Menninger, K., Number Words and Number Symbols. A Cultural History of Numbers (Cambridge, MA & London, 1969), p. 153, defines ‘round numbers’ as ‘numbers whose specific meanings are inflated into the indefinite “many”’. Wouml;lffiin, ‘Sescenti’, 177, differentiates between ‘indefinite’ numbers (as in ‘I have told you a hundred times’—which might stand for 7 or 8 times), and ‘round’ numbers (as in ‘he makes 100 verses an hour’—instead of 70 or 80). For the present purposes, I would define numbers belonging to this last category as ‘rounded’. As this paper is not concerned with the interpretation of particular figures, I will however give preference to the more general expression ‘conventional numbers’ that encompasses all the categories referred to above.Google Scholar

8 Almost needless to say, the existence of two or more conflicting monetary data for a particular matter does not ipso facto enable us to determine the correct variant (even if any of the variants is correct at all).

9 This problem holds in particular for values in the bracket of between one hundred and nine hundred million.

10 See below, in the penultimate paragraph of the main paper.

11 The progression from 10 to 100 to 1,000, etc. follows a ‘cyclical pattern’, which consists of the successive powers of an established numerical base as can be expressed in words: Crump, T., The Anthropology of Numbers (Cambridge, 1990), p. 35. ‘Ten’ is the most common base but is by no means universal: op. cit., 36, andCrossRefGoogle ScholarFlegg, G., Numbers. Their History and Meaning (London, 1983), p. 36 (on powers often in the Indo-European languages).Google Scholar

12 For references from the Roman sources, see Wölfflin,‘Sescenti’, 180–84 (on mille), 185–88 (on centum). For a similar usage in past literature, cf., e.g. Candler, H., ‘On the Symbolic Use of Number in the “Divina Commedia” and Elsewhere’,Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature 30 (1895), 1–29, at 6–11Google Scholar

13 On the creation of new numbers by repeated multiplication, see in general Crump, op. cit. (n. 11), p. 37.

14 On 300, see Wölfflin, ’Sescenti‘, 188–90. For the use of three times three in the Roman sources, see idem, ‘Zahlensymbolik’, 334–7; Lease, op. cit., 61f. (i.a., Plaut. Pseud. 704; Hor. Carm. 3.19.11 and 14). Macrob. Somn. Scip. 2.2.12: ‘ternarius numerus triplicates novenarium numerum facit’. On three times nine, see Wölfflin, op. cit., 337f. (Varr. R.R. 1.2.27; Ov. Met. 14.58; Liv. 27.37.2 and 12; 31.12.9; Colum. R.R. 8.5.10; Plin. N.H. 11.73). I do not think that the use of decupled multiples of 3 is an exclusively Latin habit: Epictetus’ stick sold for 3,000 drachmae in Lucian. Adv. Indoct. 13; the starting price of the donkey is 30 drachmae in [Lucian.] Asin. 35; a purse contains 3,000 drachmae in Longus 3.27.4.

15 Meditat. 2.14 and 6.49, noted by Duncan-Jones, Money and Government, p. 17. This finding receives support from the annalistic habit of putting manpower losses of hostile armies or populations at 30,000: see Dreizehnter, op. cit., p. 6.

16 Plin. N.H. 33.32; Plin. Epist. 1.19.2; Mart. 4.67.1–4; 5.23.7f; 5.38.1–3; Juv. 5.132 (?); 14.326; Suet. Caes. 33; Tib. 59.1. Cf. also Dreizehnter, op. cit., pp. 6 and 11, on the conventional use of 40,000 by Valerius Antias.

17 See Wölfflin, ‘Sescenti’, 188: ‘Wie man die unbestimmte Zahl 1000, wo sie zu hoch gegriffen erscheint, halbieren kann, so läβst sich auch centum, wo es nicht ausreicht, verdoppeln.’ See op. cit., 188, on 200, and 178–80 on 600. Cf. also idem, ‘Duodecimalsystem’, 537–44, on 60 (with particularly rich references). On 60 and 300, see also Menninger, op. cit. (n.7), pp. 153f. Both doubling and quadrupling have a firm grounding in Roman law as fines set in relation to damage.

18 At the same time, a jar of smoked Pontic fish is said to have cost exactly three or four times as much (Pol. 31.25; Diod. 31.24.1; Athen. 6.275a; Diod. 37.3.5).

19 But cf. below, note 29.

20 Since in this case we need not assume a Latin source, this figure was also originally intended; cf. n. 14.

21 Duncan-Jones, Economy, p. 238

22 Scipio Africanus was accused of embezzling HS 4,000,000 (Liv. 38.55.12; Val. Max. 3.7.1); in the late second century B.C., a governor enriched himself by a mere HS 4,000 (Veil. 2.8.1).

23 Duncan-Jones, Money and Government, pp. 53, 25.

24 In the first column of the following tables, 1 refers to powers often (1 to doubled powers often), 3 to decupled multiples of three (3 to doubled decupled multiples of three), and 4 to decupled multiples of four (4 to doubled decupled multiples of four). ‘O’ denotes all other figures.

25 Two exceptions are provided by Pliny the Younger who reports on anticipated fortunes; these references have been included because they are similar to those presented by the satirists.

26 The size of the previous total fortune of Apicius can be inferred to be HS 110,000,000 from Seneca, i.e. 10 × 10+10 million.

27 Both this and the next reference pertain to anticipated fortunes.

28 Sceptics should note that since in the sample of private fortunes, there are only two nonconventional figures, one of which comes from an historian and one from a poet, the exclusion of fictitious values from this graph would not in any way have changed the distribution.

29 In general, apart from some references to prices of H S 100,000 in Martial and the Historia Augusta, prices for slaves are surprisingly ‘precise’, a fact already established for Petronius by Duncan-Jones, Economy, 247. Other subjects that prompted greater precision include landed properties as referred to by Cicero and Pliny the Younger, and even the price of mullets (but cf. above). This will be brought out at length in the survey referred to above, n. 6.

30 Thus, instances where seemingly conventional figures have to be regarded as trustworthy cannot be seen as invalidating my sceptical stance since they might on the contrary testify to or even endorse the widespread popularity of stylization: if the amount of money spent was of little concern, Romans may well have adjusted the volume of largesse to match popular conventional figures, as it seems to have been the case with Caesar's legacy to the Roman people of HS 300 per head (R.G. 15; Nicol. Dam. 48; Suet. Caes. 83.2; Plut. Brut. 20.2, Ant. 16.1, Mor. 206F; App. B.C. 2.143), or with Augustus’ legacy of HS 40,000,000 to thepopulus (Suet. Aug. 101.2; Dio 56.32.3). The same might hold true for individual gifts and rewards by the emperors to single persons: e.g. Dio 56.46.2; Tac. Ann. 1.75.3; 2.86.2; 4.16.4; Plut. Galba 28; and cf. the legacy of HS 1,000,000 per capita in Fronto, Antic. 1.14. Cf. also the data for summae honoriae in Roman North Africa listed in Duncan-Jones, Economy, pp. 108–10, which betray an obvious preference for certain round figures such as 2,000, 6,000, 10,000 or 12,000 sesterces.

31 Cf.Duncan-Jones, R., Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy (Cambridge, 1990), p. 81, and above, n. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Thus ibid. 83–5, 91f.; but cf. W. Scheidel, ‘Zur Angabe des Lebensalters in den romischen Grabinschriften Österreichs’, RO 19/20 (1991/92), 151–3.

33 Duncan-Jones, Economy, p. 238.

34 As a pointer to future research, I may add that once the preoccupation of the Romans with we clearly defined conventional figures has firmly been established, the ‘numbers game’ need not remain confined to monetary valuations alone. Note, for instance, that the comparison by Duncan-Jones, op. cit., p. 240, of Petronius’ mentioning of a fortieth decuria of slaves in by Trimalchio's household (47.12) with the case of the 400 slaves executed following the murder of Jed Pedanius Secundus (Tac.Ann. 14.42–5) could now also be seen in a different light: if 400 was a familiar symbol, both references could, independently of each other, be understood as possibly exceedingly rough approximations. This might also help to solve the vexed question of whether 400 slaves could actually have dwelt under the same roof, as required by the SC Silanianum. In actual fact, Tacitus does not explicitly state that 400 slaves were executed (as implied by all modern accounts that I know of)—he vaguely refers to ‘tot innoxii’—, but merely has the senator C. Cassius casually bring up this number in a highly rhetorical exclamation: ‘By all means whom shall his rank defend, when rank has not availed the prefect of Rome? Whom shall the number of his slaves protect, when four hundred could not shield Pedanius Secundus?’ (14.43, Loeb transl. by J. Jackson). That this could be a mere indication that a ‘large agle number’ of slaves were compromised is corroborated by Apuleius, Apol. 93, according to whom y o f his wife Pudentilla gave 400 slaves to her sons of her first marriage. The Latin Vita of Melania the Younger (fifth century A.D.) ascribes to her an estate with sixty hamlets, each with about nee 400 agricultural slaves (see M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology [London, 1980], p. 123). Cf. also the 8,000 slaves allegedly freed by Melania after her conversion to Christianity 81, (Pallad. Hist. Laus. 61).

35 Browne, E.G.,An Abridged Translation of the History of Tabaristan Compiled about A.H. 613 (A-D- 1216) by Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Isfandiyár (Leyden & London, 1905).Google Scholar

36 Ibid., pp. 29 and 195.