this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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No son of mine is going to learn Gr*ek as long as I'm pater familias! (lemmy.world)
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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Then it's already gone. 3 Sesterii is like, two loafs of bread.

[–] drolex@sopuli.xyz 12 points 8 months ago

You wouldn't expect a barbarian slave to be the same price as a delicious loaf of bread, I hope? One should be respected for being the very foundation of society, while the other one is a barbarian.

[–] lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Grain seems to have run anywhere from 2-3HS per modius (a Roman dry measure, about 6.75kg) outside of really big cities with higher prices. A modius of grain is close to a week’s worth of food (around 22,500 calories) for an adult human[.]

https://acoup.blog/2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-tyranny-of-fantasy-gold/

(But I agree that a slave for the price of a week's food would be gone in a blink)

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm happy I was only about a single order of magnitude off by memory

[–] lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago

Well, considering that a slave could run upwards of 2,000HS, that difference is negligible. I wouldn't have known it by memory at all.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

ACOUP is so fantastic.

EDIT: But I might add that it's likely that the grain prices are for unthreshed grain, which would have a significantly lower calorie count for the weight.

[–] lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago

The amount of times I've gone "Oh wait, wasn't there an ACOUP post touching on that?" and found it is insane. It's a great exemplar of public science and I wish it – and projects like it for other disciplines – were more popular.