§ 11. Appendix. The purchasing power of money in Bible times.—Throughout this article an approx1- mate estimate in sterling currency has been given of the moneys of the various standards we have met with in the course of the history of the Hebrew race. A much more adequate idea of their real value, however, would be gained if we knew their purchasing power in these ancient times. Con- sidering the compass and variety of our Scriptures, it is somewhat remarkable how few indications are to be found of the prices of the ordinary articles of commerce. The purchase of land is probably more frequently mentioned than any other (Gn 23" 33, 2 S 24%, 1 Καὶ 16™, Jer 32°, Mt 27’), but in no
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case have we definite information as to the size of the ground acquired. From Is 7% we learn that a good vineyard was valued at the rate of a thousand vines for ‘a thousand silverlings’ or silver shekels, a sum (ὁ. £135) which represents the yearly rent (though this is not certain) of Solomon’s vineyard at Baal-hamon (Ca 8"). This monarch paid ‘600 shekels of silver’ (c. £80) for an Egyptian chariot, and a quarter of that sum for a horse (2 Ch 117) ; in each case, no doubt, a high price. A better indica- tion of the value of money in antiquity is the rate of wages paid. Micah’s private chaplain received but ten shekels a year (Jg 17"). He had, however, ‘everything foun? in addition, as had the angel Raphael when he accepted service with Tobit for a drachm a day (Tob 51 (Gr. 15) δραχμὴν τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ τὰ δέοντά go). In NT times a denarius (9}d.) was a fair day’s wages for a labourer (Mt 20*"-), Labourers in Cicero’s time got only 12 asses (c. 7d.), but soldiers received a denarius. ‘The price of slaves naturally varied not only according to age and capacity, but also according to the supply. The normal value, according to the Priests’ Cox e, was 30 shekels, over £4 (Ex 21%). Joseph was sold for twenty (Gn 37%). The former price differs but little from the average of 120 drachms in the age of the Ptolemies (Jos. Ant. Xi. ii. 3). A talent was a high price even for an educated slave ‘in the flower οἱ his youth’ (Ant. xt. iv. 9), while ninety slaves for that amount (2 Mac 8") represent ἘΠΕ other extreme. The truest indication of all would be the price of the standard food-stuffs, especially wheat and barley, but unfortunately the biblical data are scanty in the extreme. In 2 Καὶ 7! a seah (about 14 peck) of fine flour was sold for a shekel (2s. 9d.), and two seahs of barley at the same price. This could only be considered cheap in comparison with the previously existing famine prices (2 Καὶ 6%).* Another ‘ famine’ price is found Rev 6°: a choenix (about a quart) of wheat for a denarius, and three of the same measure of barley at the same price. From these two passages (2 Καὶ 71, Rev 6°) we ἘΠΕῚ this at least, that in the period of the monarchy flour was twice as dear as barley meal, while in the Ist cent. A.D. the price of wheat was to that of barley as3:1. In any case the prices in Reve- lation are very high, about twelve times the ordi- nary prices, to judge from those of the 2nd cent. as given in the Mishna. Thus a seah of wheat is there priced at a denarius (Hrubin viii. 2), about 16s. a quarter.+ Little can be learned from the contradictory statements of Josephus (Wars, 1. xxi. 2, and Life, 13) regarding the price of oil, beyond the fact of its extreme cheapness in Galilee during the war with Rome. The low price of the sparrow, finally, is familiar to every reader of the Gospels, two being sold for a ‘current’ issar- assarion, or a farthing and a half (see § 8), and five for three English farthings.
LiTrERATURE.—Indispensable for the study of Jewish numis- matics is Εἰ, W. Madden's exhaustive corpus, Coins of the Jews, 1881, which has taken the place of his earlier work, History of Jewish Canes 1864. Hardly less so are B. V. Head’s Historia Numorum, 1887, which covers the whole field of Greek numis- matics, and Fr. Hultsch, Griechische und Rémische Metrologie, 2te Bearbeitg. 1882. Other standard works are, besides the general works of Eckhel and Mionnet :—F, de Saulcy, Recherches sur la Numismatique Judaique, 1854; Cavedoni, Biblische Numismatik, trans. from the Italian by Werlhof, 1855; Levy, Gesch, ἃ. jiidischen Mtinzen, 1862; de Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, 1874 (complement of his Recherches, dealing oniy with non-Jewish coins of Palestine); Merzbacher in the Zeitschrift f. Numismatik, Bd. iii.-v., 1876-78 (specially on the
*Maccabean’ shekels); Th. Reinach, Les monnaies juives,
* MT is herecorrupt. Cheyne emends: ‘ A homer(10 bushels) οὐ lentils for 50 shekels, and a quarter of a cor (24 bushels) of carob-pods for 5 shekels,’ Expos. July 1
899. ἡ Of. Baba Mezia vy. 1, where a kor (30 seahs) of wheat is bought
for 25 and sold for 30 denarii, also 16s. a quarter. In Cicero's time wheat was sold at Rome at the rate of 8 sestertii the modius, which is under £1 a quarter.
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1887; Hamburger, Z. f. Numism, xviii. 1892 (see § 10). The standard works on the Persian, Phonician, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and Roman coins respectively are given in the body of the article. . R. 5. KENNEDY.