The tables bring out a number of points of passing interest. From chapter II it seems to follow that Italian wines retained their ancient pre-eminence, even in the fourth century. They alone are quoted among the foreign wines. Table VI gives us a picture of the village market. On market days the farmer brings his artichokes, lettuce, cabbages, turnips, and other fresh vegetables into the market town and exposes them for sale in the public square, as the country people in Italy do to-day. The seventh chapter, in which wages are given, is perhaps of liveliest interest. In this connection we should bear in mind the fact that slavery existed in the Roman Empire, that owners of slaves trained them to various occupations and hired them out by the day or job, and that, consequently the prices paid for slave labor fixed the scale of wages. However, there was a steady decline under the Empire in the number of slaves, and competition with them in the fourth century did not materially affect the wages of the free laborer. It is interesting, in this chapter, to notice that the teacher and the advocate (Nos. 66-73) are classed with the carpenter and tailor. It is a pleasant passing reflection for the teacher of Greek and Latin to find that his predecessors were near the top of their profession, if we may draw this inference from their remuneration when compared with that of other teachers. It is worth observing also that the close association between the classics and mathematics, and their acceptance as the corner-stone of the higher training, to which we have been accustomed for centuries, seems to be recognized (VII, 70) even at this early date. We expect to find the physician mentioned with the teacher and advocate, but probably it was too much even for Diocletian's skill, in reducing things to a system, to estimate the comparative value of a physician's services in a case of measles and typhoid fever.
The bricklayer, the joiner, and the carpenter (VII, 2-3a), inasmuch as they work on the premises of their employer, receive their "keep" as well as a fixed wage, while the knife-grinder and the tailor (VII, 33, 42) work in their own shops, and naturally have their meals at home. The silk-weaver (XX, 9) and the linen-weaver (XXI, 5) have their "keep" also, which seems to indicate that private houses had their own looms, which is quite in harmony with the practices of our fathers. The carpenter and joiner are paid by the day, the teacher by the month, the knife-grinder, the tailor, the barber (VII, 22) by the piece, and the coppersmith (VII, 24a-27) according to the amount of metal which he uses. Whether the difference between the prices of shoes for the patrician, the senator, and the knight (IX, 7-9) represents a difference in the cost of making the three kinds, or is a tax put on the different orders of nobility, cannot be determined. The high prices set on silk and wool dyed with purple (XXIV) correspond to the pre-eminent position of that imperial color in ancient times. The tables which the edict contains call our attention to certain striking differences between ancient and modern industrial and economic conditions. Of course the list of wage-earners is incomplete. The inscriptions which the trades guilds have left us record many occupations which are not mentioned here, but in them and in these lists we miss any reference to large groups of men who hold a prominent place in our modern industrial reports-I mean men working in printing-offices, factories, foundries, and machine-shops, and employed by transportation companies. Nothing in the document suggests the application of power to the manufacture of articles, the assembling of men in a common workshop, or the use of any other machine than the hand loom and the mill for the grinding of corn. In the way of articles offered for sale, we miss certain items which find a place in every price-list of household necessities, such articles as sugar, molasses, potatoes, cotton cloth, tobacco, coffee, and tea. The list of stimulants (II) is, in fact, very brief, including as it does only a few kinds of wine and beer.
At the present moment, when the high cost of living is a subject which engages the attention of the economist, politician, and householder, as it did that of Diocletian and his contemporaries, the curious reader will wish to know how wages and the prices of food in 301 A.D. compare with those of to-day. In the two tables which follow, such a comparison is attempted for some of the more important articles and occupations.
Articles of Food[90]
Price in 301 A.D. Price in 1906 A.D.
Wheat, per bushel 33.6 cents $1.19[91]
Rye, per bushel 45 " 79 cents[91]
Beans, per bushel 45 " $3.20
Barley, per bushel 74.5 " 55 cents[91]
Vinegar, per quart 4.3 " 5-7 "
Fresh pork, per pound 7.3 " 14-16 "
Beef, per pound 4.9 " { 9-12 "
{15-18 "
Mutton, per pound 4.9 " 13-16 "
Ham, per pound 12 " 18-25 "
Fowls, per pair 26 "
Fowls, per pound 14-18 "
Butter, per pound 9.8 " 26-32 "
Fish, river, fresh, per pound 7.3 " 12-15 "
Fish, sea, fresh, per pound 9-14 " 8-14 cents
Fish, salt, per pound 8.3 " 8-15 "
Cheese, per pound 7.3 " 17-20 "
Eggs, per dozen 5.1 " 25-30 "
Milk, cow's, per quart 6-8 "
Milk, sheep's, per quart 6 "
Wages Per Day
Unskilled workman 10.8 cents (k)[92] $1.20-2.24[93]
Bricklayer 21.6 " (k) 4.50-6.50
Carpenter 21.6 " (k) 2.50-4.00
Stone-mason 21.6 " (k) 3.70-4.90
Painter 32.4 " (k) 2.75-4.00
Blacksmith 21.6 " (k) 2.15-3.20
Ship-builder 21-26 " (k) 2.15-3.50
We are not so much concerned in knowing the prices of meat, fish, eggs, and flour in 301 and 1911 A.D. as we are in finding out whether the Roman or the American workman could buy more of these commodities with the returns for his labor. A starting point for such an estimate is furnished by the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, on the "Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food" (1903), and by Bulletin No. 77 of the Bureau of Labor (1908). In the first of these documents (pp. 582, 583) the expenditure for rent, fuel, food, and other necessities of life in 11,156 normal American families whose incomes range from $200 to $1,200 per year is given. In the other report (p. 344 f.) similar statistics are given for 1,944 English urban families. In the first case the average amount spent per year was $617, of which $266, or a little less than a half of the entire income, was used in the purchase of food. The statistics for England show a somewhat larger relative amount spent for food. Almost exactly one-third of this expenditure for the normal American family was for meat and fish.[94] Now, if we take the wages of the Roman carpenter, for instance, as 21 cents per day, and add one-fourth or one-third for his "keep," those of the same American workman as $2.50 to $4.00, it is clear that the former received only a ninth or a fifteenth as much as the latter, while the average price of pork, beef, mutton, and ham (7.3 cents) in 301 A.D. was about a third of the average (19.6 cents) of the same articles to-day. The relative averages of wheat, rye, and barley make a still worse showing for ancient times while fresh fish was nearly as high in Diocletian's time as it is in our own day. The ancient and modern prices of butter and eggs stand at the ratio of one to three and one to six respectively. For the urban workman, then, in the fourth century, conditions of life must have been almost intolerable, and it is hard to understand how he managed to keep soul and body together, when almost all the nutritious articles of food were beyond his means. The taste of meat, fish, butter, and eggs must have been almost unknown to him, and probably even the coarse bread and vegetables on which he lived were limited in amount. The peasant proprietor who could raise his own cattle and grain would not find the burden so hard to bear.