a comment on this topic that I have made before: when comparing
buying power against local wages, it is best not to bother trying to make analogies with jobs and wage-rates in the richest countries in the western world in the 21st century. It's just a bridge too far, especially given the distortions in rich-world economies that result from mechanisation of
agriculture and food processing that make food relatively
cheap for us today, whilst craft-goods are relatively expensive for us today. When you start making such comparisons you come to absurd values for
ancient coins that really cannot be related to today.
I suggest, instead, to compare to compare to two or three modern world countries that bear some parallels to the ancient world - massive, rich countries certainly, massively complicated bureaucracies and distances to be travelled, yet where the 'working man' lives at a subsistence level, perhaps with minimal access to electricity or running water, with unmechanised
agriculture and limited food processing, but
still in a physical environment that can be rather pleasant, with lots of fresh herbs and market-place vegetables and
good quality local craft goods and excellent personal services (hairdressing and such like). With this in mind, I suggest comparing the ancient world to today:
- Nigeria
-
India- Indonesia
These would be the rich world equivalents to ancient
Rome - massively wealthy, populous and powerful nations in their own rights, with modern jet fighters, large armies, substantial trade, manufacturing and exports, but
still in an environment where villages may have no running water or electricity, yet people may wear elaborately produced hand-made clothes, carved wooden furniture, eat well and healthy with a diet that includes organic vegetables and herbs, have happy, healthy children, who go to school, have space to play and a roof over their heads.
The sort of income that you need to lead such a life in such countries is about $5 a day, or, if you assume 1 wage earner for a family of 4, about $1/person/day which is in fact the internationally recognised poverty-line. With $10/day ($3650 p.a. for a family), you get all this, a television, electric light and running water, and some schoolbooks, for a family of four, and the ability to save for a beat-up old
car (or an ancient donkey and cart).
This is about the level that should be equated with the pay of a
Roman legionary, for this is the sort of middle class life he would probably have aspired to, and been able to afford. He would have considered himself happy and wealthy to have been earning $10/day.
So, since a
Roman legionary was paid 225
denarii / year, from the time of
Marius (increased to 300/year under
Domitian), plus a substantial amount bonuses and booty, I tend to equate a
denarius to about $10. If you do a
reverse calculation as to how much wine and grain $10 a day would buy you come to about the same figure as in ancient
Rome. Bear in mind we are not talking about
buying bread from fancy
New York bakeries, and Californian Pinot Noir, but rather wine in tetra-pak or 5 litre containers and
poor quality grain with weavils. Think Aldi and Costco rather than Waitrose or Whole Foods. Move onto craft works and you, again, find more or less equality between a $10
denarius, the cost of cloth or woodwork in ancient times, and what an Indian might pay for a carved stool or some clothing repairs, some laundry, a hair-cut, or a wash at a communal facility today. It matches up.
I make this case in order to dispel the views that one sometimes hears that "a
denarius was the
Roman equivalent of a $100 bill". It was never remotely as valuable. At most, a
denarius was equivalent, in today's terms, to a $10 or $20 bill, or a 10 pound note.
Of course there were those in ancient times who were truly wealthy. Those truly wealthy who lived in
Rome or
Campania were the equivalent to the richest of today's dwellers in Hong Kong or Geneva, happily paying $10 for a coffee, and nothing for a bus-fare because they've never taken a bus in their life. Indeed you can compare today's sybarites with Hortensius or Lucullus, but their spending power, and the cost of the luxuries they bought,
had as much relevance to the "cost of living" in the ancient world as a Vacheron-Constantin watch does to a Swatch.
