Costs of Living in Roman Palestine

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A clear notion as to the cost of living in a given period is crucial for a real understanding not only of economic but also social conditions in that period. And in order to build up a picture of the cost of living during a given period, one must first compile a pricelist of basic commodities, and a table of wages (standard and otherwise), tabulated chronologically and thus mutually comparable and comparable with cognate material. The data must thus be fairly unambiguous in meaning, approximately datable, and as far as possible representative of the real conditions obtaining at that time. Thus abstruse theoretico-legal examples, literary archaisms etc., when not borne out by independent actual evidence are to be treated with great reserve. The first systematic attempt to compile such pricelists for Roman Palestine (and/or Syria) is that of the great classical scholar F. Heichelheim, in his section of Syria (in vol. 4, of An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome) ). Unfortunately Heichelheim's work is deficient in several respects. In many cases not only is his dating of the texts wrong 2), his readings incorrect 3), but even the references are inaccurate 4). Moreover, monetary terms occurring in the sources cited are not quoted as they appear in the original, but are translated into some kind of standard terms (e.g. Syrian ass, Imperial ass)