Page 36 - Pompeii n. 12 - The world of money at Pompeii

English version

Seven days before the ides: cheese, 1 as; bread, 8 asses; oil, 3 asses;
wine, 3 asses. Six days before the ides: bread, 8 asses; oil, 5 asses, onion, 5
asses; for the pignatta, 1 as, bread for the slave, 2 asses, wine, 2 asses. Five
days before the ides: bread, 8 asses, bread for the slave, 4 asses; spelt, 3
asses. Four days before the ides: wine for the tamer, 1 denarius (=16 asses);
bread, 8 asses, wine, 2 asses; cheese, 2 asses. Three days before the ides:
dried fruit, 1 denarius; bread, two asses; steak, eight asses; wheat, 2 asses;
beef , 1 as, dates, 1 as; incense, 1 as, cheese, 2 asses; sausage; 1 as,
caciotta cheese, 4 asses, oil, 7 asses; at the storehouse,…; clover, 1
denarius and 1 as; oil, 1 denarius and 9 asses; bread, 4 asses; cheese, 4
asses; leek, 1 as, for a plate, 1 as; at Sittia, 9 asses; thyme ointment, 1 as.
Two days before the ides: bread, 2 asses; bread for the slave, 2 asses, The
day before the ides; bread for the slave, 2 asses; black bread, two asses,
leek, 1 as. On the ides, bread, two asses, black bread, 2 asses, oil, 5 asses,
spelt, 3 asses, fish for the tamer, 2 asses.

Comment

The inscription records the small daily expenses made by a person who
stayed in the hostelry over nine days. Note the convenience of prices of basic
necessities such as bread, oil, wine, cheese, sausage, fish and meat that
ensured survival even to the more disadvantaged. For example, the
recurrence of the item bread for the slave appears as the only food
obligations for a servant. The mystery is yet unsolved for the figure of the
tamer who is given a substantial amount of wine one day and fish another.

Finally it is noted how the costs incurred for the various foods fluctuate
from day to day, perhaps in relation to the quantity purchased or else
because of different food quality, as we have already seen for the price of the
wine.

"Shopping lists" which were found in Pompeii in various places of the city (i.e. CIL
IV 4000, 4422, 5380, 8561 etc.) clearly suggest that costs of basic food necessities were
very low, affordable to everyone and probably controlled for this purpose. This was to
avoid unhealthy conflicts that could lead to the loss of control of the huge mass of the
poor in a small economy that had as its reference point the as and the sestertius.
Already by the Republican era the historical sources testify to the crazy amounts
that the Roman aristocracy was able to spend on luxury goods, property or even on the
organization of a "Lucullus-style" dinner, or the purchase of the biggest mullet on offer at
the market. This was the direct relationship with the equally incredible riches which came
to Rome from all over the world, and it is no surprise that Lucullus, for example, spent on
organizing a dinner, the equivalent of the annual salary of a grand-commis of the
imperial bureaucracy, equal to around 100,000 sestertii, or 400,000 asses.

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