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Il tesoro della Casa del Menandro. Cronaca di una scoperta

Pompei 12 tracce di vita intorno al denaro

Step 7 - Hostelry of Fabii

House of Fabii. Entrance of the Thermopolium building. ©SSBAPES

In the Fabii hostel, one of the many "shopping lists" found in Pompei shows daily food purchases for nine days. From documents like this, we know that the basic necessities for survival, such a bread, oil, wine, cheese, fish and meat were very inexpensive and therefore affordable by everyone.

The shopping list

CIL IV 5380

Inscription CIL IV 5380. ©SSBAPES
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.

Read more

"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.

Site location
Reg. IX Ins. 7 nr. 25

Site

Visibility

  • House of Fabiinot accessible
  • Wall of a roomnot accessible
  • Inscriptiondetached, undergoing restoration

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