06-17-2011, 10:31 PM
I have recently attended a lecture by Professor Stissi in Amsterdam on the cost of the Parthenon. Building material was very cheap in ancient times, any succesfull city-state had quarries of it own, which means that the stone was almost freely availabe. Moreover, large parts of the building process could be done by laborers who were very poorly paid. Even the artists responsable for the famous frieze were modestly paid. All this accounted for a very modest cost, compared to buiding-processes in our time (I guess I would have to pay any craftsman in Holland about 70 euro's/hour including taxes, insurances and payments for pensions ecc.).
Last year I visited the excavations of Priene (Turkey); a Hellenistic town of about 4000 people. Incredibly many and large structures have been built there. This can only be explained by the low cost of the material and cheap labor.
My educated guess would be that even objects of silver and gold had a worth that mainly consisted of the weight of the raw material, and that elaborated pieces made of a relatively cheap material (bronze) would be available even for the lower ranks in the Greek or Roman armies.
This compares well to less developed economies in the 21 century. Roads in eg. South-Africa are still constructed mainly by hand-labor (instead of machines) simply because a laborer costs only 1-2 euro / hour.
Last year I visited the excavations of Priene (Turkey); a Hellenistic town of about 4000 people. Incredibly many and large structures have been built there. This can only be explained by the low cost of the material and cheap labor.
My educated guess would be that even objects of silver and gold had a worth that mainly consisted of the weight of the raw material, and that elaborated pieces made of a relatively cheap material (bronze) would be available even for the lower ranks in the Greek or Roman armies.
This compares well to less developed economies in the 21 century. Roads in eg. South-Africa are still constructed mainly by hand-labor (instead of machines) simply because a laborer costs only 1-2 euro / hour.
