The Real Value of Ancient Coins

[Xalik]

Hello...

 

I'm very happy I've found this forum and hope someone here could help me. I study history and philosophy at the faculty of arts and sciences, and I had to choose a topic for a seminar (subject: numismatics). I have chosen "The real value of ancient coins", for I find it very interesting, and we haven't learnt about it during our lessions. However, though I've been searching for several weeks I have not found anything useful regarding that issue. You can find the basics in most books and web-pages, but nowhere what was the real value of that coins. If I had been a peasant in an ancient Greece, what could I have bought for a single tetradrachma? What was the cost of a typical ship? ....

 

If someone could answer these questions and tell me more about this topic (value of coins in (and around) 5. century before Christ), give me some useful link or recommend a book (although I doubt I could find such a book here in Croatia), I would be very thankful.

 

PS. Sorry for my bad English...

[syzygy]

History of money - table of contents

Hello... 

 

... However, though I've been searching for several weeks I have not found anything useful regarding that issue. You can find the basics in most books and web-pages, but nowhere what was the real value of that coins. If I had been a peasant in an ancient Greece, what could I have bought for a single tetradrachma? What was the cost of a typical ship?  ....

 

PS. Sorry for my bad English...

 

There is much available on this very interesting subject. Try a few of these links:

 

Links for Ancient Economics

 

Prices in Ancient Rome - You make, maybe 2 denarii a day and it cost 20 to get a cow - not bad.

 

Wages and Costs in the time of Constantine I - great table!

 

History of money book