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Updated: May 25, 2025
With respect to the value of "a measure" in that time, it was estimated at a drachma, and a drachma was the price of a sheep. The law against idleness is attributable rather to Pisistratus than Solon. Athenaeus, lib. xiv. Plutarch de Gloria Athen. I do not in this sketch entirely confine myself to Solon's regulations respecting the areopagus.
What is singular in his character is that he endured poverty very well, and that he was not at all enslaved or corrupted by wealth, and yet he filled his country with riches and the love of them, and took away from them the glory of not admiring money; importing amongst them an abundance of gold and silver after the Athenian war, though keeping not one drachma for himself.
Few managed to gain entrance to the famous courtesan's house. They grumbled that some nights, in moments of tedium, she had opened her door to young students who were modeling their first statues in the gardens of the Academy, or reciting their unrenowned verses to the idle in the Agora youths who could only afford to spend on pleasures a few oboli, or at most a drachma.
Previous to the admission of any candidate, his life, his character, and his actions were submitted to a vigorous scrutiny . The senators then took a solemn oath that they would endeavour to promote the public good, and the highest punishment they were allowed to inflict was a penalty of five hundred drachma.
The secret of his power is to be found, however, as Thucydides says, not so much in his mere oratory as in his pure and blameless life, because he was so well known to be incorruptible, and indifferent to money; for though he made the city, which was a great one, into the greatest and richest city of Greece, and though he himself became more powerful than many independent sovereigns, who were able to leave their kingdoms to their sons, yet Pericles did not increase by one single drachma the estate which he received from his father.
He also ordered a monument to be erected to him at great cost; for a large quantity of gold and silver was found in the palace of Zarbienus, and there were stored up three million medimni of wheat, so that the soldiers were well supplied, and Lucullus was admired, that without receiving a drachma from the treasury, he made the war support itself.
And perhaps all the old money was so, coin consisting of iron, or in some countries, copper skewers, whence it comes that we still find a great number of small pieces of money retain the name of obolus, and the drachma is six of these, because so much may be grasped in one's hand.
The good order, the low cost of living, the high value of the drachma, the excellent condition of the army, the enhanced prestige of the Greek nation after the war, all testify to the ability of Venizelos. Venizelos won for Hellas territory which extends from Salonica all the way to the Black Sea, and brought her almost to the gates of Constantinople.
So Marsyas desired of Peter, who was the freed-man of Bernice, Agrippa's mother, and by the right of her testament was bequeathed to Antonia, to lend so much upon Agrippa's own bond and security; but he accused Agrippa of having defrauded him of certain sums of money, and so obliged Marsyas, when he made the bond of twenty thousand Attic drachmae, to accept of twenty-five hundred drachma as less than what he desired, which the other allowed of, because he could not help it.
Demetrius, however, when himself a legislator, appointed that each of these women should receive a drachma instead of three obols a day.
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