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Document Details : Title: The Behaviour of Consumers in the Zenon Papyri Author(s): REEKMANS, T. Journal: Ancient Society Volume: 25 Date: 1994 Pages: 119-140 DOI: 10.2143/AS.25.0.2005844 Abstract : In the society illustrated by the Zenon archive, the satisfaction of primary needs was for many people, as far as food and clothing were concerned, not so much a matter of purchasing power as of using what was provided by institutions which ruled out all spending power or curtailed its range, namely the maintenance of slaves and the partial remuneration in kind1 of all wage earners except hired hands (ἐργάται). If the ὀψώνιον (salary in cash) offered, despite its meagreness, a chance of satisfying the need of shelter, domestic utensils (σκεύη) and bath, the curtailing effect of σιτομετρία took away any possibility of saving money for the purchase of choice clothing or choice σκεύη or of securing the goods or services that were required to meet distinctly secondary needs such as schooling and recreation. On reading the Zenon papyri one also learns that wage earners sometimes had to wait quite long before they received their remuneration in kind; as the opsonion too was on occasion overdue, it looks as if even in satisfying their primary needs many people of the society under review encountered great difficulties. One should not forget however, that in matters of remuneration, either in cash or in kind, payments effected without a hitch have left few traces in the letters and petitions of the Zenon archive: on getting his due at the end of the month, an employee of the domain (δωρεά) administered by Zenon would have no reason to take up his pen. The meagre salary paid out to most people employed on that domain and the curtailing effect of the sitometriaon their purchasing power are the reality; the abundance of irregularities in paying wage earners or in measuring out their monthly rations is merely the result of the imbalance of information which is intrinsic to the evidence at our disposal. We shall have to bear this in mind when dealing, in the pages that follow, with the attempts made by all kinds of people on the one hand to reduce expenses and have wages increased or paid in advance, and on the other hand to have their remuneration in kind increased or at least provided on time. |
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