A Mnai worth how much?

[justaquickquestion]

So, I was just thinking,I's not a usefull question or anything, just for the curiosity sake...

How much does a Mnai worth compare to current day money? I mean, it must have been very expensive to train a batallion of 240. Mostly likely a single Mnai represent U$5.000.00 in American dollars

Can anyone confirm that?

[Hax]

You sir, have the most awesome name ever. Here, have a balloon.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

60 mnai are 1 Talent, which is iirc 27kg of silver. So a mna is 450g Silver and I have no idea to which value of modern currency this corresponds.

[NEver]

Quite a bit if its 450g. I'd imagine perhaps $150

[Moros]

60 mnai are 1 Talent, which is iirc 27kg of silver. So a mna is 450g Silver and I have no idea to which value of modern currency this corresponds.

From what I recall what I needed to learn for my exams was that:
1 mnai = 100 drachme
= 600 obolen
And 1 talent was indeed 60 mnai

Now you use to had 2 major systems when it comes to talents, one from Aegina (36kg, => drachme = 6gr),which was used in the Peloponnesus, and one from Euboea (26kg => drachme => 4,33gr) which was used in Asia minor and the west. But by EB times Athens and the successors also used the latter.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You forget the Babylonian 'standard'.

Regardless; during the Classical age (so a bit out-dated that is) 2 Minai of silver would be about the ransom for a prisoner of war.

(A mina is just a measure of weight, so it could be about stone, or about gold or about anything you'd buy or pay in kind of quantities).

[Incitatus]

60 mnai are 1 Talent, which is iirc 27kg of silver. So a mna is 450g Silver and I have no idea to which value of modern currency this corresponds.

450g = 15.8732829 ounces, and that comes out to $262.099702 (132.565526 pounds and 178.691770 euro)

[antisocialmunky]

450g = 15.8732829 ounces, and that comes out to $262.099702 (132.565526 pounds and 178.691770 euro)

Man... I didn't realize how much the Dollar sucks right now.

Darn you and your Anglo-Frankish-German driven economy.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Be glad the Yuan is artificially kept at low exchange rates... it greatly reduces the amount of interest the USA has to pay in dollars.

[antisocialmunky]

Considering how big of a share of the world economy the Chinese used to have, they still haven't got rolling yet.

[CirdanDharix]

The prisoners of war being ransomed in the classical wage for 2 mnai of silver were nobles. The general rule of thumb is that during the late classical period and the beginning of the Hellenistic age, in Athens the 'minimum wage'--that is the minimum revenue a citizens was expected to be able to survive upon--was three oboloi per day. That makes about 15 drachmai per month, or 1.8Mnai per year for the 'minimum wage'. Also, the price for renting a slave (in Athens also) was 1 obol per day--the slave's food was presumably the user's responsibility. One mina of silver would be quite alot of money, by the common man's standards.

However, it was not that much for an aristocrat: a skilled hetaira might be worth 30 mnai--about seventeen years of income for a pauper--and renting the services of one these courtesans could rapidly become incredibly expensive, with rates that could reach 3 mnai per day. The lessons of a famous sophist might cost 100 mnai.

When it comes to soldiers, their pay varied widely with time and place throughout the Hellenistic era. During the Classical age the wage for a mercenary was approximately 1 drachma of silver a day--to take two examples from primary sources, Thucydides states that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Athens paid each hoplite in the field one drachma of silver per day and alloted the same wage for a servant per soldier, while the wages Xenophon gives for the Ten Thousand are in gold per month, but ammount generally to slightly less than one drachma of silver a day, with double pay for officers. By the Hellenistic age, it seems the pay for a heavy infantryman was generally 1 to 2 drachmai a day, but sometimes more. Cavalrymen drew rather considerably higher pay, often 3 drachmai a day or more. Additionally the mercenary was fed by his employer, and if he wasn't provided with an acceptable ammount of grain (one medimnos per man per month is the rule of thumb) he had to be given extra money to purchase food--generally 2-3 oboloi a day, which gives you an indication of the value of food (although remember that the prices would be above normal around an army on the march). However, as previously stated, the pay for soldiers did vary widely.

Note:
1 drachma = 6 oboloi
1 stater = 2 drachmai
1 mina = 100 drachmai
1 talent = 60 mnai
Silver is the most common metal for money. Gold is used more rarely; the weight of gold is usually measured in staters, while the weight of silver is given in oboloi, drachmai, etc.

[konny]

When it comes to soldiers, their pay varied widely with time and place throughout the Hellenistic era. During the Classical age the wage for a mercenary was approximately 1 drachma of silver a day--to take two examples from primary sources, Thucydides states that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Athens paid each hoplite in the field one drachma of silver per day and alloted the same wage for a servant per soldier

That's interessting

A EB Hoplite unit:

160 men (+ 160 servants)
= 320 drachmai wages per day
= 9,600 per month
= 28,800 per season

=> 288 mne

+ food, say 2.5 oboloi per day
= 400 oboloi per day * 2 for the servants
= 800 oboloi per day
= 24,000 per month
= 72,000 oboloi per season

=> 12,000 drachmai => 120 mne

Makes total upkeep 408 mne per turn. Pretty close to the 344 in EB, what can even be exact the same when you assume lower costs for food.

[CirdanDharix]

Regarding the cost of food, pillaging was free and practised whenever possible, so that would make food cheaper on average than the allowance the mercenaries would receive when they pruchased it from a market.

[konny]

Yes. That would make upkeep in fact lower on enemy territory.

[CirdanDharix]

That's rather an easy generalisation. Firstly, the Hellenistic world didn't have those convenient province boundaries you have in R:TW--you might be in 'enemy territory' but still have an agreement with the locals. Secondly, mercenaries might ask for more pay when they were actively campaigning against the enemy, and expect a bonus for participating in large battles. And then, you can't always feed a large army by pillage, and if you have to have grain transported over any significant distance, the merchants are sure to milk a captive market.

[konny]

Oh yes, that is much of a generalization. You can't neither be certain that the army doesn't loot on friendly territory; when discipline is low or provisions are short for example.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

A very good generalization would be army = swarm of locusts.

[Chirurgeon]

Slightly off topic but does anyone know what the "average" price for a slave was in classical times?

[Tellos Athenaios]

It depends, IIRC the cheap slaves would be just about too much to own or rent for the piss-poor; but even 'minor' craftsmen could often afford to at least rent the slave on regular basis. And that was one lucrative business.

[CirdanDharix]

Slightly off topic but does anyone know what the "average" price for a slave was in classical times?

I don't know about buying, but as I previously stated, the standard cost of renting a slave (in Athens) was 1 obol per day. To take two contrasting examples, the Athenian general Nicias rented a thousand slaves to leaseholders on the Laurion mines, so that he had a revenue of 1,000 oboloi (~1.66 Mnai) a day, while there appears somewhere (I think in a plea by Demosthenes?) a pauper who has a single slave, whom he rents out also, earning himself a single obol (not to mention getting the slave fed, a burden which his owner could not have shouldered himself). However, this is for 'basic' slaves, engaged in low-skilled manual labour. If your slave is a beautiful and witty hetaira, she'd earn you alot more than one obol per day.

EDIT:
In some cases, slaves were not so much rent out as exercicsing an economic activity independantly, in which case they paid a regular sum (αποφορα) to their owner, but were otherwise free to operate as they pleased. This would be the case of the above-mentioned hetaira, but also of other skilled slaves such as blacksmiths, cobblers, etc.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Not to mention the various slaves who basically ran their masters' business so their masters could tend themselves to local politics more...

[Rodion Romanovich]

Wow, as soon as I get a job I can buy and support my own cataphract unit IRL!

[CirdanDharix]

Not to mention the various slaves who basically ran their masters' business so their masters could tend themselves to local politics more...

IIRC there was a slave who was a ship's captain. I wonder if he had any free men in his crew, and if so, how did they take having a slave captain?

[unreal_uk]

Since I've been studying the Anabasis so thoroughly recently, I'll give an example from that again.

Cyrus promises the mercenaries 5 mnai of silver once they reach Babylon - this was apparently the equivalent of 4 months pay for a mercenary, if that helps.

[Tancredii]

Diodorus list the revenue for the mines (gold and silver) around Mt Pangaeum as being 1000 Talents alone for Philip in around 356 bc. Not a bad income! (this is when Bosworth is stressing the financial muscle Macedon had before it's eastern adventures)

Athens is listed as having a domestic revenue of 400 talents by mid 340's (Rhodes 1981 514-517.)

Both these figures and references came from AB Bosworth - Conquest and Empire (the reign of Alexander the Great). An easy read.

Haven't checked original sources though.

[Tellos Athenaios]

IIRC there was a slave who was a ship's captain. I wonder if he had any free men in his crew, and if so, how did they take having a slave captain?

There's this story about Spartans disapproving of the way slaves were treated in Athens, and them Athenians replying something like "Justly so, for they'll work harder of their own will if well treated."

If that's anything to go by, even if only as an idealised example... I think whomever would work as a free man on such a ship would care more about the captains quality than his social status when at sea; but mostly about his wage and job. After all, they would hardly have been rich guys with time on their hands to contemplate such matters as the inferior social status of his superior: they had a living to earn. (And it is not unlikely the captain was also the one responsible for both hiring and paying the crew too...)

[Intranetusa]

^ Silver today is nearly worthless...
Gold today is worth almost 10x more than silver today at $400+ per ounce.

Silver back in ancient times (before modern discoveries of huge silver mines, etc)
would've been on par with gold in value. ie. Trade in the east used the "silver standard" since China was only willing to take silver currency (which was mined from the silver mines of the Americas)

[CirdanDharix]

^ Silver today is nearly worthless...
Gold today is worth almost 10x more than silver today at $400+ per ounce.

Silver back in ancient times (before modern discoveries of huge silver mines, etc)
would've been on par with gold in value. ie. Trade in the east used the "silver standard" since China was only willing to take silver currency (which was mined from the silver mines of the Americas)

Not true. The equilibrium value of gold against silver in the ancient Mediterranean was around 1:13 by weight. When Alexander captured the Achaemenid gold reserves he flooded the market wih them and gold was temporarily devalued to being worth only ten times its ammount of silver. However, by the middle of Ptolemaios Philadelphos' reign, the relative values of gold and silver had returned to equilibrium; the Ptolemaic coinages are particularly interesting because the Ptolemies lacked ready access to silver, and used alot of bronze and gold money instead, which means that their currency changed alot in their first decades because the value of gold against silver was still fluctuating.


It was the ancient Egyptians who considered silver more valuable than gold, for a simple reason--like the later Ptolemies, they had an easier time getting hold of gold. Most countries though (not just China, and including much of Europe) used a silver standard for money, with a gold coinage sometimes coexisting with the silver.

[Reverend Joe]

EB:

FUN FOR ACCOUNTANTS, TOO!

[CirdanDharix]

I'm not an accountant! I'm a financial analyst!