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Calculo—Logistes—ḥashban

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. Sperber
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

Extract

In the opening passage of the Breviarium of Festus (1. I) (written probably c. A.D. 369/70) we read the following: ‘… ac morem secutus calculonum, qui ingentes summas aeris breuioribus exprimunt, res gestas signabo, non eloquar. Accipe ergo quod breuiter dictis breuis conputetur …’ The problem that I should like briefly to discuss in the following study is: Who were the calculones, ‘qui ingentes surnmas aeris breuioribus exprimunt’? This term calculo, and indeed the whole problematic clause can, I suggest, only be fully understood and appreciated in the light of monetary developments of the later fourth century.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1969

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References

1 The idea for this study came to me when first I learned of this passage from Festus. This was at a seminar held in the Warburg Institute on 4 Mar. 1968, in which Prof. W. den Boer read a paper on the Breviarium of Festus. It was he who first pointed out this problem, and I then hazarded an explanation, the substance of which, in a developed form, constitutes the following study. The following abbreviations have been used: d. = denarius; sol. = solidus; mod. = modius; art. = artab; R. Rabbi; b. = ben or bar (son of); J. = Jerushalmi (= Palestinian Talmud); M. = myriad; para. = paragraph. For the Festus text see Eadie, J. W., ed. (London, 1967), p. 45.Google Scholar For the date of composition see ibid., pp. 1–3.

2 The foregoing examples have been taken from Byzantine Egypt: Economic Studies, by Johnson, A. C. and West, L. C. (Princeton, 1949), PP. 175 ffGoogle Scholar

3 See his Greek and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (Hebrew, ) ed., Jerusalem (1962), P. 4 n. 24.Google Scholar See also his remarks in Annuaire de L'Institut de philologie et d'histoire orientales et slaves, vii (19391944), P. 434 n. 4,Google Scholar and his Tosefta ki-fshuṭah, Zera'im, vol. ii (New York, 1955), P. 718 n. 39.Google Scholar

4 I have discussed texts a and b in Archiv Orientálni, xxxiv (1966), pp. 61–2, 65. There I have gone into the problem of dating in some detail.Google Scholar

1 What is, of course, meant is that he had the equivalent of that sum in his purse, probably only a couple of solidi, in effect. See papyrological evidence cited above and see below.

2 Cf. P.Lond. 247, of c. 347, cited above.

3 This is the reading in the ed. pr., Constantinople 1522 (40 d 15–16) = Venice ed., 1545 (39 a 41) (with some very minor changes). The fact that no units of currency are mentioned also points to this passage's being from the fourth century, as it is common in texts of this period to find that the names of the debased units (usually denarii) have been omitted.

4 Mantua ed., 1563 (38 b 34), corrected by Menahem Azariah of Pano, followed by Verona ed. of 1595 (34 a bottom), etc.

5 Warsaw ed. of 1877.

6 Buber in his Tanhuma edition, Exodus, p. 84 n. 48 (Wilna, 1885).

7 The operation is exactly the same in the original Hebrew.

8 See also Tanhuma Exodus, Mishpatim, para. 9, which mentions a large sum of ‘10 myriads’ worth the equivalent of homes and fields. (But cf. the parallel in Exodus Rabba which reads ‘I maneh’ = 100 d.) The text is anonymous and difficult to date. See above, n. 1.

9 I have discussed these inscriptions with Gideon Forster (of the Institute of Archaeology, Jerusalem) and he agrees that they cannot be later than the fourth century, especially in view of the (non-Christian) names.

10 Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1904–35 and 1909, Section III, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, part A (Southern), ed. E. Littman, D. Magie, and D. R. Stuart (Leyden, 1921), no. 78714, p. 392.

11 Ibid. 7904, p. 401.

1 See the remarks of West, L. C. and Johnson, A. C., in Currency in Roman and Byzantine Egypt (Princeton, 1944), pp. 170Google Scholar et seq.; Johnson in Egypt and the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, 1951), p. 59; Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1964), I, P. 440.Google Scholar

2 Patrologia Orientalis 4/5, ed. Bousquet and Nau (Paris, 1907), pp. 455–8 (Greek), and ed. Bedjan, , in Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, vol. 5 (Paris, 1895), pp. 148–51Google Scholar (Syriac). See also The Book of Paradise of Palladius, etc., ed. Wallis-Budge, E. A. (London, 1904), i. PP. 455–7 = 11. pp. 321–4.Google Scholar

3 Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon, iii (Gottingen, 1959), p. I, S.V. Pachomius.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Diocletian's Edict of Maximum Prices (of the year 301), III, a-3, ed. Graser, (apud Tenney Frank, An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, vol. v, Baltimore, 1940), pp. 322–3.Google Scholar

5 See my remarks in Archly Orientcilni, loc. cit., pp. 61–2.

6 See also my discussion in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, ix, 3(1966), pp. 207–11 (where some corrections are required).Google Scholar

7 See Cod. Theod. 12. 6. 12–13, of 366–7; 12. 7. 3; Of 367; 12. 13. 14. of 379; and 7. 24. I, of 395.

8 Ibid. 9. 23.1 of 352. See also J. Ma'aser Sheni, 4. I (54 d 17–21) and my discussion on this text in Archiv Orientcilni, loc. cit., pp. 61–2, and in an article to be published in Numismatic Chronicle (1968) (ad fin.) in greater detail.

9 To mention but a few of the more important studies: Segrè, A., Metrologia e circolazione monetaria degli antichi (Bologna, 1928), pp. 454–6,Google Scholar 489–90; id., Byzantion, xv, p. 263; Jones, , Econ. Hist. Rev. v/3 (1953), pp. 308–11;Google ScholarRuggini, L., Rendiconti dei Lincei, xvi (1961), p. 311;Google Scholar West and Johnson, Currency, etc., pp. 170 ff.; Rémondon, , Chronique d'Ègypte, xxvi (1956), p. 146; etc., etc.Google Scholar

10 Taxes were collected in gold before that year (cf. Cod. Theod. 11. 9. 2, of 337, for example), but after 366/7 all taxes had to be paid in pure gold.

1 In the Codex Theodosianus we find the tax accountants are called logographi (Cod. Theod. 8. 2; 8. 4. 8; 8. 7. 6; 8. 7. 11; 11. 4. Also in Cod. lust. 10. 69. I, Dig. 50. 4. 18.10)o We also find the term rationes (ibid. 8. 5. 23, etc.).

2 SeeSouter, A., A Glossary of Later Latin (Oxford, 1964), p. 356, s.v. citing Ang. ord. 2. 12. 35 (of the year 386–7) and Anth. 96. I.Google Scholar

3 Liddell and Scott2, p. 1056b, s.v. II. 2.

4 West and Johnson, , Byzantine Egypt: Economic Studies, p. 323.Google Scholar

5 ibid., pp. 103, Mi. 18, 164, 173, 325, etc.

6 Jastrow, M., Dictionary of the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, p. 696b, s.v., and S. Krauss, Griechische und lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum, ii (Berlin, 1899), p. 308b, s.v.Google Scholar

7 = Yalkut Lev., para 479; cf. Yalkut Micah, para. 555 and Tanhuma Buber, Lev. p. 12. 8 allowance, here probably meaning a bribe. See Jastrow, , Dictionary, p. 106a, s.v.Google Scholar

9 This is an anonymous text, undated, but probably of the later fourth century.

10 Quoted as coming from Deuteronomy Zuta, a rather obscure and little-known Midrash. (See Zunz-Albeck, , Ha-Derashot beYisrael, Jerusalem, 1959, pp. 123, 391–2.)Google Scholar See Buber, S., Likkutim (Vienna, 1895), p. 3. The text is not easily datable.Google Scholar

11 Such is the reading in the ed. pr., Salonica 1526–7. In subsequent editions it was altered to hḥeshbon (which makes no real sense in this context). In modern ed. (Berlin, 1926, etc.) the word agronomos has been substituted without warrant.

12 cibar(ius). See my article, ‘Pat Kibar’, in Tarbiz, xxxvi/2, ( Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 199–201.

1 For the Syriac usage of this word see Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, ed. McLean, and Wright, (Cambridge, 1898), p. 339, line 6,Google Scholar and History of the Martyrs of Palestine by Eusebius, ed.Cureton, W. (London, 1861), p. 34 n. 2.Google Scholar See Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum 2, p. 359a, s.v., and Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, 1904b, s.v. See also Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, ed. Bedjan, , vol. i (Paris, 1890), p. 251Google Scholar, line, (referred to in Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacus, etc., ed. Margoliouth, J. P., Oxford, 1927, p. 177b, s.v.).Google Scholar