Finances, figures and fiction

Classical Quarterly

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 222-238

  Scheidel, Walter ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61949389558     PISSN: 00098388     EISSN: 14716844     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cq/46.1.222     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. See most notably T. Frank (ed.), An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, I-V (Baltimore, MD, 1933-40)
2. I. Shatzman, Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics (Bruxelles, 1975)
3. H.-U. von Freyberg, Kapitalverkehr und Handel im römischen Kaiserreich (27 v. Chr.-235 n. Chr.) (Freiburg i. Br., 1989)
4. S. Mratschek-Halfmann, Divites et praepotentes. Reichtum und soziale Stellung in der Literatur der Prinzipatszeit (Stuttgart, 1993)
5. The most comprehensive surveys are provided by E. Wölfflin, 'Sescenti, mille, centum, trecenti als unbestimmte und runde Zahlen', Archiv für Lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik 9 (1896), 177-192
6. idem, 'Zur Zahlensymbolik', loc. cit., 333-51
7. See also E. B. Lease, 'The Number Three, Mysterious, Mystic, Magic', CPh 14 (1919), 56-73
8. A. Dreizehnter, Die rhetorische Zahl. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen anhand der Zahlen 70 und 700 (Munich, 1978)
9. R. Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 238-56
10. R. Duncan-Jones, Money and Government in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 16-19
11. K. Menninger, Number Words and Number Symbols. A Cultural History of Numbers (Cambridge, MA & London, 1969), p. 153, defines 'round numbers' as 'numbers whose specific meanings are inflated into the indefinite "many"'. Wölfflin, 'Sescenti', 177, differentiates between 'indefinite' numbers (as in 'I have told you a hundred times' - which might stand for 7 or 8 times), and 'round' numbers (as in 'he makes 100 verses an hour' - instead of 70 or 80). For the present purposes, I would define numbers belonging to this last category as 'rounded'. As this paper is not concerned with the interpretation of particular figures, I will however give preference to the more general expression 'conventional numbers' that encompasses all the categories referred to above
12. The progression from 10 to 100 to 1,000, etc. follows a 'cyclical pattern', which consists of the successive powers of an established numerical base as can be expressed in words: T. Crump, The Anthropology of Numbers (Cambridge, 1990), p. 35
13. and G. Flegg, Numbers. Their History and Meaning (London, 1983), p. 36 (on powers of ten in the Indo-European languages)
14. For references from the Roman sources, see Wölfflin, 'Sescenti', 180-84 (on mille), 185-88 (on centum)
15. For a similar usage in past literature, cf., e.g. H. Candler, 'On the Symbolic Use of Number in the "Divina Commedia" and Elsewhere', Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature 30 (1895), 1-29, at 6-11
16. For the use of three times three in the Roman sources, see idem, 'Zahlensymbolik', 334-7
17. Meditat. 2.14 and 6.49, noted by Duncan-Jones, Money and Government, p. 17. This finding receives support from the annalistic habit of putting manpower losses of hostile armies or populations at 30,000: see Dreizehnter, op. cit., p. 6
18. Cf. also idem, 'Duodecimalsystem', 537-44, on 60 (with particularly rich references)
19. Duncan-Jones, Economy, p. 238
20. Duncan-Jones, Money and Government, pp. 53, 254
21. Cf. R. Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy (Cambridge, 1990), p. 81, and above, n. 3
22. but cf. W. Scheidel, 'Zur Angabe des Lebensalters in den römischen Grabinschriften Österreichs', RÖ 19/20 (1991/92), 151-3
23. The Latin Vita of Melania the Younger (fifth century a.d.) ascribes to her an estate with sixty hamlets, each with about 400 agricultural slaves (see M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology [London, 1980], p. 123)
24. E. G. Browne, An Abridged Translation of the History of Tabaristán Compiled about A.H. 613 (A.D. 1216) by Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Isfandiyár (Leyden & London, 1905)