How Much Did Everything Cost?

A termopolium, a hot food and drink counter, Pompeii. The frescoes on the front related to the contents of the jars in the counter.

It's well known that in ancient Rome, citizens of the Eternal City would receive a dole of bread and oil and that the provision of such, alongside a steady supply of entertainment - Juvenal's famous panem et circenses (Satires X) - was enough to keep everyone happy and chuntering along without setting fire to the forum and throwing the senate into the Tiber.

That didn't mean everyone got free bread, of course. Only those who mattered got the 'dole', and by 'mattered', one should read 'able to vote'. Everyone else - the poor who actually needed free food - could swing for it. That didn't mean that even the poorest were without a welfare safety net entirely, but just that they weren't deemed worthy of being bribed with free stuff to keep them onside. Contrary to the allocation of free food, everyone got to go to the games.

Rome was an economic powerhouse, and although it wasn't what Marx would call a capitalist society - if I can paraphrase the grumpy old German, capitalism is the exploitation of workers for excess profit - it was still one in which selling shit to people was a central core fo the economic model. The main difference is that most people weren't sold shit they didn't need, like diet coke in a selection of different-sized containers for your 'convenience' where 'convenience' is a buzzword for 'selling you the same shit twice.'

Like all major modern cities, going out to eat was just as easy, or even easier, than staying home and cooking. The excavations at Pompeii are filled with all manner of roadside eateries selling freshly prepared food to the hungry. But how much did all this stuff actually cost? How much was a loaf of bread? Or wine? How about shoes? Let's take a look!

By examining prices from primary sources such as Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices (AD 301), Pompeian graffiti, legal texts, and accounts from writers like Pliny and Martial, we can reconstruct the economic realities of the Imperial period, which we'll focus on mostly because that's where the sources point us.

Before diving into prices, we should understand Roman currency. The empire used a tiered system:

• 1 gold aureus = 25 silver denarii

• 1 denarius = 4 brass sestertii

• 1 sestertius = 4 copper asses

Typical Wages:

• Legionary (early 1st century AD): 225 denarii (900 sestertii) per year (Tacitus, Annals 1.17).

• Legionary (post-Domitian, AD 81–96): 300 denarii (1,200 sestertii) per year.

• Skilled labourer (e.g., carpenter): 5 denarii (20 sestertii) per day (Edict of Diocletian 7.1–7.3).

Staples: Bread, Grain, and Olive Oil

Grain was the backbone of the Roman diet. Prices varied by region and era:

• Wheat: 3 sestertii per modius (6.5 kg) in Pompeii (CIL IV 5380).

• Bread: 2 asses (½ sestertius) for a 1-pound loaf (Edict 1.1).

• Olive oil: 40 denarii (160 sestertii) per pint (Edict 3.1).

What This Meant for a Soldier:

• A 900 sestertii salary could buy 300 modii of wheat—enough to feed a soldier for years.

• The bread was so cheap that even a labourer earning 20 sestertii/day could buy 40 loaves with a single day's pay.

Luxuries: Meat, Wine, and Spices

While bread was affordable, luxuries were another matter:

• Wine:

  • Cheap wine: 1 as (¼ sestertius) per litre (CIL IV 1679).

  • Falernian (premium wine): 30 sestertii per litre (Pliny, NH 14.56).

• Meat:

  • Pork: 12 denarii (48 sestertii) per pound (Edict 4.1).

  • Chicken: 60 denarii (240 sestertii) each (Edict 4.39).

• Spices:

  • Pepper: 15 denarii (60 sestertii) per pound (Edict 34.6)—5% of a soldier's annual pay!

A Labourer's Dilemma:

• A carpenter earning 20 sestertii/day could buy 80 litres of cheap wine but only 0.4 pounds of pork.

Eating Out vs. Cooking at Home

• Tavern meal (bread + wine): 1 as (¼ sestertius) (CIL IV 8567).

• Fine dining: Hundreds of sestertii (Martial, Epigrams 5.78).

Clothing and Household Goods: Tunics, Shoes, and Lamps

• Basic wool tunic: 50 denarii (200 sestertii) (Edict 19.1).

• Fine linen tunic: 1,500 denarii (6,000 sestertii!) (Edict 19.33).

• Peasant shoes: 60 denarii (240 sestertii) (Edict 19.52).

A Soldier's Budget:

• His 900 sestertii/year could buy 4 basic tunics—but not a single fine linen one.

Household Items: Pots, Lamps, and Beds

• Oil lamp: 4–20 denarii (16–80 sestertii) (Edict 15.1–15.4).

• Bronze pot: 100 denarii (400 sestertii) (Edict 16.1).

• Wooden bed: 120 sestertii (CIL IV 10676).

A Labourer's Reality:

• A 20 sestertii/day worker could buy a lamp in a day, but needed 20 days' wages for a pot.

Services: Barbers, Baths, and Brothels

• Haircut: 2 asses (½ sestertius) (Martial, Epigrams 7.83).

• Prostitute (Pompeii): 2–8 asses (0.5–2 sestertii) (CIL IV 2175).

For a Soldier:

• A haircut cost 0.05% of his daily pay.

Rome was a world in which some things were very cheap and others very expensive. The simple things that people needed to live their normal lives could be purchased at mostly very low cost and for everything else, people simply went without, made it themselves, or just saved up. The constant drive of 'choice' didn't exist so going out and spending money on things you didn't know you needed - like diet coke in 300 different containers - was never a factor. If you bought oil, you bought as much as you needed - you were never sold a litre of oil, plus another 12 pack of oil in smaller containers for 'convenience'. Capitalism - the exploitation of workers for excess profit - brought us such folly.

One of the most revealing and, perhaps, heartbreaking prices seen in the varied graffiti of ancient Pompeii is a simple line that reveals, among the passing value attributed to temporary goods, just how little human life could be traded for. It is a simple prostitute's sign that reads:

"I am yours for 1 as"

For a penny.

References and Further Reading:

• Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IV (CIL IV). Pompeian graffiti.

• Diocletian. (AD 301). Edict on Maximum Prices.

• Martial. (AD 86–102). Epigrams.

• Pliny the Elder. (AD 77–79). Natural History.

• Tacitus. (AD 109). Annals.