The Cost of Sea Travel in Ancient Greece
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Plato
Near the end of the Gorgias, in the midst of his effort to convince Callicles of the relative unimportance of oratory, Socrates makes the following interesting remark about the price of ferry tickets (511, trans. Walter Hamilton):
Navigation is a modest art that knows her place; she does not put on airs or make out that she has performed some brilliant feat, even though she achieves as much as forensic oratory; she brings a man safe from Aegina for no more than two obols, I believe, and even if he comes from Egypt or Pontus or ever so far away the utmost she charges for this great service, for conveying in safety, as I said, a man and his children and property and womenfolk, is two drachmae when he disembarks at the Piraeus; and the man who possesses this skill and has accomplished all this lands and walks about on the shore beside his ship in a quite unassuming way.
1 comment:
Figuring that silver is currently selling for $12 or so an ounce (= about 24 grams), and an obol was .72 grams of silver, a two-obol fare would come to about about 60 cents nowadays -- not an unreasonable price for a harbor ferry.
More surprising is the cost of passage to/from Egypt and Pontus (6 obols to the drachma = ~ $3.60 for the trip!). Which suggests either that Plato was terribly out of touch with prices for the common traveller or that the long-distance carriers made their profits on volume.
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