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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bing, post: 2028086, member: 44132&quot;]From Wikipedia:</p><p>It is difficult to estimate comparative exchange rates with modern currency because the range of products produced by economies of centuries gone by were different from today, which makes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity" rel="nofollow">purchasing power parity (PPP)</a>calculations very difficult; however, some historians and economists have estimated that in the 5th century BC a drachma had a rough value of 25 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar" rel="nofollow">U.S. dollars</a> (in the year 1990 – equivalent to 41 USD in 2009<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-10" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-10" rel="nofollow">[7]</a>), whereas classical historians regularly say that in the heyday of ancient Greece (the fifth and fourth centuries) the daily wage for a skilled worker or a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite" rel="nofollow">hoplite</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-11" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-11" rel="nofollow">[8]</a> was one drachma, and for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliaia" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliaia" rel="nofollow">heliast</a> (juror) half a drachma since 425 BC.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-12" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-12" rel="nofollow">[9]</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Modern commentators derived from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon" rel="nofollow">Xenophon</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-13" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_drachma#cite_note-13" rel="nofollow">[10]</a> that half a drachma per day (360 days per year) would provide &quot;a comfortable subsistence&quot; for &quot;the poor citizens&quot; (for the head of a household in 355 BC). Earlier in 422 BC, we also see in Aristophanes (<i>Wasps</i>, line 300-302) that the daily half-drachma of a juror is just enough for the daily subsistence of a family of three.</p><p><br /></p><p>A modern person might think of one drachma as the rough equivalent of a skilled worker&#039;s daily pay in the place where they live, which could be as low as $1 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USD" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USD" rel="nofollow">USD</a>, or as high as $100 USD, depending on the country.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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