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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Juan Blanco, post: 1580340, member: 41665&quot;]medoraman-</p><p>I cannot even follow what you&#039;re saying. You (not I) wrote &quot;The shekels of Tyre had only been minted in Jerusalem for the previous 50 years or so to allow the Jews to use the coins they preferred&quot; in #44; I did not introduce that comparison here. Your misunderstanding follows<i> your own comment</i>, not mine. Maybe Josphus Flavius meant &#039;shekels&#039; ...if that&#039;s what you&#039;re getting at (without explaining YOUR switch)... but he did, in fact, write &quot;drachm&quot; and &quot;modius&quot; in the same sentence (according to all the translations.) Translating for the Emperor Vespasian and estimating weights/prices from 100 years earlier, the &#039;modius&#039; and &#039;drachm&#039; conversions Josephus have been called into question by modern scholars. Many scholars have disagreed with his purported Wheat price, on closer examination. </p><p><br /></p><p>If we&#039;re getting speculative, among the Jews of Jerusalem the commonest measure for grains was the <i>ephah,</i> then the smaller <i>seah </i>(modius equivalent?) For the latter, Judaic scholars have noted that local variants and perhaps even a double-measure may have existed. Josephus rated the <i>ephah </i>at 72 <i>sextarii </i>(1.12 bushels ~67 lbs avd). If 1 liter of wheat weighs 0.714 kgs, the range is an <i>ephah </i>of 39 or 44 liters (27.8 kgs/61.4 lbs avd. or 31.4 kgs/69.3 lbs avd.) which approximates the US Bushel weight (~8-10 gallons dry measure = 1 US Bushel) of 60 lbs avd wheat. The <i>seah </i>calc&#039;s 1/3rd the <i>ephah</i>, ~ 21-23 lbs avd., almost identical to the lighter &quot;Italian <i>modius</i>&quot; (there are heavier <i>modius </i>variants, too) is too light - what I suppose to be Josephus&#039; error in substitution, confusing the <i>ephah </i>with the <i>seah.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>If the <i>ephah </i>sold for 11, the <i>seah </i>sold for 3.63 &quot;drachma.&quot; Coin-weight isn&#039;t the major discrepancy here, it&#039;s the <i>modius</i>/<i>seah</i>. In the brief 65 BCE Food Crisis event (cited only by Josephus) the price of Wheat was not astronomically 16x higher, but <b>more like ~3x.</b> </p><p>On the &quot;11 drachmæ,&quot; Josephus elsewhere notes the value of 4 Attic <i>drachmæ </i>or 4 d<i>enarii </i>per shekel (not the Sanctuary Shekel but instead the ordinary shekel.) </p><p>Taking the <i>ordinary shekel</i> @ 11.4 grams pure Ag, &quot;11 drachmæ&quot; = 31.35 grams Ag. </p><p>Taking the mint-weight of the Tetradrachm @ 13.65 grams pure Ag, &quot;11 drachmæ&quot; = 37.54 grams Ag. </p><p>Taking the denarius @ 3.04 = 33.44 grams Ag. </p><p><br /></p><p>During the reign of Claudius, <b>a very severe famine </b>was noted in Greece, circa AD 48-50 (Greswell, <i>Dissertations</i>, 1830 p.20) &quot;according to Eusebius, in Chronico, it was the case in Greece also. He speaks of a famine in Greece, in the ninth {year} of Claudius, A. U. 802; when the modius or peck of corn, rose to six drachma; or denarii in price, that is, <b>to six times its usual value.</b> The ordinary price of the modius of bread-corn was one drachma, or denarius, and not more.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Shortly thereafter (AD 52, 54) according to George Syncellus, as the famine progressed at Corinth the price of grain around was 48 sesterii (12 denarii) <b>to twelve times its usual value.</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p>That&#039;s about the maximum range I&#039;ve seen so far, in Silver.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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