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Message:: [QUOTE="Juan Blanco, post: 1580578, member: 41665"]c.AD 300-3 Antioch Famine: Under Constantine, Antioch (Syria) suffered "so terrible a famine, that a modius of wheat was sold for 400 pieces of silver." Suppose 400 pieces of Silver is the the Silvered penny (nummus). At 2.48 grams and 1.0% Ag = 0.0248 gr x 400 ~ 10 gr pure Ag (intrinsic) 3.3 Denarii (of Domitian, ~3.04 gr) Presumably not the bigger modius castrensis (1.5 modii) and a wholesale price, the Antioch Famine of c.AD 333 is 3x worse than AD 93 Price Event in Pisidia, as measured in Silver. Incidentally, the Famine Rate is equivalent to a very low USD Silver/Wheat price of USD$ 0.50, perhaps indicative of debasement rather than an unknown (AD 333, local) Silver Price. In AD 305 wages, the typical Wheat price per modius castrensis was 4 nummi (1.72 gr Pure Ag) or about 1/2 of 1 'Denarius of Domitian.' So in the Antioch Famine of c.AD 333, the Wheat Price (in 'Silver Money') was almost 6x higher than average. I'm wary of this theoretical Silver rate, however, because the nummus value against Gold/Silver was volatile and unknown here. Background to the 'Universal' Famines of 1877 & 1899<a href="http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5516" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5516" rel="nofollow"></a><a href="http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5516" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5516" rel="nofollow">http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5516</a> Incredible Famine, Shanxi China 1876-79:The monetary situation in Shanxi (the worst area for the famine) is far too complicated for me to understand: there appears a complete breakdown in societal order, heart-breaking poverty in addition to the El Nino drought. Grain was available, it seems MONEY was not, and the distilleries never closed. Absolutely NOTHING suggests the relative value of Silver money or Silver (bullion) fell during this Food Crisis. Silver is obviously useless metric for suffering - the starving apparently had none, they were killing each other & robbing, selling children, etc. for any money they could get. Quite opposed to the Paper-Bug's adage, in famine-stricken China 1877, data suggests Ag was a superior provision for 3-4x 'inflated prices' and better than cash. In his Monograph on the history of money in China, from the earliest times... Alexander Del Mar (1880) describes a fluctuating underground money market, monetary crisis of a commodity nature (copper) and endemic corruption, etc. but he doesn't mention the famine nor the poverty. In Shanxi province (where 9.5 mln of 15 mln perished) The North China Daily News (Shanghai, February 18, 1878) reported "in Lu-ngan Fu he found that the winter wheat had not been planted, and that the country, its own provisions of grain exhausted, was depending upon the importations {...} Flour was selling at 60 or 70 cash per catty, which is three or four times the ordinary price." (45-53 quian per lb.avd = T$ 0.045 - 0.053) A missionary wrote in February 1877 "The soft stone is sold at prices varying from two to five cash per catty, according to distance of carriage. Bark is sold at from five to seven cents per catty at the places where I inquired. The roots of rushes are dug and eaten. This causes the face to swell, and the stone, when taken in large quantities, has the same effect as chalk; people die of constipation. The price of grain is three or four times the usual rate, and the price of turnips and cabbages fire and six times. Flour costs seven, eight, or nine cash an ounce, according to the place at which it is bought." (84-108 quian per lb.avd = T$ 0.08 - 0.11) A Chinese official wondered why distilleries in neighboring Chihili were still brewing grain: "Reckoning two {catty} of grain as sufficient to feed one person one day, and it seems that the distilleries in question are daily consuming the food of between two and three millions of human beings. The establishments named are continually buying up and using both the grain grown within the province and that from abroad, with the result that there is a scarcity of food for the people, for although there is no lack of grain brought here from far and near by merchants for sale, the price is not, as usual, moderate. {...} As now the provinces of Chihli and Shansi, being famine stricken, are looking to the grain of Manchuria for food supplies, it is certainly trying to one's patience to learn that the distilleries are controlling that market. A person may abstain from liquor for an entire year, but if he does not eat twice each day, he suffers from hunger. There is an original difference between these two articles of food and liqnor." The High Price for Rice (mi) was 1,000 qianper dou (retail?) in 1877. 1,000 qian = 1 tael @ 37.8 grams Ag per = 1.2153 Troy Oz Pure Ag = Trade $ 1.71471 dou = 10 liters or 2.27 dry gallons = 5 kilograms/ 11 pounds avoirdupois of rice = Trade $ 0.1559 per lb avd, for rice sold retail.10 dou = 1 shi = 140 lbs avd. ; 1 'ton' (?) = 12 shih = 1,680 lbs avd. @ "48 taels" per 'ton' in 1877 (Report on the Famine WF Mayers, 10/30/1877) = T$ 60.95 : Assuming Trade $ 0.0363 per lb avd, for rice sold wholesale is consistent with the other US Consular reports cited above.[/QUOTE]

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