5. The Cereal Stele
Not a few problems concerning the agrarian ancl agricultural state of Cyrene in the last decades of the 4th century B.C. are raised by the contents of the well-known Cyrenean inscription which records the despatch of 805,000 medimini[610] of grain (σίτος) to a number of Greek cities and islands, and a few other towns, in the reign of Alexander the Great.[611] The recipient communities were apparently Macedonian allies, which had been hit by a scarcity of grain artificially created by the Egyptian monopoly. The inscription has been dated between 330 and 328 by Oliverio,[612] between 330 and 325 by Ferri,[613] and between 331 and 328 by Zebelev.[614] For the purposes of the present discussion the exact date and political background are not so important, but three questions require an answer and these are: What was the unit of volume used in the inscription? What does σίτος mean in relation to the consignment? and over how many years did the consignments extend?
Oliverio[615] assumes that the Attic medimnus is the unit of measurement used in the cereal inscription; de Sanctis[616] thought that the Aeginetan medimnus, the equivalent of 1.5 Attic medimni, was meant. But if we consider the wheat prices of the Demiurgi steles, we shall see at once that Oliverio was right, since Cyrenean grain was sold in the 4th century at prices below those of mainland Greece,[617] and if we assume the Aeginetan medimnus, Cyrenean prices fall by an additional third. On this point, Heichelheim[618] concurs with Oliverio.
614
S. Zebelev,
617
Eg. the price of wheat at Cyrene: 1 dr. 4/5; in Greece: 3-9 dr.; Cyrene, barley, 1-2 dr.; Greece, 2-5 dr.