In an effort to control high inflation caused by soaring government spending, Diocletian and his co-emperors issued an edict in 301 C.E. setting maximum prices and wages for the first time in Roman history. Their orders proved impossible to enforce across the vast empire. The chances for success were small in any case, as setting fixed prices tends to lead people to reduce production of goods and hoard those that are available. The high-sounding language was typical of imperial bureaucracy under the dominate.

Recalling the wars that we have successfully waged, it is to the fortune of our republic, next to the immortal gods, that we owe the peaceful state of our world, located in the lap of the deepest tranquility, and the benefits of peace, which we worked for with great effort. Our honorable public and Rome’s respectability and majesty long for this fortune to be faithfully established and suitably adorned. Therefore, we, who with the kind support of the gods in the past overcame the blazing raids of the barbarian peoples by slaughtering those nations, must fortify the tranquility that we established for eternity with the necessary defenses of justice. . . .

It is agreed that we [the co-emperors], who are the parents of the human race, are to bring decisive justice to the situation, so that what humanity has long hoped for but not been able to provide will be conferred by the solutions of our foresight for the common improvement of everyone. . . .

Who then could be unaware that audacity lies in wait to attack the public interest wherever the common well-being of everyone demands that our armies be directed, not only in villages or towns but on every march, jacking up prices for goods for sale not four or eight times, but to such a height that the system of human speech cannot find names for this pricing and this deed. And so the result is that the sale of a single item deprives the soldier of his bonus and his pay, and that all the taxes paid by the entire world to support the armies fall victim to this detestable profit seeking. . . .

It is our decision that, if anyone makes an effort through daring to go against this edict, he shall be subject to capital punishment. . . .

Listed below are the prices for the sale of individual items; no one may exceed them. [These examples are selections from the edict’s long list of maximum allowed prices and wages. A sextarius was about half a liter. The Roman pound was about three-quarters of a U.S. pound. The silver coin was the denarius. A soldier at this date earned eighteen hundred silver coins per year.]

Prices for food

Sextarius of first-quality old wine, 24 silver coins

Sextarius of country wine, 8 silver coins

Sextarius of beer from Gaul, 4 silver coins

Sextarius of beer from Egypt, 2 silver coins

Pound of pork, 12 silver coins

Pound of goat or sheep, 8 silver coins

Fattened pheasant, 250 silver coins

Pair of chickens, 60 silver coins

Pound of second-quality fish, 16 silver coins

Wages for workers

Daily pay for a farm laborer, with food, 25 silver coins

Daily pay for a finish carpenter, with food, 50 silver coins

Baker, with food, 50 silver coins

Mule doctor, for trimming and preparing hoofs, 6 silver coins per animal

Scribe, for first-quality writing, 25 silver coins per 100 lines

Scribe, for second-quality writing, 20 silver coins per 100 lines

Elementary teacher, 50 silver coins per student per month

Greek, Latin, or geometry teacher, 200 silver coins per student per month

Public speaking teacher, 250 silver coins per student per month

Legal expert or speaker in court, 1,000 silver coins per case

Source: Diocletiani edictum de pretiis rerum venalium. Translation by Thomas R. Martin.

Question to Consider

What do the maximum prices set reveal about what society most valued in the late Roman Empire?