A medimnos (, ''médimnos'', plural μέδιμνοι, ''médimnoi'') was an Ancient Greek unit of volume, which was generally used to measure dry

food grain Food is any substance consumed by an organism for Nutrient, nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or Fungus, fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, protein (nutrient), proteins, vitamins, ...

.In ancient Greece, measures of capacity varied depending on whether they were being used to measure solids or liquids. (G.Rachet e M.F.Rachet, ''Dizionario Larousse della civiltà greca'', op. cit.) In

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

, it was approximately equal to 51.84 litres, although this volume was frequently subject to regional variation. For example, the

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

n medimnos was approximately equal to 71.16 litres. A medimnos could be divided into several smaller units: the tritaios (one third), the hekteus (one sixth), the hemiektos (one twelfth), the choinix (one forty-eighth) and the kotyle (0.27 L).

History

The medimnos originated in

Corinth Corinth ( ; , ) is a municipality in Corinthia in Greece. The successor to the ancient Corinth, ancient city of Corinth, it is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Sin ...

and was adopted as a unit of measurement by

Classical Athens The city of Athens (, ''Athênai'' ; Modern Greek: Αθήναι, ''Athine'' ) during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC) was the major urban centre of the notable '' polis'' ( city-state) of the same name, located in Attica, ...

and

Megara Megara (; , ) is a historic town and a municipality in West Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis Island, Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken ...

as well as various other Greek

poleis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...

. It was the measure used by

Solon Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. ...

to establish a Timocratic Constitution in Athens around 595 BCE. According to this constitution, various amounts of grain needed to be paid as

tax A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

to secure certain ranks or social statuses (for example, a payment of 500 medimnoi to become a military commander, but only 200 or less to become an agricultural worker). Since taxes could be paid in any of the foodstuffs common at the time (

agricultural crops A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same species a ...

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

etc.), it was necessary to adjust the actual volume being paid according to its relative value at the time of payment. After the reforms introduced in the second century BCE, the medimnos was set at 58.92 liters. The smaller units of division all remained the same, with the exception of the kotyle, which was 1/238 of a medimnos. It is difficult to ascertain how much a medimnos would have weighed. The weight of a medimnos is currently believed to be 40

kilogram The kilogram (also spelled kilogramme) is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand grams. It has the unit symbol kg. The word "kilogram" is formed from the combination of the metric prefix kilo- (m ...

s of

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

, or 31 kg of

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

. This difference is very significant in attempting to judge how much tribute would have been paid at the time. It is believed that an active adult male in the sixth century BCE would have needed to consume about eight medimnoi per year, with a typical female consuming a slightly lower amount. From these figures, it can be estimated that a young family including a father, a mother and three children would have consumed approximately 25 medimnoi every year. The payment required to receive a very high rank, therefore, would feed approximately 20 families.

Ancient sources

According to

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, during the reign of

Xerxes II of Persia Xerxes II (; ; ; died 424 BC) was a Persian king who was very briefly a ruler of the Achaemenid Empire, as the son and successor of Artaxerxes I. After a reign of forty-five days—where he only had control over the Persian heartlands— ...

, the

Satrap A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median kingdom, Median and Achaemenid Empire, Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic period, Hellenistic empi ...

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

(

Tritantaechmes Tritantaechmes (, Elamite: ''Ṣi-iš-šá-an-tak-ma'', Babylonian: ''Ši-it-ra-an-taḫ-ma'') was a king of the Sagartians, who ruled in Arbela (521 BCE). He claimed to be a descendant of the king Cyaxares of Media. In the summer of 521 BCE, T ...

, son of

Artabazos I of Phrygia Artabazos (; 480 BC - 455 BC) was a Persian people, Persian general in the army of Xerxes I, and later satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia (now northwest Turkey) under the Achaemenid dynasty, founder of the Pharnacid dynasty of satraps. He ...

) received an income of just over one ''medimnos'' of silver every day. This was equivalent to approximately 55 litres. According to

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

, in the

Roman army The Roman army () served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 1453), including the Western Roman Empire (collapsed Fall of the W ...

at the time of the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...

“the infantrymen receive two thirds of an Attic ''medimnos'' of wheat every month; the cavalry receive seven medimnoi of barley and two of wheat. In the allies' army, the infantry receive the same, while the cavalry receive one and a ''medimnos'' and a third of wheat and five ''medimnoi'' of barley”. The historian,

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

, mentions that during the 13th year of

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

's reign, the country had suffered from a prolonged drought, and the ground was barren and unable to produce fruit on that account. He then petitioned the man who had been made prefect of Egypt by

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war. He ...

, who allowed Herod's countrymen to purchase grain and to export it, insofar that "the number of ''cori'' of wheat, of ten Attic ''medimnos'' apiece, that were given to foreigners, amounted to ten thousand; and the number that was given in his own kingdom was eighty thousand."

Epiphanius of Salamis Epiphanius of Salamis (; – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the Christianity in the 4th century, 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Churche ...

has, likewise, mentioned the ''medimnos'', saying: "The ''m^enasis'' and the ''medimnos'' are taken, I think, from the language of the Romans, for in that language medium is interpreted 'middle.' ...But the ''medimnos'' varies among the Cyprians; for the people of Salamis, that is to say, of Constantia, have a ''medimnos'' of 5 '' modii'', while those of

Paphos Paphos, also spelled as Pafos, is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: #Old Paphos, Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and #New Paphos, New Paphos. It i ...

and the

Sicilians Sicilians () are a European ethnographic group who are indigenous to Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, as well as the largest and most populous of the autonomous regions of Italy. History The Sicilian people are indigenous to ...

measure it as 4½ ''modii''."Epiphanius, '' Treatise on Weights and Measures (Syriac Versian)'', (ed. James Elmer Dean), University of Chicago Press 1935, p. 41

References

* Plutarch's Lives The comparison of Aristides with Marcus Cato Chicago Style (17th ed.) Citation. Plutarch, John Dryden, and Arthur Hugh Clough.

History

Ancient sources

References

Further reading