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

food grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and l ...

.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 ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...

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

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...

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

History

The medimnos originated in

Corinth Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...

and was adopted as a unit of measurement by

Classical Athens The city of Athens ( grc, Ἀθῆναι, ''Athênai'' .tʰɛ̂ː.nai̯ Modern Greek: Αθήναι, ''Athine'' or, more commonly and in singular, Αθήνα, ''Athina'' .'θi.na during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC) wa ...

and

Megara Megara (; el, Μέγαρα, ) 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, befo ...

as well as various other Greek

poleis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...

. It was the measure used by

Solon Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politics'' ...

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 compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

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. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponics ...

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

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 kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially ...

s of

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

, or 31 kg of

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...

. 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 ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

, during the reign of Xerxes II of Persia, the

Satrap A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...

(

Tritantaechmes Tritantaechmes ( peo, 𐎨𐎡𐏂𐎫𐎧𐎶, translit=Ciçantakhma, 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 Cyax ...

, son of

Artabazos I of Phrygia Artabazos ( grc, Ἀρτάβαζος; fl. 480 BC - 455 BC) was a 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. ...

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

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

, in the

Roman army The Roman army (Latin: ) was the armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom (c. 500 BC) to the Roman Republic (500–31 BC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC–395 AD), and its medieval contin ...

at the time of the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146BC fought between Roman Republic, Rome and Ancient Carthage, Carthage. Three conflicts between these states took place on both land and sea across the western Mediterranean region and i ...

“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 (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...

, mentions that during the 13th year of

Herod the Great Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renov ...

'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 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman people, 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 Caes ...

, 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 ( grc-gre, Ἐπιφάνιος; c. 310–320 – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gai ...

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 ( el, Πάφος ; tr, Baf) is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos. The current city of Pap ...

and the

Sicilians Sicilians or the Sicilian people are a Romance speaking people who are indigenous to the island of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the largest and most populous of the autonomous regions of Italy. Origin and i ...

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

History

Ancient sources

References

Further reading