Book 2
33
On another occasion he sent an agent to make a certain purchase for him. Learning that the agent had made a good bargain, but intended to charge him a high price, he proceeded to inform the man’s associates that he had been told he had purchased the goods at an excessive price, and that therefore he did not intend to recognize the transaction; denouncing at the same time with feigned anger the fellow’s stupidity. They on hearing this asked him not to believe what was said against the agent until he himself arrived and rendered his account. On the man’s arrival, his associates told him what Cleomenes had said. He, desirous of winning their approval as well as that of Cleomenes, debited the latter with the actual price he had given.
33
At a time when the price of grain in Egypt was ten drachmae 〈a measure〉 ,If the measure intended is the Attic medimnos , it is 1 1/2 bushels. The Persian artabe may however be meant, which was equal to 1 medimnos and 1/16th. In either case the price is very high compared with 3 drachmae per medimnos, the price at Athens in 390 B.C. Yet Polybius 9.44 says that at Rome during the war with Hannibal (210) corn was sold for fifteen drachmae per medimnos. As a contrast cf. what the same author says of the fertility of Gallia Cisalpina, where in time of peace this same measure of wheat was sold for four obols, and of barley for two. See note on 25. Cleomenes sent for the growers and asked them at what price they would contract to supply him with their produce. On their quoting a price lower than what they were charging the merchants, he offered them the full price they were accustomed to receive from others; and taking over the entire supply, sold it at a fixed rate of thirty-two drachmae 〈for the same measure〉.
