What could you buy with every coin denomination in ancient Greece ?

[Kosmas]

What could you buy with every coin denomination in ancient Greece ? What could you buy with an obol , with a drachm , or a tetradrachm for example ?

NOT MY COINS

Edited August 31, 2022 by Kosmas

[shanxi]

Here is something from the BM:

http://teachinghistory100.org/objects/about_the_object/a_silver_coin_from_athens

[Prieure de Sion]

Can it be said so simply? Is there "one" ancient Greek coin? Especially at what time? There were so many epochs, so many small states, so many nominals. I don't think you can make a general statement - can you?

These are just a few of many examples (in German, but you can have them translated into English in your browser).

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attisches_Talent 

https://www.ingolstadt.de/stadtmuseum/scheuerer/museum/geldwert.htm

 

And here is an interesting publication that you can download for free:

https://www.academia.edu/43323082/Antike_Münzen_Griechenland_Band_I_Afrika_Naher_und_Mittlerer_Osten_Indien_und_Zentralasien

Here are just the most important classifications, not to mention all the pentonkion, hemilitra and so on. In the publication you can see quite well what masses of nominals and units were in circulation. And then you would have to define: when? where? 

[ewomack]

Cynic texts contain numerous references to obols. They often use them as signs or metaphors for something almost humiliatingly cheap or of very low quality. Here are only a few examples, often cited in sources of later date than the alleged speakers.

ANTISTHENES (c. 446-366 B.C.)
"...that things of great value were often sold for nothing, and vice versa. Accordingly, that a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas, and a bushel of meal only two obols;"

"Set aside ten minas for a chef, a drachma for the doctor. Five talents for a flatterer, for council-smoke. A talent for a whore, three obols for a philosopher."

"Take Aphrodite that walks the market-place, she brings not repentance. She's there whenever you like, whenever you want her, nothing to fear or fret over. For an obol you may lie with her, and think yourself son-in-law to Tyndarus."
 

Diogenes (c. 412 - 323 B.C.)
"Diogenes, ' he took him away and gave him a cheese to carry, which cost half an obol. The other declined; whereupon he remarked, 'The friendship between you and me is broken by a little cheese worth half an obol.'”

"Diogenes distracted his audience by producing some salt fish. This annoyed the lecturer, and Diogenes said, 'An obol’s worth of salt fish has broken up Anaximenes’ lecture-class.'”