On a book-keeping error in the accounts of Dion. This article proposes a solution to an incoherent calculation identified on lines 8 and 9 of the famous Account of Dion relative to the Pythia (CID II, 139/ CID IV, 57), where a list of expenses occasioned by the preparation of the Pythian games of 246 B. C. are recorded. In effect, 270 medimnoi of earth sold at 1 ¾ obols per medimnos do not equal 43 staters and a half-obol, (...) as is inscribed on the stone, but 39 staters and 4 ½ obols, according to the Aeginetan system used by the accountants of the Delphic Amphictyony. We propose a solution that may explain the inscribed amounts without needing to correct the numbers that can be read on the stone ; it is the accountant of the Amphictyony who should be charged with this miscalculation of which Agazalos, the master-mason who provided the earth for the xystos, took advantage. (shrink)

To be monetised, a society requires a unit which measures the values of a wide range of goods. Being thus measurable, the values of goods are mutually commensurable, a point which Aristotle theorised in the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (Book V). But whereas Aristotle gives rise to the impression that the stipulation of a currency unit suffices to make goods commensurable, societies themselves must undergo a process of commensurabilisation whereby people become habituated to valuing goods in terms of a unit of value. (...) This essay examines the development of practices of valuation and commensurability in ancient Greece, paying particular attention to the rule of Solon and his division of the citizenry into census classes according to their yearly income. The assessment of citizens’ income presupposes a unit for measuring income. The stipulation of this unit, it is argued, had a decisive influence in developing practices of valuation and commensurability. (shrink)