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APPEDIX 4
DIOCLETIA’S EDICT O MAXIMUM PRICES
Documentary evidence is of great importance for reconstructing the actual names,
provenience quarries, and monetary values of marble. Nineteen different types of marble
traded during the Late Empire are recorded in Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices
332
(A.D. 301). In an attempt to stop the rampaging inflation that was quickly undermining the
empire’s economy, the Edict fixed by law the prices that could be asked for all kinds of
merchandise, from dried beans and watermelons to the salaries of architects and lawyers.
322 The fact that marble is included in the list suggests that it was a heavily-traded
commodity, and that despite the state-controlled quarries there was a free market outside of
imperial control where prices were based on the laws of supply and demand.
Strangely enough, the Edict omits the names of marbles extremely popular in
antiquity like Pentelic from Attica, Naxian, Parian, and Tean, or the marble from Luna
with which so many monuments of Rome were built. It is difficult to understand why.
Perhaps the varieties not included had a much smaller market, but it is hard to imagine how
Egyptian red porphyry, the Imperial stone par excellence, could be more widespread than
Parian or Pentelic. The only possible, and not completely satisfactory answer is that the
Edict was written in Constantinople, and included the marble varieties used most
frequently in the eastern regions of the Empire. Maybe only the qualities that were most
322 Giacchero 1974, 125-230.