What Did Things Cost in Ancient Rome? Bread, Wine, Wages & Rent

Romans left us surprisingly good price data. Shopkeepers in Pompeii scratched prices onto walls, soldiers' pay was recorded by historians like Tacitus and Suetonius, and in 301 CE the emperor Diocletian published a list of maximum prices for more than a thousand goods and services.

This guide walks through what everyday life cost, using the coin system of the early Empire. A quick reference: 1 gold aureus = 25 silver denarii = 100 brass sesterces = 400 copper asses. A denarius was roughly a day's pay for a laborer — about $40–45 in modern spending power.

Wages: what Romans earned

Soldiers did not take home their full pay. Food, clothing, boots, tent contributions and burial club fees were deducted, which is part of why donatives — cash bonuses from new emperors — mattered so much.

• Unskilled laborer: about 1 denarius (4 sesterces) per day
• Legionary under Augustus: 225 denarii per year, before deductions for food and gear
• Legionary under Domitian (from about 84 CE): 300 denarii per year
• Praetorian guard: roughly three times a legionary's pay
• Middle-class threshold: Pliny and others treated 400,000 sesterces of property as the entry bar for the equestrian order

Food and drink at Pompeii

Graffiti preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE give a rare street-level view. One inn's wall lists wine at 1 as for ordinary, 2 asses for better, and 4 asses for Falernian, the famous premium vintage. With 16 asses to a denarius, a cup of good wine cost about an eighth of a day's wage.

A loaf of bread cost roughly 2 asses. A modius (about 8.7 liters) of wheat ran around 3 sesterces in normal years, though prices spiked in famines. Grain was so politically sensitive that Rome handed out free monthly rations to around 200,000 citizens.

Housing and big-ticket items

Rent in the city of Rome was notoriously expensive. Julius Caesar once remitted rents up to 2,000 sesterces a year — a sign that ordinary apartments cost about that much, or around 500 denarii. Most Romans lived in crowded insulae, apartment blocks prone to fire and collapse.

Enslaved people were bought and sold, with prices recorded in contracts from 500 to several thousand denarii depending on age and skills. A mule or horse could cost hundreds of denarii — far beyond what a laborer could save quickly.

Diocletian's Edict: price controls that failed

By 301 CE the denarius had collapsed (see our article on Roman inflation), and Diocletian tried to freeze prices by law. His Edict on Maximum Prices set ceilings in a new, nearly worthless 'denarius communis': a farm laborer's daily wage at 25 denarii plus food, a pound of pork at 12, a pair of soldier's boots at 100.

Merchants simply withheld goods and the law was ignored within a few years. It remains one of the clearest historical warnings about trying to fix inflation with price caps instead of sound money.

Putting it in modern terms

Converting ancient prices is always approximate. The most honest method compares prices to wages: if a laborer earned 1 denarius a day and bread cost 2 asses, a day's pay bought about 8 loaves. Use the Ancient Currency Converter to translate any amount into rough modern dollars, and the Inflation Calculator to compare with modern prices across decades.