University of Michigan Press, 1998. 2,347 Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation is a splendid contribution to an area of ancient economic history long in need of detailed study. L.'s important volume explodes numerous shibboleths that had gained acceptance in the absence of reliable empirical studies of Athenian labor costs. In fact, the last overall compilation of Athenian monetary figures was made in 1817 by Boeckh in Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, a brilliant work now marred by outdated methodology and by the proliferation of new source materials during the 19th and 20th centuries. But the paucity of factual data has not prevented the generation of grand theses buttressed by slight evidence, or historians' adoption as dogma of various subjective assertions based on isolated examples.
Wages thus raises seminal historiographical issues.
Finally, eighty pages of appendices delineate specific sums for individual costs. This book is, in short, an enormously valuable research tool that will facilitate studies of ancillary subjects, aid in the development of related theses and models, and permit scholars hereafter to challenge or confirm L.'s interpretations of specific testimonia. Here too, however, L. does not explore at length the implications of his conclusion. In contrast, L. does consider fully the individual items set forth in the various categories into which he divides labor costs. L. has considerably expanded Halperin's treatment by a magisterial consideration of many additional examples.