Wikipedia [1] has a more sober figure than the $15 billion claimed from the featured article, which is far below the wealth of modern athletes:
> In equivalent basic good purchasing power, Diocles' wealth would be between approximately $60 million and $160 million.
This appears to be supported by the table at the bottom of this page [2], which claims that a seaside villa in Naples cost about 3mil sesterces/sestertii. That makes the featured article's claim that 35mil sestertii is $15 billion questionable. Adjusting using seaside villa prices, 35mil sestertii (Diocles' wealth) is more like $7mil.
The $15bil figure appears to come from the "enough to pay the whole army for 1/5 of a year" stat multiplied by the modern-day USA figure [3] (by the way, [3] appears to be the source for much of the featured article).
As far as the "enough to pay the whole army for a few months" stat goes, the most common figure I can find for "annual pay for a legionary" during Diocles' life is 1200 sestertii, or 240 for 1/5 of a year [4]. 36mil/240 is 150,000, which does sound like a plausible (even high) number for the size of the Roman army. On the other hand, [2] claims that 1200 sestertii buys about 100 lbs of pork, so that means a soldier could expect to get paid about 1 Roman pig per year?
> A $7M villa, on the other hand, would be only ~230 years of labor for a US solider paid $30k a year.
Your parent comment says that, adjusted to modern villa prices, Diocles' entire wealth -- 35 million sestercii, enough to buy 12 standard seaside villas -- would amount to $7M. This would put the price of one villa at only $600,000, or 20 years' labor at $30k / year.
I'm with you on this analysis. CAFO or factory farms have made meat much cheaper; likewise with globalized supply chain. Abundant Florida waterfront real estate – and low cost of air travel – has contributed to a comparably increase in supply of seaside villa substitutes.
Yes, this seems mostly sourced from that Laphram's Quarterly article. I submitted it to HN a few years ago (although the article was a few years old itself) and there was a bit of a discussion back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12417179
> In equivalent basic good purchasing power, Diocles' wealth would be between approximately $60 million and $160 million.
This appears to be supported by the table at the bottom of this page [2], which claims that a seaside villa in Naples cost about 3mil sesterces/sestertii. That makes the featured article's claim that 35mil sestertii is $15 billion questionable. Adjusting using seaside villa prices, 35mil sestertii (Diocles' wealth) is more like $7mil.
The $15bil figure appears to come from the "enough to pay the whole army for 1/5 of a year" stat multiplied by the modern-day USA figure [3] (by the way, [3] appears to be the source for much of the featured article).
As far as the "enough to pay the whole army for a few months" stat goes, the most common figure I can find for "annual pay for a legionary" during Diocles' life is 1200 sestertii, or 240 for 1/5 of a year [4]. 36mil/240 is 150,000, which does sound like a plausible (even high) number for the size of the Roman army. On the other hand, [2] claims that 1200 sestertii buys about 100 lbs of pork, so that means a soldier could expect to get paid about 1 Roman pig per year?
Cross-era price comparisons are hard!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Appuleius_Diocles
[2] http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~lac61/ASSIGNMENTS/SectionOne/R...
[3] https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/greatest-all-tim...
[4] https://www.jstor.org/stable/40310480