According to this constitution, various amounts of grain needed to be paid as tax to secure certain ranks or social statuses (for example, a payment of 500 medimnoi to become a military commander, but only 200 or less to become an agricultural worker).
From these figures, it can be estimated that a young family including a father, a mother and three children would have consumed approximately 25 medimnoi every year.
According to Herodotus, during the reign of Xerxes II of Persia, the Satrap of Assyria (Tritantaechmes, son of Artabazos I of Phrygia) received an income of just over one medimnos of silver every day.
[6] The historian, Josephus, mentions that during the 13th year of Herod the Great's reign, the country had suffered from a prolonged drought, and the ground was barren and unable to produce fruit on that account.
He then petitioned the man who had been made prefect of Egypt by Caesar, who allowed Herod's countrymen to purchase grain and to export it, insofar that "the number of cori of wheat, of ten Attic medimnos apiece, that were given to foreigners, amounted to ten thousand; and the number that was given in his own kingdom was eighty thousand.