Are things only worth what people will pay?

Subject: Are things only worth what people will pay? Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:02 am

In the year 211BC, Rome and Carthage were engaged in a long war that was to shape the ancient Mediterranean.
The North African general Hannibal had vanquished Roman legions at will. As the Romans regrouped and began to fight back, Hannibal decided on a bold plan: he would march on Rome itself.
Although he had little chance of breaching the city's defences, he hoped the Romans would panic and recall their armies.

Are things only worth what people will pay? _111220045_976549r9htm6

Are things only worth what people will pay? _111220045_976549r9htm6

Hannibal set up camp on the banks of the Anio, three miles from the city, but quickly learned that the land on which he had pitched his tent had been sold for a reasonable price via a public auction. Rome had seen through the bluff.
If the city rulers were willing to trade at full price the land underneath Hannibal's army, they did not expect his army to linger. It did not: Hannibal withdrew in short order.
This may be the only example of an auction being used as an attack on enemy morale, but it is not the first recorded auction.
For example, 300 years earlier, Herodotus describes men bidding for the most attractive wives in Babylon.
"The rich men who wanted wives bid against each other for the prettiest girls, while the humbler folk, who had no use for good looks in a wife, were actually paid to take the ugly ones."
Problematic, yes - but ingenious. This auction was a community affair in which funds raised from the high bidders were used to compensate the poorer men.

More: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51659032
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“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
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Are things only worth what people will pay?

Are things only worth what people will pay?

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