I will give your camel driver 150 talents and 50 drachma, I will convey your goods inland through the desert, until loading at the Nile, and I will convey them downriver to the warehouse, and I will place them under your ownership…
-Papyrus, 2nd C CE, Conveyance Contract for imported goods through the Egyptian Desert on the Berenike-to-Koptos Road
KhairAllah would be thrilled to lead a herd of value equal to 150 talents (1 talent = weight of water in an amphora, 33kg)- and here we assume talents of silver (150 talents = $3 million), not of gold (150 talents = $250 million)- even though his trail was triple the length of the Berenike-to-Koptos Road. But surely KhairAllah knew this when he said, I drive before me millions, and he would have thought 50 drachma (1 drachma = an unskilled worker’s daily wage) as mere bakshīsh for his forty day job.