One of the eminently attackable facets of that claim is the varying availability of goods over the millennia, making it impossible to have a really stable and precise measure of value against which to measure gold's purchasing power. You can't buy silphium or Roman concrete today for any price, for example, nor a ticket to a gladiatorial match, and, from a certain point of view, most of the functions fulfilled by handmade Roman togas are today fulfilled by mass-produced machine-stitched US$200 wool suits, or even a cheap sports coat, jeans, and T-shirt. And no amount of gold would have bought you penicillin 100 years ago, much less in Roman times.