The varied production of commodities in workshops and the range of specialized crops produced on estates in different regions of the Classical world suggest that the sale of marketable commodities and the ‘market’ were complex. The production of crops for sale and the manufacturing of products in workshops for consumption require markets and movement of goods. Transportation and spaces in which to sell products are prerequisites of markets.
Local commodities and the domestic market(-place)
Local markets provided a real range for the sale of commodities. The cost of overland transport was not a prohibitive factor. Phainippos, an Athenian land-owner, was able to make 12 drachmai a day by keeping six mules busy carrying wood to Athens, and proves that moving commodities by road or simple track was a fundamental feature of local economies ([Demosthenes] 42.7). It is therefore no surprise to find both a donkey driver and two muleteers on the manumission lists of fourth-century Athens (Harris 2002: 94).
Market movers
The movement of goods by land was therefore an essential feature of most Greek cities, particularly those dependent on harbours. The movement of commodities by road from Piraeus to the city centre of Athens was a sine qua non of the city’s survival. A law codifying the sale of the grain tax in 374 states explicitly that tax-farmers are to move grain (taxed in kind) from the harbour to the grain depot in the city of Athens at their own cost (Stroud 1998: 4, lines 12-15, 50-1). A recently published inscription from Bulgaria concerns the commercial relations in Thrace at Pistiros, an emporion where Thasians numbered among the favoured merchants. The decree of c. 359 grants exemption from taxes on the roads both from Pistiros to Maroneia and other emporia and also in the other direction (Velkov & Domaradzka 1994). The movement of commodities was fundamental to economies on both a local and a regional scale. Such movements also generated opportunities for communities both to extract revenues by taxing such movements into and out of commercial areas, as is clear at Pistiros, and ultimately to extract tax on the sale of commodities.
Extensive local road networks existed and facilitated the movement of commodities into, out of, and probably within regions throughout Greece. Arkadia, a mountainous region made up of several individual political communities (poleis), had an extensive network of roads (Pikkoulas 1999: 253-4; 305-9). Although there is not much evidence for trade between Arkadian communities, the evidence for the large movement of various commodities both into and out of the region as a whole suggests that there was considerable local and intra-regional movement of commodities facilitated by the road network (Roy 1999: 338-40).
Intra - and inter-regional movement of commodities
Communication and movements within a region will have thrived, although they are not always apparent in the body of evidence. Phainippos’ business moving wood by road to Athens is an example of this localized intra-regional trade. More typical is evidence for regional and especially long-distance commodity movements. In Aristophanes’ Acharnians (719-22) Dikaiopolis wants to set up his own personal market so that all the Peloponnesians, Megarians and Boiotians have the right to trade with him. Such inter-regional trading movements were certainly disrupted in the Peloponnesian war. The shortage of Boiotian eels from Lake Kopais may have been a humorous reference but suggests that some desirable commodities were more difficult to procure in 425 (Aristophanes Acharnians 881-90).
Even if intra-regional trade was the most basic economic interaction within Greek communities, and the foundation of Greek economies, it is this inter-regional and especially maritime trade between regions over greater distances that has attracted most attention among scholars. Important commodities like grain were moved over considerable distances and could be important to a community’s provision of food, as was probably the case for the fifty-one recipients of grain from Kyrene around 330 to 326 (R&O 96). Long-distance inter-regional trade allowed luxury or unusual commodities to find their way into many regions of the Mediterranean world and beyond.
The infrastructure of maritime trade
Trade in the Mediterranean world demanded that commodities were moved by sea and therefore required not only numerous levels of infrastructure but also different agencies to sustain the infrastructure. Ships moving long distances required markets for selling their cargo, harbours and adequate space for unloading it, and places to store and then to sell the cargo.
However, traders in the Classical period could choose between several potential markets, and so the creation of attractive and well-regulated ‘market-places’ was one way to draw in such merchants. Communities developed all kinds of ways not only to ‘encourage’ traders to transport commodities to their market but to attract particular goods. Among important factors for a trader was the ability to find a good market where another cargo to fill the ship for the next leg of the voyage could be secured. Athens in the Classical period provided these opportunities, as no doubt did several other important emporia like Byzantion, Rhodes and Korinth. Emporia typically enjoyed a good coastal location (Casevitz 1993: 20) but this was not always the case (Pistiros, Thrace).
A Demosthenic speech records the loan of money by an Athenian and a Euboian to two men from Phaselis for a maritime trading trip ([Demosthenes] 35.10-13). One possible itinerary for the expedition was to take in the Thracian poleis of Mende or Skione (on Pallene, the western finger of the Chalkidike peninsula) and then the Bosporos on the northern coast of the Black Sea before returning to Athens. At Mende or Skione the traders would probably buy up wine. In the Bosporos one can assume that they were then required to return to Athens with grain, because Athenians and metics at Athens could only make loans that transported specific commodities including grain back to Athens ([Demosthenes] 35.51 = Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 82).
Financing maritime trade
Such trading expeditions were possible not only because of infrastructure but also because individuals were ready to risk financing such operations for the profit that could be gained (Cohen 1992). Maritime expeditions were risky but potentially lucrative (Lysias 22 (Against the Corndealers) = Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 84). Athens was an attractive commercial centre where traders could find not only many commodities for subsequent outward cargoes (Isokrates 4.42) but also a substantial financial sector and legal system (Demosthenes 33.1-2) to protect such investments. The same characteristics are found also in Thasos, where in the fourth century monthly trials offered similar forms of commercial protection for traders (Salviat 1958). Personal contacts, trust and knowledge were a crucial factor in such operations (Isokrates 17.6), and traders could use such knowledge in financing operations (Demosthenes 33.4-5). By the fourth century, the evidence for maritime trade shows a level of sophistication in financing, with the raising of loans from individual bankers and competition between potential markets.
Risks at sea
Such sophistication marks a process that had been longstanding. Overseas trade had thrived throughout the Archaic period (Plutarch Solon 2.3-3.1) and by the Classical era was an everyday feature of most Greek economies (cf. Thuc. 1.5-19, who develops a maritime theme in his summary of Greek history). Moving by sea continued to be as dangerous as before, given the vulnerabilities of shipping to natural dangers. As potentially disruptive were pirates, but one should not necessarily think of such threats as marauding, eyepatch-wearing mavericks (De Souza 1999), for piracy was often a well-organized, even institutionalized mode of economic activity, as it has been in later periods of history (Ferguson 2003: 1-12: sixteenth - and seventeenth-century England). Some states practised regularly forced diversions of shipping and making passing ships unload their goods at their markets. The people ofByzantion, Chalkedon and Kyzikos redirected grain ships in the late 360s when their local food supplies were not adequate (Demosthenes 50.6, 17). In some instances communities formalized such arrangements; piracy (and plunder by land) had become institutionalized, as the fifth-century agreement between Knossos and Tylissos on Crete reveals (M&L 44.B 2-14) and Demosthenes explains in the fourth century (Demosthenes 8. 24-8; Garnsey 1988: 142-4).
Markets and suppliers
Many of the trading contacts between Greece and, for example, the peripheries of the Greek world had already been established in the Archaic period: Aigina and the Pelo-ponnese were receiving grain from the Black Sea in the early fifth century (Hdt. 7.147 = Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 80). But clearly there were shifts in these patterns. Demosthenes, a major intermediary between the Athenian consumers and the Bosporan kings, claims in the mid-fourth century that Athens imports more grain from the Bosporos than from all its other sources of grain put together (Demosthenes 20.31-3 = Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 81). In terms of such inter-regional trade, some cities and regions were renowned for their specialized commodities. Grain was one of the most important commodities coming from the Black Sea, in particular the Bosporos; timber was coming from Macedonia and Thrace (Xenophon Hellenika 6.1.11; Theophrastos Historia Plantarum 4.5.5); and wine was shipped in from numerous places in and around the Aegean - for example, Mende, Skione, Thasos, Kos, Chios.
Supplying a demand
The movement of commodities can not only supply but also stimulate demands. One index of the diffusion of Greek culture is the symposium. At a typical Greek symposium, imported commodities might have included perfumes, cheeses, honey and eels as well as good wine such as that from Mende or Thasos (Menander F 224 Kassel & Austin). And in many communities the diffusion of the symposium not only meant the consumption of good wine but also required the use of ceramics, bowls and cups and other pieces of table ware to complete the ideal Greek banquet. Here perhaps we can see some of the cultural associations that can be attached to trade. The theme is worth pursuing and one can follow the trail left by the table ware. Ceramics became popular for a variety of reasons: quality, desirability, fashion, local tastes, ease of supply, low cost - in short, marketability. It is dangerous to privilege any one, but cultural choices will have been of considerable importance. It is useful to look at ceramics as an indicator of such choices amid the realities of commerce in the Greek world. The commercial importance of Athens as a magnet for maritime trade and the quality of its ceramics as a potential outward cargo-filler meant that Athenian pottery was widely traded throughout the Mediterranean world. The diffusion of Greek culture may also have helped this process. Archaeological evidence confirms the wide sale of Athenian pottery and suggests differences not only in ‘markets’ but also in producers and suppliers.
The producers
Ceramic workshops at Athens have been recognized by the traces of kilns and other ceramic material, such as unfinished or misfired pieces or supports for firing the ceramics or moulds for terracottas. The evidence suggests that the workshops in rural Attika supplied pottery for domestic consumption while those workshops in and immediately around the urban centre of Athens produced ceramics, especially those of higher quality, for both local markets (e. g., Thorikos) and those beyond Attika (Jubier-Galinier et al. 2003: 39-40; Monaco 2000; cf. Blonde: 2000: 273 n. 9).
Coarse ware and cooking ware may well have been bought on a more localized basis from nearby workshops, as evidence in Attika (Jubier-Galinier et al. 2003: 38) and Thasos suggests (Blonde & Picon 2000). Pottery production is a relatively simple technique and required little vertical specialization in terms of its labour. The diffusion of ceramics illustrates well both the intra - and inter-regional nature of trade and production. It is, however, less easy to establish if the value (price) of ceramics moved significantly depending on their ultimate destination.
The movement of commodities over long distances in ships required traders to fill their ships with a variety of marketable products. Pottery such as black-glazed ware from Athens was probably a useful product in this respect and was relatively cheap. When found in shipwrecks it is clearly being carried as part of a much larger cargo (Gill 1991). The presence of ceramics and amphoras also suggests something of the movements of traders. A ship carrying pottery and other commodities to one destination would certainly carry something back for the return or next lap of the voyage. The numerous movements of trading ships into Athens carrying grain in the fourth century meant that there was a subsequent exportation of commodities out of Attika. It is clear that here in the fourth century, for example, the pottery workshops flourished and they were providing potential return cargoes for commercial expeditions arriving in Piraeus. The environment was a good one, for grain was coming to Athens from a variety of distant markets and the Piraeus was a huge international commercial centre. The wide diffusion of Athenian ceramics almost certainly reflects the large-scale international movement of commerce into Athens and Piraeus.
Distant markets and...
One particular phenomenon is the marked increase of Athenian pottery in the western Mediterranean. Phoenician traders sold Attic pottery on the Atlantic coast of Africa ([Skylax] 112, writing around the middle of the fourth century). Particular pottery shapes are found in greater quantities than others. For instance, in Spain and southern France, Athenian black-glazed tableware was successful (Spain: Principal-Ponce 2000: 220-3; fig. 4; France: Py & Sabattini 2000: 183 fig. 14). In both regions Attic fine black-glazed pottery seems to have increased in circulation from the fifth to the fourth centuries (Sanmarti Grego 2000: 238-9; Ugolini 2000: 202 fig. 2).
The appearance of Attic black-glazed ware from Carthage in North Africa in the form of circular kernos with seven circular depressions, known only here and in the El Sec shipwreck, suggests that Athenian workshops had produced pottery dedicated to the Punic market (Morel 2000: 263). Indeed Carthage may well have operated as a point from which Attic pottery was re-exported further west. It was understood to be a wealthy city (Thuc. 6.34.2) by the time of the Peloponnesian war and Athens certainly enjoyed at least sporadic contacts with Carthaginians on the political level in the fifth and fourth centuries (M&L 94 = Fornara 165). The El Sec shipwreck off the south-west coast of Majorca illustrates some aspects of trade in the western Mediterranean around the middle of the fourth century (date: Koehler in: Rouillard & Villanueva-Puig 1989: 132). The excavation of the wreck recovered a high concentration of Attic pottery: 358 black-glazed Attic vessels, 100 fragments of Attic red figure ware (kraters, kylikes, skyphoi), among a diverse cargo the bulk of which consisted of 474 amphoras. Around 30 per cent of these had come from Samos (Rouillard & Villanueva-Puig 1989: 21-116).
... How the West was one
The (re-)distribution of Athenian pottery in the fourth century in the western Mediterranean shows the complexity of the economies of the Classical Greece. Commodities were traded well beyond the confines of the ‘Greek world’ and almost certainly re-exported. The El Sec wreck carried a significant quantity of Punic coarse ware and bronze ware of Italo-Etruscan origin, as well as large quantities of Attic pottery and amphoras of Greek (especially Samian) origins (presumably carrying wine). The El Sec wreck was almost certainly a Punic vessel, a conclusion that can be drawn from the nature of the commodities and the mixture of Greek and Punic graffiti on some vases (Rouillard & Villanueva-Puig 1989: 117-30).
The risk-economies of maritime trade created an ascending spiral of commodity movements. The movement of commodities encouraged the movement of more commodities. A varied cargo made the commercial success of a cargo much more likely, but fundamentally allowed merchants to maximize the capacity of the ship (Gill 1991: 46 table C, on the ratio between volume and value of various commodities). Much pottery may not have been of great intrinsic cost at its point of manufacture, but it was a useful part of a merchant’s cargo in a commercial voyage. It is likely that such pottery increased in value at the point of its final sale, but it is difficult to establish if this was in fact the case and if so to what extent its sale-price increased.
Wine sales
Ceramic evidence also echoes the movement of other commodities, for amphoras, a coarse-ware container carrying mostly wines, survive in significant numbers (e. g., the
El Sec shipwreck). They could of course be re-used, typically as water-containers, and, on at least one occasion, were even employed for military purposes when the Pho-kians filled concealed pits with amphoras to trap enemy cavalry (Hdt. 8.28).
Pieces of amphoras from Chios are likely to indicate the circulation or sale of the island’s wine. It not easy to explain changes in the circulation of the material, but economic (competition or stronger demand from other markets) and political factors are likely to have affected markets. Chian amphoras no longer circulate in the western Mediterranean after c. 525. In the east, for example at Gordion in Phrygia, they made up as much as 30 per cent of imported amphoras up to 475 and 50 per cent between 475 and c. 425, and fell to 5 per cent in 420-400. In the fifth century at Gordion imported ceramics declined steadily, reflecting changes in the market, but a relatively strong Chian element persisted among the imports. In the same period Chios benefited from the rise in the Athenian market (Lawall 1998: 88-9, fig. 5.2), where Chian wine seems to have been imported in increasingly greater quantities.
Squeezing the markets: pots, grain and grapes on Thasos
The circulation of ceramics probably affected production patterns on a local level. The black-glaze ceramics of fourth-century Athens, for example, were extremely popular on Thasos. Excavations of a public well from the second and third quarters of the fourth century have revealed that the majority of the fine ware consisted of imported black-glaze Athenian vessels (Blonde 2000: 274-5). The Thasian workshops produced black-glazed ware, but archaeology reveals that the domestic market preferred imported Attic ware. Certainly the high quality and/or good value of Attic pottery were potential factors in its popularity on Thasos. But one should not exclude the possibility that incoming trading vessels had been exporting the highly desirable local wine to a major centre of consumption such as Athens and on their return leg back to the island carried a variety of products including plenty of Attic black-glaze pottery.
Thasos was a major trading centre. Its celebrated wine (Xenophon Symposion 4.40) enjoyed considerable success throughout the Greek world and notably in the Black Sea region from the second half of the fifth century (Bouzek 1989: 257; Salviat 1986: 189-90, fig. 2; Lazarov 1986: 404; [Demosthenes] 35.35). On an island rich in vines and mines, with specialized economies, it would not be surprising that some commodities such as grain were imported to supplement domestic or regional production, and the Black Sea was one likely source.
The local economies of many Greek cities were often supplemented by imported commodities such as grain from other regional sources. Agriculture was normally vulnerable to shortfalls in production such as, and in particular, that of wheat-grain. Some communities may have specialized in commodities, for example wine on Thasos and olives at Klazomenai, making them more dependent on imported grain but able to use the success of their specialized products to exploit the markets and so buy in the commodities that were required.
Short-term losses in harvest could result from climatic extremes. Too much cold or not enough rain or too much rain at the wrong times of the year could reduce the harvest just as they continue to do in the twenty-first century. In addition warfare could cause major disruption to the often time-critical operations such as harvesting and sowing (Hanson 1998). Delays in such fundamental tasks could also reduce production. The Classical period was no different from any other period of history. The food supply was a critical factor, and given the potential market it is no surprise to see the development of economies that supplied critical commodities such as grain. Some cities more than others relied on imported grain. Athens (Demosthenes 20.31; Whitby 1998: 118-19) imported (and re-exported) grain more than other cities, while cities such as Syracuse were able to supply their needs from the local harvests (Thuc. 6.20.4).
Given the variety of markets, it is no surprise that traders or buyers might have sought out markets or attempted schemes that could fetch a higher price for their shipment of grain (Demosthenes 56.8-10; Lysias 22). Even local grain prices must have varied (cf. Aristophanes Acharnians 758-9). Moreover, given the complexities of such market operations, cities resorted to policies and legislation which were designed to counteract the forces of what can only be described as profit maximization. Agricultural production, manufacturing and the markets all operated in contexts that involved institutions that were elements in the diverse economies of the polis.
World History
