Little Agricultural Land - Difficult Access to Sea

‘There has never been a time when poverty was not a factor in the rearing (syntrophos) of the Greeks’, said an advisor to the Persian king, according to Herodotos (7.102), to characterize the Persians’ opponents, and with communities which were disadvantaged both in their access to the sea and in the size of the agriculturally useful land we finally look at poleis which fit Herodotos’ description especially well.

Akarnania, for example, does indeed have a long coastline along the Ionian Sea, but could not make use of this, as the coast is too steep, or too flat, to allow for the building of useful harbours (apart from the small, and anyway more often than not independent, one at Oiniadai). Using the pockets of arable land behind that coast enabled subsistence farming, and the more mountainous hinterland could be used for transhumance, but the reputation of the Akarnanians as brigands (Thuc. 1.5.3) and mercenaries (Thuc. 7.31.5) demonstrates that living off the land was difficult enough. Given the roughness of the hinterland, many conflicts with neighbouring Aitolia and other communities (including even Athens) concerned access to the sea and especially possession of Oiniadai (see above). Apart from this harbour and Stratos as the central place, Akarnanian settlements are small, and widely dispersed. Probably influenced by the Arkadian example, and for similar reasons, the communities began to form a federation (koinon) in the fourth century (cf. Larsen 1968: 89 - 95), but Akarnania never became an affluent part of the ‘Third Greece’.

Central Aitolia, to the east of Akarnania, represents an equally mountainous region in central Greece: while it is rich in forests, there are only small pockets of arable land. Apart from hunting (and brigandage), transhumance was one of the few ways of avoiding dire poverty. Settlements were few and small; the Aitolians were regarded as uncivilized until well into the Classical Age. The only coherent fertile patch, near Thermos by Lake Trichonis, served as winter quarters for the flocks. In the late fifth century Aitolia (as did other regions) reorganized itself as a federation ( koinon) with Thermos as its cultic and political centre. The federation changed sides, first from Sparta to Thebes, and eventually it sided with Philip II; only then did it succeed in improving its access to the sea by conquering Oiniadai in 330 (Diodoros 18.8.6).

Further to the east, Phokis - having lost its only (small) harbour at Kirrha/Krisa to Delphi in the sixth century (above, Section 3) - has to contend with a very mountainous terrain and a harsh climate. Pockets of arable land and some olive cultivation, using the forests for hunting and cutting wood, and transhumance characterize the region. Not only the areas suitable for transhumance existence in summer but also their strategic importance (Phokis controls the passages from Boiotia to Eastern Lokris and on towards Thermopylai) joined the nearly two dozen small poleis of Phokis in a federation to ensure mutual military support; the league was repeatedly under pressure from Thessaly and Boiotia, but also from the Delphic Amphiktyony. A successful attack on the wealthy sanctuary in 356 allowed the Phokians to become, as it were, their own mercenaries, who for a decade fought against neighbouring Thessaly, and Macedonia. The defeat in the so-called Third Sacred War in 346, however, led to the destruction of the settlements, and opened up a route for the Macedonian control of Greece, leading to the victory achieved by Philip II of Macedon at Chaironeia in 338.

Difficult access to the sea and only undersized agricultural lands allowed merely for the bare subsistence of small self-sufficient communities, which supplemented their income by brigandage or as mercenaries. Unless access to the sea was improved (as with the conquest of Oiniadai), or federations were formed, there was little chance of improving, let alone expanding, the communities, some of which simply had to be abandoned altogether.