In many communities the realities of the distribution of property among the citizen population meant that some citizens owned little or no land. A significant proportion of Athenians owned only small plots or none at all (Foxhall 1992).
What economic activities did those without sufficient land or without any land pursue? Indeed, did land-ownership preclude the pursuit of other economic activities? In a survey of ‘professions’ that provided goods or services that were exchanged in the market-place at Athens, Harris (2002) listed 170 different occupations. Only a small proportion involves agricultural activities or animal husbandry; while the majority identify other forms of non-agricultural production (Harris 2002: 69) on which this section focuses. In a sophisticated urban centre such as Athens, one of the largest in the Greek world and certainly the best documented, such a concentration of professions says a great deal about the diversity of economic activity and the specialization of individuals active in the economies of the polis in contrast with smaller poleis (Xenophon Kyroupaideia 8.2.5).
Harris’ survey indicates a variety of professions that some (citizens and non-citizens alike) might have pursued. The market-place was in fact frequented by all levels of society and was not only a place where the elite bought luxury commodities (Harris 2002: 78).
Craft specialization
What is striking about the nature of the professions identified by Harris in the literary and epigraphical sources is their specificity. He underlines that in the Athenian and therefore certainly in Greek economies as a whole, there is an absence of vertical specialization. Athenian and Greek society display a high degree, therefore, of horizontal specialization. A considerable variety of occupations were required to provide the wide demands of services and products that society required or demanded. Vertical specialization is required to create a product that demands several different levels of operation and skills. In ancient Greece only a limited number of ‘products’ required such ‘vertical specialization’. Temple building probably demanded the highest levels of craftsmanship (Harris 2002: 81), but other complex operations included the construction and maintenance of a navy and mining processes.
Minting silver coinage is, on the surface, a simple operation. For example, at Olynthos two houses are known in which individuals may have been producing counterfeit coins (Cahill 2002: 259-61). But coin production required a supply of metal (bronze or silver or exceptionally gold) and craftsmen to design and produce the coins. Athens, unlike many communities in the Greek world, relied on its own local supply of silver from the Laureion hills to strike the ‘owls’, the name given to the city’s coins because of the image of the owl depicted on the obverse of the coins. The different levels of labour that led ultimately to the striking of these coins are worth considering in a survey of non-agricultural labour and are an example of vertical specialization.
From spade to anvil - silver coins
The processes whereby silver was extracted from the ground and turned into silver coins involved many different stages of labour-intensive activities (Rihll 2001; for the installations Jones 1982): 15-16 kg of ore had to be extracted to produce a silver coin weighing 4 g (Rihll 2001: 129, table 6.1)! In the earliest stages dangerous work required the extraction of rock which contained the rich silver-bearing ores from the hills of south-east Attika. A large slave-labour force was required to cut the vertical shafts and horizontal galleries to reach the metalliferous ores, dig them out and bring them to the surface. There the extracted ore was ground down into small pieces and washed on specially constructed ‘washing tables’ using vast quantities of water, which was collected in huge cisterns cut into the ground which captured rain water. Slaves performed the grinding, washing and water-carrying processes. Furnaces were built to separate the silver from the silver-bearing minerals by cupellation, and combustion was required to reach temperatures between c. 810° and 950° C. This last procedure required a plentiful supply of combustible material and it is likely that Laureion’s local wood supply was quickly exhausted. Furnaces have been found on the coast, located not only to keep the noxious fumes from the cupellation process away but also to facilitate access to supplies of combustible material. These processes all required labour input, supervision and financing by speculators ready to invest in the mining operations. Finally the silver found its way to the state Mint in the Athenian Agora where public slaves produced the coins.
The production of silver coins in Attika from the local silver made heavy demands on the economies of the region. The slave-labour forces needed feeding and maintaining and may have consumed 4,000 kg of food per day (Rihll 2001: 115). The processing of ores required specially designed and dedicated installations (washing tables). The furnaces consumed natural resources (timber and charcoal). The industry depended on people to finance the operations. Such a complex operation provided Athens with vast amounts of silver in the fifth and fourth centuries and many other by-products from the smelting processes (Rihll 2001: 130-2, 136). The high-quality silver from Laureion rendered the Athenian owl a coin with an exceptionally high purity of silver content. The wide circulation of these silver owls in the Classical period saw the later adoption of the Athenian weight standard in the Hellenistic period.
Workshops and the use of slaves
Large-scale operations like the mines of Attika were relatively unusual. A small number of people made a great deal of profit from hiring out slaves: Nikias, the Athenian politician and general in the fifth century, hired out 1,000 slaves, a number which the lessor was obliged to maintain should slaves die (Xenophon Poroi 4.14). Xenophon in the middle of the fourth century urged that the state should emulate such individuals by itself leasing out publicly owned slaves to provide revenues for the polis (Xenophon Poroi 4.1-18 = Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 94). Slave owning was fundamental not only to the agrarian economy but also to the household and especially workshops ( ergasteria). One of the largest ergasteria belonged to a metic, Kephalos, who had a shield-making establishment which had 120 slaves (Lysias 12.19 (Against Eratosthenes)).
While an Athenian might have owned a property, both the citizen and metic might have leased a property (on leases of land and property, Osborne 1988). Any workshop might have been dedicated to producing marketable commodities. Citizens and metics or even slaves might typically have used slaves for a workforce. Although the Athenians did not distinguish the financial activities and assets of their workshops from their household, slaves were identified usually with a specific task. So the estate of Demosthenes’ father included two workshops. One, a workshop he had received as security for money he had lent, produced furniture and used 20 slaves. A second was a knife factory which had 32 or 33 slaves among whom there was clearly some distinction, probably in craftsmanship, as the value of the slaves ranged to up to 300-60 drachmai from at least 180 drachmai (Demosthenes 27.9). A typically priced slave probably cost in the region of 150 to 250 drachmai (cf. the price of the slaves of the metic Kephisodoros, confiscated in 414, Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 74, 75).
Producers and markets
Production of goods and the movement (and sale) of agricultural surplus require markets in both the notional and physical senses. Polities did not all necessarily produce everything they needed or everything that people wanted, but were able to satisfy these needs and desires by importing products and produce. It is in this context that we must understand the notion of autarkeia (literally: ‘self-sufficiency’), a term that has been much discussed because of the importance attached to it by several ancient writers (Bresson 2000: 116). The most notable among them was Aristotle, who considered that autarkeia was ‘the goal and the very best thing’ (Aristotle Politics 1253a1-2); in other words an aim and an ideal. It was to be achieved by the export of surplus and import of what one does not find in the polity (Aristotle Politics 1328b5-3 with Bresson 2000: 111-19). According to Thucydides (1.37.3), Kerkyra fulfils these conditions. Korinthian ambassadors address the Assembly at Athens before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war and describe Kerkyra as ‘a polis... that enjoys by its location autarkeia They suggest that the Kerkyreans rarely leave but force others to come to them. Thucydides (3.70) reveals that the island in fact produced wine. Amphoras that carried this product are known from archaeological contexts (Bresson 2000: 122-4). The island is the sort of place that exports its surplus and imports what it needs, an ideal which is achieved by Byzantion (according to Polybios 4.38.8-9). The relationship between produce and products and commerce is an essential one and requires further thought about trade.
World History
