Walbank F.W., Astin A.E., Frederiksen M.W., Ogilvie R.M. The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 7, Part 1: The Hellenistic World
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DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS
267
Hellenistic period wears
on.
However, such evidence
may
tell
us
only
about themselves: philosophers
are
demographically insignificant.
Much better evidence comes from
the
gravestones
of
foreigners,
for
they provide at least
a
trace element and reveal proportions (though they
are probably biassed
in
favour
of
the literate
and the
prosperous).
For
instance, there certainly came
to be a
substantial colony
of
Syrians
at
Delos,
52
and of
Syrians
and
Egyptians
at
Demetrias
in
Thessaly,
53
and
Rhodes shows tombstones
of
Alexandrians, Antiochenes,
and
Laodiceans
in
considerable numbers.
54
Again,
the 60 or so
Hellenistic
gravestones
of
foreigners buried
at the
unexceptional town
of
Eretria
show
a
fairly even pattern
of
movement:
of
those recorded
15 are
islanders (all but one from outside Euboea),
11
are from central Greece, 9
from Asia Minor,
8
from
the
Peloponnese,
7
from
the
south
and
east
Mediterranean,
and
another
7
from Thessaly, Macedon,
and
Thrace.
55
Clearer still
is the
pattern from Hellenistic Athens, where, though
naturally many ethnics
are
well attested, three stand
out
above
all:
Antiochenes (108), Milesians (114),
and
Heracleots (196).
56
Both they
and
the
next best attested nationalities
—
35
from Ancyra (bewilder-
ingly),
27
from Sinope, 26 from Alexandria, 22 from Thrace, and
15
each
from Amisus, Apamea, and Corinth
—
show
a
strong
and
unmistakable
westward drift. Equally, the massive importation of Italian slaves sold in
Greece during the Second Punic War must have had some demographic
effect.
57
Such evidence
of
migration suggests that many cities were hosts
to a
large and perhaps growing number
of
non-citizen immigrants and their
descendants, whose presence posed problems
of
status-assimilation.
Some cities eventually resolved them
by
large-scale enfranchisements
(thus Miletus
in the
third century)
or by
allowing
the
purchase
of
citizenship:
58
others dodged them by resorting to grants
oiisopoliteia
(see
below). Either way, the basis and definition of community were perforce
changing, with further consequences which will
be
traced below.
However, this evidence also suggests that
the
drain
of
mercenaries,
colonists,
and
other opportunists from
old
Greece
to the new
colonial
52
Roussel 1916(1), 84-95:
(H 189);
Masson
1969,
682ff.:
(H
137).
53
Arvanitopoulos 1952-3: (B 279); Masson 1969, 6826F.: (H 137), with Butt.epig. 1970, 207. Sidon
(8) and Ascalon (6) are the best represented, followed by Macedon (6), Crete (8) and Aradus (4), then
by many towns with two or three representatives, including Tyre (2). For Phoenicians at Rhodes see
Fraser 1970: (B 77).
54
See
Fraser i960,
29
nn.
5—7:
(F
171),
and
Fraser 1972, 11.289
n
-
2
9
O:
(
A
M)-
55
IG xii.9.786-843, and IG xn Suppl. 629-37. These figures exclude gravestones dated by the
editors in the imperial period, but include three of the fourth century.
56
IG 11
2
.7882—105
30.
Again, these figures are only of gravestones dated by Kirchner in the
3rd-ist centuries B.C.
"
Hatzfeld 1913: (H 89), Hackens 1968 (2): (B 227).
58
See n. 323, below. For Miletus see Hiller von Gaertringen 1932, 1602—3: (H 100).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
268 8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
territories during
the
third century
was
being compensated
by
other
movements
of
individuals, often from those same colonial territories,
so
that regional population densities need
not
have changed appreciably.
Yet Polybius says explicitly that
in our times the whole of Greece has suffered a shortage of children and hence a
gradual decrease
of the
population,
and in
consequence some cities have
become deserted
and
agricultural production
has
declined, although neither
wars nor epidemics were taking place continuously
. . .
This evil grew upon us
rapidly and overtook us before we were aware of
it,
the simple reason being that
men had fallen a prey
to
inflated ambitions, love of money, and indolence, with
the result that they were either unwilling to marry, or if they did marry to bring
up the children that were born to them; or else they would only rear one or two
out
of a
large number
so as to
leave these well-off and able
in
their turn
to
squander their inheritance (xxxvi.17.;—
7).
His remarks have prompted much discussion
59
and
have tended
to be
accepted
at
their face value, even though most
of
the evidence adduced
in
his
support either proves nothing
60
or is not
specific enough
in area
and
period
to be
invoked.
61
Yet it
may
be
doubted whether
his
evidence proves what
it is
claimed
to do, for
those able
to
aspire
to
'inflated ambitions, love
of
money
and
indolence'
or to
squander their
inheritance can only have been the tiny minority
of
wealthy families:
the
pattern
of
behaviour
he
describes
is a
class phenomenon,
not a
demographic phenomenon.
It may be
seen
in
action
in two
other
contexts, which further reveal that
its
roots
lie
deeper
in the
past than
Polybius implies. The first is Larissa in 217, as reflected
in
Philip V's two
well-known letters
of
September
217 and
August
215,
62
in
which
he
instructed
the
city
to
enfranchise
its
katoikoi
'so
that
the
land will
be
more fully cultivated' (first letter,
1.
9) or' so that..
.
. the land will not lie
shamefully fallow
as now'
(second letter, 1. 30). What
is
crucial
is
that
between
217 and 215
opposition
in
Larissa
to the
measure
had
been
strong enough
to
have
it
annulled till Philip's fierce second letter had
it
reinstated.
The
problem
is to
understand exactly what
was
being
opposed.
It
will not have been the mere presence
of
the katoikoi (for they
59
Walbank
1979,
rn.68o:
(B
37).
60
Thus
for
example explanations
in
terms
of
the
exposure
of
children, which
is
well attested
from Hesiod onwards:
for
recent references
and
discussions
see
Vatin
1970,
228-40:
(H 230);
Pomeroy
1976, 68ff.: (H 170);
Engels
1980: (H 56);
Golden
1981: (H 81).
That
the
poets
of
New
Comedy make such
use
of
the
motif
is
a
fact about
the
artistic influence
of
Euripides
and the
appeal
of
the
motif
to
audiences,
not a
fact about social behaviour.
61
As for
example with most
of
the
epigraphic evidence
for
small families adduced
by
Tarn
and
Griffith
1952, 100:
(A
5
9),
and
accepted
by
Rostovtzeff
1953,11.623(1".:
(A
52).
Similarly,
the
evidence
for large families
in
later Hellenistic Athens adduced
by
Ferguson
1911, 374: (D 89),
concerns
the
office-holding class
on
Delos
and
cannot
be
used
as
demographic evidence against Polybius.
62
SIC
543
=ILS 8763
=
70
ix.2.5.517
=
Austin
60
with Habicht
1970,
273?.: (B
83).
and
Salviat
and Vatin 1974: (B
156).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS 269
were there already), perhaps not even their enfranchisement, so much as
the economic consequences. Since their enfranchisement was envisaged
as allowing a fuller cultivation of land we must assume that in some way
not specified they were to receive vacant land, and that opposition came
from those who preferred the existing pattern of landownership, even if
it meant
a
small citizen body and fallow fields, to a redistribution, even if
it meant cultivated fields
and a
'strong city' (1.
30).
Much
the
same
can be
said, though more confidently,
of the
opposition
to
Agis
and
Cleomenes
in
Sparta
a
generation earlier
(see
pp.
252-5, 457-8). Here too resistance
to
the redistribution of land and
to the enlargement
of
the citizen body came from the wealthy luxury-
loving land-monopolising
few;
here
too,
though
the
Phylarchan
tradition
in
Plutarch takes
up
Aristotle's theme
of
'lack
of men'
(oliganthropid)
caused
by
faulty inheritance laws
63
and
speaks
of a
shrunken citizen body a mere 700 strong,
64
Sparta's subsequent military
achievements,
and
Cleomenes' force
of no
fewer than 6,000
'La-
cedaemonians'at Sellasia
in
222 (Plut.
Cleom.
28.8) show clearly that there
was
no
intrinsic lack
of
men
to
occupy the
kleroi
which the revolution
had made available.
In
this
way the
motifs
of
Sparta's revolution
foreshadow events
at
Larissa,
or
Polybius' analysis
as
more narrowly
interpreted,
or
other attempts
to
redistribute land
65
closely enough
to
require an explanation common to them all. Yet it is inadequate to point
to the drives of greed and luxury, as Polybius
or
Phylarchus in Plutarch
do,
for
they were scarcely peculiar
to the
Hellenistic period, while
Phylarchus' additional explanation in terms of changes in the inheritance
law (the
rhetra
of Epitadeus) is indeed relevant but fails to identify which
changes of attitude and priority in Spartan society allowed those changes
to take place. We shall do better to consider the military imperatives
to
maximize
the
number
of
citizen hoplite soldiers which
in the
archaic
period
had
called into existence laws such
as
those
of
'Lycurgus'
or
Solon which aimed
to
keep constant
the
number
of
kleroi
and
of the
proprietors
of
those kleroi. Once adequate military manpower
was
available from other sources such as subordinate allies (as with Sparta
in
her great days)
or
mercenaries,
the
prime argument
for
maintaining
citizen numbers
or for
controlling
the
allocation
of
land lost
its
force,
and
the
natural tendency
of
wealthy oligarchies
to
maximize property
holdings could be given fuller rein.
It
is no accident that Philip's motive
in trying
to
resist this shift
at
Larissa was not merely agronomic: as his
reference
to 'a
strong city'
and
his invocation
of
the growth
of
Rome
show,
it
was also (and maybe fundamentally) military.
63
Plut. Agis
5
(Fuks 1962 (3),
2JO:(D
i
28), notes that 'the word is not expressly used', but that
it
reflects
the
underlying theme nonetheless); Arist. Pol. 1270334, 1306036-7, 1307335-6.
w
Plut. Agis 5.6, with Fuks 1962 (3), 245-9:
(p
128),
and
Oliva 1971, 211-12: (D
132).
45
See the
list
in
Asheri 1966: (H
4).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
270 8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
III.
THE DEGREE OF ECONOMIC INTERPLAY: ARTEFACTS AND
INSTITUTIONS
In this way demographic problems interlock with those
of
landowner-
ship and land use, and thereby with those
of
the economy
in
the widest
sense. Of
all
aspects
of
Hellenistic society this latter is still the least well
charted
or
accessible,
and
is in
consequence
the
most complex
and
controversial. Indeed,
for
reasons which will appear,
it is
far
from
certain that
a
'Hellenistic economy'
as
such existed,
in the
sense
of
a
continuous market-defined exchange
of
the whole range
of
goods
and
services throughout the eastern Mediterranean,
for
an economy as thus
denned is not
to
be confused with an economy
in
the sense of
a
number
of segmental sets
of
activities conducted under more
or
less closely
comparable social, fiscal, technological, and climatic conditions with
a
certain degree
of
interplay between them: that
an
older generation
of
scholarship
66
interpreted such interplay as revealing a unified 'Hellenis-
tic economy' defines
the
problem,
but
does
not
solve
it.
Signs
of
interplay
are of
course undeniable, ranging from
the
rise
and
fall
of
commodity prices on Delos,
67
the great increase in known shipwrecks
-
and therefore probably
in
maritime trade
-
after
200
B.C.,
68
the
circulation-patterns
of
such coinages
as
were
not
purely local,
69
the
complementarity
of
Rhodes
and
Alexandria,
70
or the
growth
of
Mediterranean-wide institutions
and
practices,
71
to the
distribution
of
artefacts as various as Alexandrian glass or faience or containers for wine
and olive oil.
72
The challenge is rather to develop satisfactory criteria by
which
to
decide whether the evidence (including that
of
such interplay)
suggests a picture
of
many local and largely autarkic economies,
or
one
of micro-
or
macro-regional economies stimulated
by
local economies,
or one
of
a zonal economy
of
the whole eastern Mediterranean; while,
even
if
such criteria
can
be suggested,
73
there remains
the
challenge
of
finding the evidence to which to apply them. What follows will therefore
be primarily
an
exercise
in
description.
The three most basic propositions are also the least well documented.
First, most gainful activity, especially
the
production
of
the
basic
'Mediterranean triad' of
corn,
wine, and olive, will have gone on just as
66
Cf.
particularly Heichelheim 1930: (H
91) and
Rostovtzeff 1936: (H 188); major counter-
considerations
in
Preaux 1969: (H 176).
67
Glotz
1913 and
1916:
(H
79-80).
M
Hopkins
1980,
IOJ-6:
(H 108).
69
See pp.
277-82, below.
70
Fraser 1972,
1.164:
(A
IJ).
71
Bogaert 1968:
(H 17).
72
Brashinsky 1973:
(B 53);
Sherwin-White
1978,
236ff.:
(D 146).
73
E.g. the proportion of goods by value rinding a final market more than .v km away from their
place
of
origin
or
manufacture;
the
proportion
of
the adult working population engaged
in
producing such long-distance commodities.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE DEGREE OF ECONOMIC INTERPLAY 2.JI
it had done
for
centuries. Second, such primary agricultural production
will have continued
to
occupy
the
vast majority
of the
labour force,
whether slave,
serf, or
free. Third, most
of
their produce will have been
consumed within a comparatively short radius (of the order
of
30
km)
of
the locus
of
production.
It is in the
nature both
of the
activities
themselves and of the evidence
for
them that these propositions are hard
to prove.
The
second
and
third need little comment.
For the
second,
though
no
figures
of
direct relevance
are
attested anywhere
for the
Hellenistic period,
it is to be
assumed that
as for any
pre-industrial
society,
in
conditions which rarely allowed a ten-fold yield (often much
lower),
food production will have required the labour of at least 80%
of
the adult population as
a
whole, men
or
women, slave
or
free.
74
For the
third,
the
costs
of
land transport will have rendered economically
prohibitive
any
mechanisms
for
ironing
out
peaks
and
troughs
of
production
in
areas
not
accessible
by
ship. We must therefore envisage
an underlying pattern, distinguished by local famines and local gluts,
of
production
for
local consumption without recourse
to
trading
or to a
'market'. That will apply throughout
the
eastern Mediterranean
and
will apply
not
merely
to the
'triad'
but
even more
to
vegetables
and
fruit.
75
The first proposition deserves longer consideration.
It is
largely
an
inference, whether from survivals
of
the
use of
comparable techniques
and tools from antiquity till recent times,
or
e
silentio
from
the
lack
of
notable advance
in
technology
or in
agricultural productivity. Each
element
in the
argument needs some qualification,
the
first because
continuity
of
practice can never be formally proved, the second because
some innovation
and
some systemization
of
knowledge
are
attested
in
our period. Evidence of innovation comes mainly from Egypt, above all
from
the
Zenon papyri,
and is at
first sight extensive.
We
hear
of
new
techniques
of
drainage and irrigation, double-cropping,
the
use
of
iron
plough-shares, the import and acclimatization of new types of wheat and
fruit
trees,
the creation of vineyards, the extension of olive-growing, and
the import
of
Arabian
and
Milesian sheep.
76
Other instances
of
large-
scale drainage/irrigation systems
are
attested
in
Babylonia, Thessaly,
74
For the hypothesis of this figure for Republican Italy see Hopkins 1978, igfF.:
(A
24); for crop-
yields see Mayerson in Colt 1962,
21
iff. at
227ff.:
(B
189); Duncan-Jones
{pp.
cit.
n. 49) 49 n. 4 and 51
n. 1, and Rickman, 1980 (2), 261: (H 182).
75
Burford
1960-1:
(H
JI);
Duncan-Jones
(pp.
cit. n.
49)
366-9; Rickman 1980 (1),
1
}5.:
(H
181).
Much of
the
portrait painted for the agricultural pattern of
the
later Roman Empire by C. E. Stevens
('Agriculture and rural life in the later Roman Empire', in
Cambridge Economic
History of
Europe
i
2
(Cambridge, 1971) 92—124) can be applied with little change.
76
Rostovtzeff 1922: (j 164); Johannesen 1923: (F 270); Schnebel 1925,
passim:
(j 165); H. A.
Thompson
1930:
(j
166);
Preaux 1939,
I2O:(F
306);
corn, double-cropping: Rostovtzeff
19s
3,1.56—
7,
391-9 and 365-4 with in.
1403?.
nn.
IJO-6I:(A
52); irrigation: Preaux 1969, 56-7:
(H
176), Preaux
1978,
11.476-8:
(A
48).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
272 8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
Euboea, Boeotia,
the
Crimea and Bactria:
77
of
acclimatization
of
plants
in Syria and Babylonia:
78
of selective breeding in Epirus and probably at
Pergamum.
79
So too
handbooks
on
agriculture
in
general
or on
particular aspects of
it
proliferated, kings themselves such as Hiero II of
Syracuse and Attalus
III
of Pergamum being among the fifty and more
Greek authors quoted
by
Athenaeus
or
cited
as
authorities
by
Varro
(RR
1.8-9),
plin
y (iVH
XVIII.22)
and
Columella (1.1.8).
All the
same
there is room for doubt about how far-reaching the effects of this activity
were. Some
at
least
of
the literary work seems
to
have had interests
not
so much agronomic
as
taxonomic
(e.g.
Theophrastus), dietetic
(e.g.
Diphilus
of
Siphnos, Phylotimus), or lexical (Tryphon). Again, much of
the work
of
transplantation
and
acclimatization
may
have remained
experimental
and
marginal,
for
luxury
and
ostentation,
and
most
of it
(not only in Egypt) is likely to have been the product
of
the convergent
fiscal pressures, felt and transmitted by the kings,
to
reduce imports by
developing home-grown alternatives
and to
improve revenues
by
improving yields.
80
It is
therefore dangerous
to use the
example
of
Apollonius and Zenon, in close touch with court policy and disposing of
considerable risk capital,
as
typical even
of
wider circles among
the
colonialist Greeks
in the
new kingdoms,
let
alone
of the
indigenous
populations. Furthermore, such accounting systems as we can see in use,
even
on
large estates such as Apollonius', derived from those used
by
city administrations, and like them were designed
to
prevent embezzle-
ment rather than to quantify each input into each activity and thereby
to
reveal net profit
or
loss. A truly 'rational'
or
'scientific' agriculture was
therefore impossible.
81
Lastly, though some irrigation techniques may
have represented genuine innovations, other 'innovations' were rather
on the Achaemenid model (cf. ML 12), viz. the transfer to a new area of
plants
or
techniques already
in
use elsewhere. That
is not to
deny,
but
rather to locate more precisely, the scope of such enterprise and impulse
to improvement
as can be
seen.
Nonetheless such transfers are part
of
the evidence that by
c.
300 B.C.
the eastern Mediterranean had long since ceased to comprise purely
a
set
of local subsistence economies,
at
least
in the
sense that
on to the
underlying pattern
had
come
to be
superimposed widespread produc-
tion for a market, involving transport and exchange over long distances.
It begs fewest questions if the remaining evidence
for
such interplay
is
77
See
references
in
Rostovtzeff 1953,11.1160—2, 1198,
and
m.1608-9
nn. 95-6: (A 52);
Preaux
1969,
62 n.
2:(H
176). For Bactria (AIKhanum) see references in Briant
1979,1
398f.
and 1414:^ 28).
78
References
in
Rostovtzeff
1953,
11.1162-8 with
in.
1609-12
nn.
97-109:
(A
52).
79
For
Epirus
ibid.
11.1163 with
m.
1609
n.
99;
for
Pergamum
ibid.
1.563
withm.1451
n.
330, but
OGIS 748
and
RC 62 prove only the ownership
of
large tracts
of
pasture land by the dynasty,
not
necessarily
any
particular policies about their exploitation.
80
Thus Rostovtzeff 1953, passim: (A
52),
surely rightly.
81
Grier
1934:
(F
2J4)> Mickwitz
1937: (H 144),
Ste
Croix
1956, 37-8: (H 192).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE DEGREE OF ECONOMIC INTERPLAY 273
set
out
by genre. First come general statements
in
literary sources such
as Diodorus' remark
in the
context
of
Demetrius' siege
of
Rhodes
in
305,
that though
the
Rhodians tried
to
stay
on
good terms with
everyone, 'their inclination
was
towards Ptolemy,
for
most
of
their
revenues came from merchants sailing
to
Egypt:
in
general the city was
sustained from that kingdom' (Diod. xx.81.4).
So too the
outbreak
of
war between Rhodes
and
Byzantium
in
220, triggered
by
Byzantium's
imposition
of
tolls
on
maritime trade through
the
Bosphorus (Polyb.
iv.47.1),
is
placed
by
Polybius
in a
context
in
which
'the
islands which
surround
the
Pontus provide both cattle
and
slaves
in
the
greatest
quantity and of
the
highest quality; and as for luxuries, the same regions
not only supply
us
with honey,
wax,
and
preserved fish
in
great
abundance,
but
they also absorb
the
surplus produce
of
our own
countries, namely olive oil and every kind
of
wines.
In
the case
of
corn
there
is a
two-way traffic, whereby they sometimes supply
it
when
we
need
it, and
sometimes import
it
from
us.'
82
Though,
as
Polybius goes
on to relate, other resentments against Byzantium were also involved,
it
is significant both that the effect of the Byzantines' action on the terms of
trade was enough
to
make non-Rhodian sea-traders apply pressure
on
Rhodes
and
that Rhodes
did
respond
to
that pressure
on the
politico-
military level (Polyb. iv.47.1—3).
83
A second type
of
evidence comes from
the
distribution
of
surviving
artefacts. Many categories
of
them
are
involved,
and the
purview
of
what follows is limited. Highly desirable though
it
would be to bring up
to date
the
surveys which Rostovtzeff provided
of the
artefact
production of
the
various regions of
the
Hellenistic world, neither space
nor the competence
of
a single scholar would allow such
an
enterprise
here.
Furthermore, as will appear,
the
firm evidence
of
interplay and
of
exchange
of
goods
yet
available from artefact distributors
is
still
embarrassingly limited.
Virtually the only artefacts the distribution of which has been studied
systematically are the large containers
{amphorae)
which survive in huge
numbers and whose handles tended to be stamped with a state's symbol
and/or magistrate's name(s).
84
The
most convenient
(but
intentionally
82
Polyb. iv. 38.4-;.
The
evidence
for
corn-imports into
the
Black
Sea
area,
now
considerable,
is
set
out
in
Pippidi 1953: (B
117),
Rostovtzeff 195 3, m.1462
n.
20:
(A
52),
Pippidi 1971, 99!.: (D
166),
Stefan
1974: (H 220),
ISE
11.128
and
132,
with Moretti
ad
loc.
83
For
this
war
cf.
Seyrig
1968,
191-2:
(B
262),
and
Habicht
1959, 1088: (E 69).
One may
legitimately compare events
ten
years earlier, when sea-traders harrassed
by
semi-official Illyrian
piracy
in the
Adriatic complained effectively enough
to the
Roman Senate
to
trigger
off
the
First
Illyrian
War
in
229
(Polyb. 11.8.1-3).
On
both occasions collective action
by
the
sea-traders
(irAuuIjo/ievoi
in
both contexts
of
Polybius)
has to be
assumed.
84
There
is
still no detailed overall study. See Fraser 1972,
i.i6iff.
with
n.277ff.
nn. 227-32:
(A
15),
Brashinsky
1975: (B 53),
and Sherwin-White 1978, 237!.:
(D 146),
for references, above all to the
work
of
V. R. Grace:
(B
292-4); add now Saflund 1980: (B 314)
for
the material from l.abraunda.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
274 & CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
far from complete) summary of distribution figures does show some of
the main traffics.
85
Of 113,469 handles reported by Sherwin-White, no
fewer than 98,047 (86-4%) are Rhodian, and of them about 80,000 were
found in Alexandria. No other state begins to approach such figures,
though Cos, with 1,925 handles reported, shows
a
similar proportion
from Alexandria (1,480, or 75-9%). In contrast, stamps of the second-
biggest supplier, Cnidus
-
6,222
in
all reported
—
gravitated towards
Delos (4,525,
or
72-7%, found there). Given the preponderance
of
amphorae in known shipwrecks of the Hellenistic period,
86
it is fair to
see
in
these
and
other figures
87
a
reflection
of
one
of the
main
components by bulk (perhaps the principal one)
of
eastern Mediter-
ranean trade in the Hellenistic period. All the same, though the potential
of this material
is
immense,
its
present evidential value
is
limited.
(i) Only a handful of states, mainly Aegean islands or in the Black Sea
(but none from the Greek mainland), adopted the practice of stamping
amphorae,
but it
cannot
be
assumed that they alone were major
producers, (ii) The reasons why handles were stamped are not clear
—
whether for fiscal reasons, as a guarantee of origin or of capacity, or as a
date.
88
(iii) The commodities carried
in
them are still
a
matter
of
guesswork.
89
(iv) The relative and absolute chronology of most series is
still too loose for the ebbs and flows of production to be traceable with
the chronological precision (e.g. by decade) which would alone provide
the really valuable economic evidence.
All
that emerges clearly
at
present is that the predominance of Rhodes seems to have reached its
peak, predictably enough, in the years before and after 200 B.C., but did
continue
(at
least
in
Egypt) even after the political and economic
convulsions
of
the 160s.
The distribution of other pottery artefacts is even harder to evaluate,
for several reasons. The comparative neglect
of
Hellenistic pottery
is
only now being made good, and the place or area
of
manufacture of
85
Sherwin-White
1978,
238-9:
(D 146).
Omitted
are
sites where Coan handles have
not
been
found,
as
well
as, e.g., the
stamps
of
Thasos
and
elsewhere found
on
Thasos
(Bon and Bon,
I95 7:(B
282)), stamps from sites
in
Italy
and the
West such
as
Marseilles (Benoit
I96I:(B
183)), Fraser
1972,
11.274
n.
214: (A
1;)),
etc.
For
Rhodian stamps
cf.
still Nilsson
I9O9:(B
307), with Grace 1934, 214?.:
(B
292);
Grace
1953, n6ff.: (B 294);
Grace
in
Talcott
el al. 1956,
138ff.:
(B 321).
86
Benoit
1961: (B 183).
87
E.g.
those which show
how
stamps
of
Black
Sea
cities
are
found largely within
the
Black
Sea
area,
or the
concentration
of
amphorae from Italy
at
Delos
and
Alexandria above
all (see the
table
in
Sherwin-White
1978,
238-9: (D 146)). Further finds
and
identifications will sharpen
the
picture
but
are unlikely
to
alter
its
main outlines much.
88
See Grace 1949,176-8:
(B
293),
and Bon and Bon
1957,
3
5
fF.: (B
28 2)
(but
also Finley 1965,
28ff.:
(H
63)).
89
If
indeed
the
amphorae were
not
themselves sometimes
the
commodity,
as
Fraser argued
was
the case
for
some
of the
Rhodian imports
to
Alexandria (Fraser
1972, 1.168
with 11.289-90
nn. 282
and
284:
(A 15)). Others,
he
argued, went empty from Rhodes
to
Laodicea,
and
took wine thence
to
Egypt
(ibid.
1.167,
in
the
light
of
Strabo xvi.2.9,
c.
752).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE DEGREE OF ECONOMIC INTERPLAY 275
several major fabrics either remains unknown
90
or
has only recently been
ascertained,
91
while other local fabrics remain unstudied.
92
However,
one development is clear and paramount, the gradual decentralization of
production.
In
proportion as
the
Athenian red-figure tradition fell ever
further behind contemporary advances
in
panel painting
as the
fourth
century progressed,
so
correspondingly,
at
least
for
fine pottery,
customers' tastes
in
Greek areas seem
to
have turned increasingly
towards pottery which either eschewed decoration (e.g. Athenian black
glaze)
or
carried simpler
and
much less ambitious decoration
(e.g.
West-slope ware)
or
recalled
the
forms
and
decorative motifs
of
metalwork (notably
the
so-called Megarian bowls). True, there
were exceptions,
93
but
their distribution
and
appeal remained local
or
specialized, while those
of
wider appeal could
be and
were much more
easily imitated
by
local workshops without loss
of
quality
94
than could
be classic black-
or
red-figure.
A
crucial component
of
this process was
the move towards mould-made wares, which could
be
given elaborate
decorative ornament with less labour
and
without becoming slapdash
(Plates
vol., pis.
165,
170).
Hellenistic pottery therefore shows
a
paradox: while there developed
an
artistic koine (comparable
to the
linguistic
-koine)
which produced
a
very similar range
of
fabrics
and
allowed
a
very rapid circulation
of
ideas,
95
that
koine
came
to be
served
by many local schools and workshops whose products therefore seem on
the whole
to
have travelled much less
far
than the classic wares had done.
In consequence, though some individual movements can be detected,
no
general pattern
of
shipping movements
can yet be
assembled from
the
distribution
of
Hellenistic pottery fabrics.
Much
the
same picture holds true
of
other artefacts.
For
instance
the
90
E.g. the Lagynos group
of
jugs (Leroux 1913: (B 304); R. M. Cook i960, 207:
(B
286); Plates
vol.,
pi. 166),
or
Hellenistic 'Pergamene' (Waage
in
Rostovtzeffi9J3,111.1639?.:
(A
52); Wagge
in
Waage 1948,
i8ff.:
(B 333)).
91
E.g. the clay-ground 'Hadra' vases (Fraser 1972, 1.33 with 11.104 nn. 248-9,1.139 with n.245
nn. 50-1:
(A
15); Plates vol., pi. 83)) found especially in Egypt but now thought
to
have been made
in Crete (Callaghan 1978, 1;:
(B
188)),
or the variety
of'
Megarian' bowls which show Homeric scenes
on their relief decoration, now localized
in
Macedon and the Gulf
of
Pagasae (see Sinn 1979, 27?.:
(B
318)).
92
E.g. that
of
Cos (Sherwin-White 1978, 233: (D 146)).
83
E.g. the black-figure amphorae which continued to be made to serve as prizes at the Athenian
Panathenaea
(Dow 1936: (B 288); Peters 1942: (B 310);
J.
Boardman Athenian
black-figure
Vases
(London, 1974) 167?.
and
237), the
oinochoai
and other vases made
for the
purpose
of
Ptolemaic
ruler-cult (D. B. Thompson 1973: (F 382)),
or
the wares produced by the third-century schools
at
Canosa
in
Apulia or Centuripa in Sicily (references
in
R. M. Cook i960, 553: (3 286); add Trendall
195 5: (B
332)), which preserved some remnants
of
the major S. Italian school
of
the fourth century.
94
E.g. (a)
West-slope ware
(Plates vol., pi. 167), made first
in
Athens from the late fourth century
onwards (H. A. Thompson 1934, 445-6:
(B 33
1) but subsequently made elsewhere; (b)
White-ground
Hadra
vases,
nearly all made in Egypt but imitated at Rhodes
(B.
F. Cook 1966, 7 n.
3:
(B
285)); and (c)
Megarian bowls
(Plates vol., pi. 168), which seem
to
have been made
in
almost every major centre.
95
Cf.
Callaghan 1978: (B 283)
on the
rapid dissemination
of a
particular motif from Corinth
between c.
IJO
and 146 B.C.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
terracotta figurines which regained popularity and became a widespread
minor
art
form from
the
late fourth century onwards
may
have first
taken their
new
direction
in
Athens
but
were soon being made
in
numerous centres
in
a
remarkably uniform ('Tanagra') style.
96
So too
precious metalwork
and
jewellery, surviving
in
much greater quantity
from
the
period between
the
late fourth century
and
c.
250 B.C. than
either earlier
or
later, shows
a
'basically homogeneous' style practised
by smiths
not
only
in
Athens
or S.
Russia,
as for
silver-ware
in
the
classical period,
97
but
also
in an
increasing number
of
other centres
attested either
by
literary evidence
(e.g.
Antioch
or
Alexandria),
98
by
concentration
of
finds (e.g. Tarentum),
99
or
by rational inference.
In
any
case
the
contribution
by
weight
and
bulk
of
such goods
to the
carrying
trade will have been minimal,
as
will that
of
bronze-wares
for
domestic
use
or
decoration;
100
that
of
weaponry might well have been more
substantial,
but
such material
as
there
is
has
still
not
been studied
intensively.
101
There remains coinage, the one body of artefact material which should at
first sight provide
the
best evidence
for the
intensity
and
directions
of
interplay
and
exchange,
if
only because
the
quantity
of
material
can
easily
be
assessed
and
because
the
originating state
or
area
and
the
approximate date
of
emission
can
usually
be
determined.
102
The
evidence is
in
fact much less straightforward
to
interpret than
it
appears,
but
it is
certainly available
in
adequate quantity.
By the
late fourth
century coinage
was
being issued
by
nearly
all
major
and
most minor
states
on the
Mediterranean littoral.
103
True, Rome and Sparta held
out,
Rome till
the end of
the fourth century, Sparta till 280,
104
and the
coin
issues
of
many smaller states were spasmodic
or
were confined
to
small
silver
and
bronze,
105
but
such reluctances
or
inabilities were more than
96
See
Plates
vol., pis.
171-2.
For
a bibliography
see
Rostovtzeff 1953,
m.
1461
n.
17:
(A
52), and
Higgins
1967, i;4ff-
:
(
H
99)-
97
Strong
1966, 91:
(B 320).
98
Polyb. xxvi.1.2
ap.
Athen. v.1930! (Antioch
in
160s B.C.)
(Downey 1961,
98: (E
I
57)); Athen.
V.197C-203C, with Rostovtzeff
1953,
1.374-6:
(A 52), and
Fraser
1972,
1.136-7
with 11.239-40
nn. 25-32:
(A 15).
99
Wuilleumier
1930:
(B
275).
Cf.,
however,
the
increasing evidence
for the
specific traits
of
Graeco-Bactrian
art
(Saranidi
1980: (H 197);
Litvinskiy
and
Pichikayan
1981: (B
203)).
100
See
Rostovtzeff 1953, 1.122—3, 374ff.
and
11.1212—13:
(A
52).
101
See
Rostovtzeff 1953, 11.1212-22
at
p.
1221: (A
52).
The
topic
is not
touched
on
in
Launey
1949—50:
(j
143)
or
Bar-Kochva
1976:
(j
136).
102
General sketch
in
Preaux
1978,
1.106-10
and
280—94:
(A
48).
103
Carthaginian coinage appears
to
have begun
in the
late fourth century, though
the
precise
date
is not
clear:
G. K.
Jenkins
and R. B.
Lewis,
Carthaginian
Gold and plectrum Coins (London,
1963);
Warmington 1964, 153: (H 232); Will 1979, 1.176
n.
1: (A
67).
101 This
is not
the place
to
rehearse the question
of
early Roman coinage: see M.
H.
Crawford,
Roman Republican
Coinage
(Cambridge, 1974) r.3 5ff.; Burnett 1977: (G
12), and vol.
vn.2.
For
Sparta see Walbank 1957, 1.731: (B 37),
and
Hackens 1968(1): (B 226).
105
E.g. Chalcis: Picard 1979, 346-7: (B 252).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008