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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THE DEGREE
OF
ECONOMIC INTERPLAY
2-7-7
outweighed by the huge issues
of
Philip II and by the output
of
the new
mints established throughout the erstwhile Persian empire by Alexander
and the Successors. Through them must have passed some part
at
least
of the captured Achaemenid treasure of 170,000-^190,000
talents,
106
not
to mention
the
revenues which each successor was clearly
at
pains
to
maximize and
to
monetize.
In
consequence the early Hellenistic period
saw
a
major qualitative shift towards
the use of
coined metal
as a
medium
for
exchange
or
transfer
of
resources:
that no fewer than
1,900,
or 79-6%
of
the 2,387 Greek coin hoards known
in
1973 were buried
in
the three centuries from
3
30
to
31 B.C.
is a rough but fair reflection of the
change
in
this respect from
the
classical period.
Of
course
the
transformation
was not
total,
for the
Persian empire
had
long used
Greek coin
and had
long minted
its
own,
107
while effective
and
sophisticated systems
of
exchange without
the use of
coin
had
long
functioned in Babylonia
108
and elsewhere (e.g. Carthage), and will have
continued
to do so.
Nonetheless
the
shift
was
real,
and was
both
reflected
and
reinforced
by the
spread
of
more
or
less barbarous
imitations
of
Greek coinage made
by
communities
on
the Greek fringe
in the Balkans and elsewhere.
109
The challenge is therefore
to
insert
the
numismatic phenomena
of
increased
and
widespread minting
and
circulation within a plausible politico-economic model. Since awareness
that this is not a simple matter has grown apace in recent years,
it
may be
as well
to set out
systematically some
of the
factors involved before
attempting
any
generalized description.
First, because easily measurable,
is the
range
of
different weight
standards. Once Alexander had abandoned,
for
reasons which need
not
here concern
us,
110
Philip IPs use of
the
Chalcidian standard in favour of
the Attic standard (1 dr. =4-3
g,
tetradrachm
off.
i7-2g),
the
spread
of
his,
his Successors', and continuing Athenian tetradrachm coinage went
far
to
create a monetary
koine
for
the eastern Mediterranean. Numerous
surviving hoards, especially from Asia Minor in the Seleucid period and
from
the
Levant
and
Near East, reflect it,
111
and its
prevalence
was
reinforced in the third and second centuries by the minting in many cities
of
coins
modelled on the issues
of
King Lysimachus of Thrace
112
and by
106
Diod. xvn.66.1-2
and 71.i
(169,000 tal.); Diod. xvii.80.3 (180,000 tal.); Justin xn.1.1
(190,000 tal.). We need not concern ourselves here with the discrepancies in these and other figures
(see Bellinger 1963,
68ff.:
(B 216), with Strabo xv.2.9. c. 731, with determining how much was
already in coin, or with identifying the coinage immediately created (Bellinger 1963, 72).
107
Schlumberger 1953: (H 202).
108
Dandamayev 1969: (E 18); Bogaert 1966: (H 16).
109
Cf. May
1939, 164?.: (B 239) (Damastion); Robert 1967, 37?.: (B 255); Youroukova 1976: (B
276);
Youroukova 1980: (B
277);
Scheers 1980: (B
257).
110
Schlumberger
1953, 27: (H
202); Bellinger 1963, 29-30: (B
216).
111
^-8-
1GCH
1398-1406, 1410—14,
1423 6,
1446-51,
1515-16, 1523-44.
112
Seyrig 1963,
22ff.:
(B
261).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
278
8
CULTURAL, SOCIAL
AND
ECONOMIC FEATURES
the resumption
by
Athens
of
large-scale coining
in the
so-called
New
Style after
c.
164.
113
However, some states such as Corinth, Rhodes,
or
the Achaean League after its recreation
in
281/80 saw
no
reason
to
alter
their
own
existing standards,
and
these were
not
marginal coinages.
Between
340 and
c. 308 Corinth
and her
associated states
in the
West
produced coins
of
traditional type
and
standard (1 dr.
=
2-9
g, stater
of
8-6 g)
in
such quantity
as to
predominate
in
hoards buried
in
Sicily
between 340 and 290, and to give way only gradually to the lighter coins
which Agathocles minted from
c.
295 onwards.
114
Rhodes, again,
produced
a
small coinage on the Chian-Rhodian standard (1 dr.
=
3-9
g,
tetradrachm
of
15
-6
g) till late in the third century, but more prominently
in
the
years before
and
after
200, to
judge from surviving hoard
material.
115
As for
Achaea, though
her
coins
may not
have
had the
homogeneity Polybius claimed
for
them till after c. 196,
116
they
did
thereafter,
and
were minted
on a
large enough scale
to
provide
the
largest single component
in
twelve
of
the twenty-five hoards
in
which
Achaean League coins are found.
117
Furthermore, there were secessions
from
the
Attic-Alexandrian standard.
One is
known
to
have been
transitory, namely
the
issues made
by
Byzantium
and
Chalcedon
of
coins
on
the 'Phoenician' standard from the 230s till the war
of
220,
for
reasons evidently
to do
with
the
Danegeld which Byzantium was then
paying
to the
Gauls.
118
Two
others were long lasting
and of
major
importance. The first occurred
c.
310, when Ptolemy
I
initiated the first
of three successive weight-reductions
of
his silver currency.
By
c.
290
these
had
yielded
a
tetradrachm
of
c. 14-25
g,
again more
or
less
corresponding
to the
'Phoenician' standard,
119
which continued there-
after
and was
(remarkably) perpetuated
by
some
of
the Seleucid kings
for
the
dominions
in
Coele-Syria conquered
in
the Fifth Syrian War.
120
The second secession
was the
creation
of the
so-called 'cistophoric'
coinage, which
was
minted
on the
Rhodian standard (tetradrachm
of
c.
12-60 g) by numerous cities within the Attalid sphere of influence from
the 180s
or
even later till well into
the
first century B.C.
121
The varying
113
For
this date
see
Lewis 1962:
(B
238),
Hackens 1965: (B 225),
and
Boehringer 1972: (B
217)
against
the
higher date
of 196
adopted
by M.
Thompson 1961: (B
267) and
defended
by her in M.
Thompson
1962: (B 268).
114
Talbert
1974, 161
ff.:
(G 18).
115
This
is an
impression only, drawn from survey
of
the
80
hoards listed
in
IGCH as containing
Rhodian material.
116
Polybius 11.37.1
1,
with Chantraine 1972:
(B
219) against
M.
Thompson 1939: (B
26;) and M.
Thompson 1968:
(B 271);
Valbank
1979,
in.761:
(B 37).
117
IGCH
242—3,
2J7-8, 260-2,
270—1,
301, 330,
2053.
lls
Seyrig
1968,
191—2:
(B 262).
119
Fraser
1972,
11.239
n
-
2
4
:
(
A
M);
M^rkholm
1980: (F 392).
120
Seyrig
1973, 121: (B 263),
correcting Bikerman
1938, 216: (E
6).
121
The introduction of the cistophoric coinage has been progressively down-dated in recent
years,
and has now been placed, not
as
by Seyrig 1963,
22ff.:
(B
261), in 188 or soon after, but after
167:
see Kleiner and Noe 1977, 10-18: (B 231), with further contributions to the debate by
M^rkholm 1979:
(B
244), Kleiner 1980:
(B
232), M^rkholm 1980:
(B
245), Bauslaugh
1981: (E
118). I
am grateful to Mr P. J. Callaghan for those last references.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE DEGREE OF ECONOMIC INTERPLAY 279
reasons
for
such choices and changes of standard will be in part explored
below,
but
some notion
of
their effect needs
to
be formulated
at
once.
It
is often said that
the
effect
of the
adoption
or
retention
of
particular
standards
was to
create economic isolation
or
a
'closed economy'.
122
Such statements
are
at
best fierce oversimplifications.
By
that token
Rhodes, with a standard shared
by few
mints save Chios and Cos
in the
third century, should have suffered thereby, which hardly appears
to
have been the case: understandably,
for
nothing intrinsically precluded
the free convertibility
of
different currencies when weighed
as
the
bullion which (as reasonably pure silver) they all basically comprised.
123
That
is not to
deny
the
existence
of
'closed economies',
at
least
in the
sense that (e.g.) Ptolemaic coins barely appear in Seleucid areas or indeed
outside the Ptolemaic monetary zone of Cyrene, Cyprus and Syria, while
Seleucid
and
other foreign coins
do not
appear
in
Egyptian hoards.
124
However,
the
creation
and
continuance
of
such exclusions
is
not
a
matter
of
standard
but of
the degree
of
informal willingness
to
accept
foreign coin,
of
the reliability
and
frequency
(or
otherwise)
of
facilities
for exchange,
and
above
all of
the
presence
or
absence
of
legal
prohibitions created
by
fiscal policy.
A second factor
is the
need
to
identify
the
routes
and
mechanisms
which yielded
the
distribution
of
coins attested
by
hoard
and
other
evidence and now increasingly becoming the object
of
detailed study.
125
At least five major mechanisms
can be
isolated:
(i) the
payment
of
military forces, especially
but by no
means only
of
mercenaries;
126
(ii)
moneys paid by the kings as subsidies to cities in difficulty,
127
as bribes
to
122
E.g. Will 1979, 178: (A 67), and Preaux 1978,
1.248:
(A 48),
for
the Ptolemies; Seyrig 1963,
2zff.:
(B 261), and 1968,
190-1:
(B 262),
for
cistophori.
123
It is
pertinent
that
many hoards
contain
silver
as
money
and
silver
as
plate
buried
together,
the
ensemble
being
evaluable
only
by
weight.
124
Fraser 1972, 1.136 with 11.238—9: (A 15); Bagnall 1976, ch. 8: (F 204).
125
Any bibliography
of
this work can only
be
partial
and
exempli
gratia.
Some major recent
studies
of
Hellenistic hoards are Wallace 1956: (B 274), M. Thompson 1968: (B 271), and Seyrig
1973: (B
263). The circulation of coins of certain mints
or
regions has been studied, by
inter
alios,
de
Laix 1973: (B 235) (Aetolia); Hackens 1969: (B 228) (Boeotia); Shelov 1978: (B 264) (Bosphorus);
Seyrig 1963: (B 261) and Schonert-Geiss 1970: (B 260) (Byzantium); Picard 1979,
3O7ff.:
(B 252)
(Chalcis); Le Rider 1966:
(B
237) (Crete); Hackens in Bruneau and others 1970, 3876".:
(j
i9o)(Delos,
in part); Robert 1951, 179-216:
(B
253), L. Robert,
HellenicaXI-XII
(i960)
63—9,
and Robert 1967, 37:
(B
25;) (Histiaea); Hackens 1968(1):
(B
226) (Peloponnese); Le Rider 1965,
435-51:
(B
236) (Susa);
Dunant
and
Pouilloux 1958,
2i4ff.:
(H 53) (Thasos); Robert 1951, 69-100
and
243-5: (B 253),
Bellinger 1961:
(B
215), and Robert 1966, 94-114:
(B
254) (cities
of
Troad). Not all
of
these studies
pay equal attention to the two sorts of distribution map or survey required, (a) that of the find-spots
of the coins of
a
given mint or city, and (b) that of the mints or cities of origin of the coins found in
one area
(for the
distinction
L. and J.
Robert 1954,
332-3:
(E 94)). Exemplary
are
Dunant and
Pouilloux 1958: (H 53) and Picard 1979: (B 252).
128
Griffith 1935, 264
3
16:
(j
141), and Launey 1949-50, 11.725-80:
(j
143), both making much
use ofOGIS 266; Ducrey 1970, 653?.: (E 121).
127
E.g. by Philetaerus to Cyzicus in and after 280 (0G1S 748
=
Austin 194, with Atkinson 1968,
44ff.:
(E
5
8)),
by Euergetes to Rhodes after the earthquake (Polyb. v.89 and Diod. xxvi.8), by Attalus
I to Sicyon early in 197 (Polyb. xvm. 16.3-4, Livy xxxn.40.8), by Epiphanes to the Achaean League
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
28O 8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
politicians,
12
"
or
as
gifts
for the
creation
of
monuments
or
works
of
art;
129
(iii) simple seizure, whether through reprisal, through banditry
or
piracy,
or
through
the
capture
of
booty
in
more
or
less regular war;
130
(iv) taxation:
131
and (v)
trade.
To
assess the relative importance
of
each
of these mechanisms is an enterprise barely begun
132
and not yet capable
of being satisfactorily expressed
in
general principles.
133
All
that
can
safely
be
said
is
negative:
the
assumption, still widespread, that coin
circulation reflects trade relations above all is not safe enough to allow
it
to dominate whatever model
of
circulation
we
hope
to
construct.
A third factor is the effect of governmental intervention
for
fiscal
and
other reasons. Such intervention took various forms. First, since
minting was profitable,
134
all kings followed the Athenian fifth-century
example
and
attempted
to
control coining within their own territories,
to the point where the issue of tetradrachms was
a
symbol of sovereignty
maintained (as
by
Rhodes
or
Byzantium)
or of
autonomy conceded,
as
possibly
by
Alexander,
135
more certainly
by the
Seleucids, rarely
in the
third century
but
much more frequently from
126
onwards,
136
and
certainly
by
Eumenes
II, in
whose extended kingdom after 188 cities
given autonomy struck cistophori while those
not
given autonomy
did
not.
137
Athens' resumption
of
tetradrachm coining after
c.
164
is to be
in
171
(Polyb. xxm.9.3),
or
the
offer
by
Eumenes
to
the
Achaean League
in 185
(Polyb. xxn.7.3).
For parallel examples,
see n. 309
below.
Cf.
however Picard
1979, 313: (B 252),
for a
return
to
commercial explanations
of
the
circulation
of
Ptolemaic coinage
in
Euboea.
128
E.g.
Euergetes' payments
to
Aratus till
227
(Plut. Arat.
41.5,
Agis
and
Cleom. 40(19).$).
129
A
survey
of
Selcucid gifts
is
given
by
Bikerman
1938,
125: (E 6);
of
Attalid gifts
by
Cardinali
1906,
199fF.:
(E
120),
and
Robert 1937,
84
n.
4
and
201: (B 139);
cf. in
general Preaux 1978,1.20iff.:
(A
48).
130
There
is
unfortunately very little systematic discussion
of
the magnitude
and the
economic
effects of such violent transfers of
specie
in e.g. Ormerod 1924:
(H
158), Launey 1949-50:
(j
143),
or
Brule 1978: (H 29), though
the
ranges
and
routes
of
displacement
can be
divined
to
some degree
from evidence about piracy
and
ransom payments. Some references
to
booty
and
confiscation
in
Bikerman 1938,
120-1:
(E 6);
the
list could
be
extended.
131
Data collected and classified by Bikerman 1938, 106-20:
(E
6); Preaux 1939, 61-435: (F 306);
Jones 1940, 108-12: (A
25);
Preaux 1978,
11.438-41:
(A
48).
132
Honoris causa
I
single
out
Robert's pioneering detection
of
the
trade-links
of
Histiaea with
Macedon,
the
gulf
of
Pagasae,
and
Rhodes
(n. 125
above),
Le
Rider's comments
on
foreign coinage
in Crete
as
a
reflection
of
mercenary service
(Le
Rider 1966, 267:
(B
237)),
and the
lengthy
and
careful
discussion by Hackens 1968(1):
(B
226)
of
the reasons for the appearance
of
Seleucid and Ptolemaic
coins
in
Peloponnesian hoards
of
the late third century.
133
It
is too
simple
to
say
with Robert
1951,
77 n. 8:
(B
255),
that'bronzecoins
do not
enlighten
US
about commerce and the movements
of
commodities, but about the journeys
of
men' (repeated
in
Robert 1966, 13: (B 254)).
The
remark
has
been acclaimed,
but (a)
account must
be
taken
of
the
special role played by Ptolemaic bronze after the 220s, (b) the more the circulation
of
silver reflects
mercenary service,
the
more
it
reflects human movement,
(c)
bronze does tell
us
about
the
movement
of
goods,
but of
different goods and
on a
smaller scale, and (d) bronze
is
probably less
liable than silver
to
circulate
by the
mechanisms
of
seizure
and
taxation.
134
OGIS
339
(
=
Austin
215)
11.45ff.
(Sestus,
after
133 B.C.,
with Robert
1973:
(B 150).
135
Thus Newell 1919, 16-22: (E 88),
but cf.
Bellinger 1963, 78-9: (B 216).
136
Bikerman
1938, 235: (E 6);
Seyrig
1951(2),
213-14:
(H 211);
Preaux 1954,73
and
I3O:(H
172);
Seyrig
1958, 621:
(E
97).
1
3
?
Seyrig
1963, \<)ft.:
(B 261).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE
DEGREE
OF
ECONOMIC INTERPLAY
28
I
seen in the same light (see n. 113). Secondly, states could lay down what
moneys were acceptable
for
particular purposes. Thus,
for
example,
a
Euboean'law
of
294—288 provides that performers
at the
Demetrieia
should
be
paid
in
'currency
of
Demetrius' (i.e. Attic standard, rather
than
the
lighter local silver):
138
a
treaty
of
173/2 between Miletus
and
Heraclea-on-Latmus lays down that payments should
be
made
in 'old
Rhodian drachmas':
139
a treaty of
the
late third century between Attalus
I and Malla states that payments
to
recruited mercenaries shall
be
made
in Aeginetan (weight) drachmas:
140
inscriptions
of
Mylasa provide
for
payments in 'drachmas of light Rhodian silver':
141
and so on.
142
Thirdly,
and more wide-rangingly,
a
state might
be
liberal
or
exclusive
in
prescribing which moneys could be used
in
its territory
or
markets.
The
Athenian coinage law
of
3 7 5
/4
provides for the acceptance of silver coins
struck from
the
official
die but not of
'silver coin bearing
the
same
charakter
as the
Athenian'
(i.e. of
imitation owls
if
made
of
good
silver).
143
Similarly,
the
Amphictyonic law
of
124—100 B.C. enforces
on
all Greeks under penalty the acceptance
of
the Athenian
(sc.
New Style)
tetradrachm.
144
Equally drastic were
the
regulations made earlier
in
Egypt, whereby from
c.
300 B.C. foreign coins were
not
allowed
to
circulate within Ptolemaic territory:
145
a prohibition intensified
for
gold
from 259/8 onwards
by a
decree
(prostagmd)
providing
for the com-
pulsory suireflder and reminting of
all
gold coin, foreign
or
local.
146
On
the other hand,
a
fourth-century
law of
Olbia provides that gold
and
silver could be imported and exported freely, that buying and selling
of
currency had
to
be done
in
one specified place and
in
terms
of
the city's
bronze
or
silver, and that apart from Cyzicene staters
(for
which a fixed
exchange rate was laid down) exchange could
be
made
at
any mutually
agreeable rate.
147
In
the light
of
the other documentation
it
may be risky
to claim that
the
Olbia decree 'points
to
commonly applied
principles'.
148
'3*
IG \n.i).2o-j = SIG
348,1.
20, with Wallace 1956, 28
(B
274); Habicht 1970, 76-7: (1 29), and
Picard 1979, 345: (B 252).
139
Ducrey
1970,
6}Sff.
no.
2,
1.
23,
with
6(6ff.:
(E 121).
140
SIG
633,
H.96-7,
with
Rehm
1923,
11-21:
(B
123),
and
Robert
1951,
173—4:
(B 253).
141
Robert
1951, 179: (B 253).
142
E.g. IG
XII.7.67-9
with Rostovtzeff
1953,
1.223:
(A
52).
143
See T.
V.
Buttrey,
'The
Athenian Currency
Law of
375/4 B.C.',
in
Greek Numismatics
and
Archaeology. Essays
in
honor of Margaret Thompson,
ed.
O.
M^rkholm
and N.
M.
Waggoner (Wetteren,
1979) 33—46; idem, 'More
on the
Athenian Coinage
Law
of
375/4
n.c\Quad.
Tic.
10(1981) 71—94;
as
against R. S. Stroud, 'An Athenian law on silver coinage', Hup. 43 (1974) esp. 169?, and 186—7.
144
J"/C729 = Pleket 1964.no.
13: (B
118), with Daux 1936, 387ff.:(D77); Rostovtzeff 1953,1.743
and 111.1503 n. 9: (A 52), and Giovannini 1978, 64-72: (B 224). »
5
Jenkins 1967, 59: (B 230).
148
P.
Cairo
Zen.
59021 = SP
11.409:
(F
89), with many commentaries: Preaux 1939, 27 iff.: (p 306).
147
.$7G = Picket 1964, no. 8: (B 118); Schmitz 1925: (B 259); Michell 1957, 228 n. 4: (H 143);
Finley 1965, 21: (H 63).
148
Finley 1965, 21: (H 63).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
282 8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
All these factors
can
give
any one
currency
a
skewed distribution
pattern.
For
example, that
no
Rhodian coins have been found
in
Hellenistic Egyptian hoards means nothing,
in
the light
of
the literary
and papyrological evidence. Similarly their absence from
S.
Russia,
Italy, Sicily,
N.
Africa and Spain
149
can
hardly reflect
a
real absence
of
commercial contact, given
the
non-numismatic evidence
for
such
contact.
150
Likewise, the heavy concentration of
coins
of Byzantium and
Chalcedon
in
Thrace, W. Euxine, S. Russia and Asia Minor may reflect
not just exchange relationships
but
Danegeld payments
as
well, while
their rarity
in
Greece, Macedon,
the
Levant, Egypt
and the
West
is
striking and unexplained. We are
on
least unsafe ground
if
we take
the
distribution
of
Hellenistic Greek coins
as
a
whole,
and
think
of it as
evidence
of
many mutually complementary flows
and
counterflows,
some local,
151
some wide-reaching, but as an ensemble serving to define
a 'Hellenistic world'
at
least as precisely and objectively as the evidence
of the
use of
Greek.
Complementing
the
evidence
of
artefacts
are
some more indirect
indices
of
economic interplay. Especially pertinent
is
the
growth
of
certain institutions,
of
which three deserve specific mention.
(a) Perhaps first
in
importance,
but
still shamefully understudied,
is
the slave-trade. The s kimpy evidence
152
suggests that though war, piracy,
and brigandage contributed substantially
to
the supply
of
slaves,
so also
did more regular trading relationships, above
all
those which drew
slaves from non-Greek peoples
of
the
Black
Sea
littoral
and
took
them past Byzantium (Polyb. iv.38.4
and 50.3)
to
points
of
sale
or
redistribution at e.g. Ephesus,
153
Rhodes,
or
later
—
and notoriously
—
at
Side (Straboxiv.3.2, p.
664)
or Delos, with its facilities for receiving and
despatching tens
of
thousands
of
slaves
the
same day.
154
Plainly, even
before Roman demands
for
slaves became insatiable from
the 160s
onwards, this was
no
marginal trade. The quantities
of
Greek and later
of Roman coin found in Bulgaria and Romania (436 Greek hoards in the
Hellenistic period) must reflect
it, at
least
in
part,
as of
course does
the
ostentatious monumentality
of
post-166 Delos:
155
though
not all so-
149
Apart from
a few
strays reported from Spain (IGCH 2317, 2334).
150
Cf. the
wide distribution
of
Rhodian amphora handles
in
these areas, the exemption from
dues (atekia) given
to
Rhodian merchants
at
Syracuse
in
227 (Polyb. v.88.7),
and the
nature
of
Roman-Rhodian relationships since 306 (Polyb. xxx.5.6, with Schmitt 1957, 1-49: (E 143)).
151
E.g.
the
Achaean League coins found
in 2;
hoards,
of
which three are
in
Italy and three
in
Crete
but
otherwise
all in
Peloponnese
or
Central Greece.
152
Mostly assembled
by
RostovtzefF 195 3,11.777-95
and
1258-63: (A 52),
and by
Finley 1962:
(H
61),
with Heinen
1976
and
1977: (H 93).
153
Hdt.
vm.105; Front. Strat.
111.3.7
=
Polyaen,
v.19 (287
B.C.); Menander
fr. i9;K;
Varro,
Ling,
viii.21.
154
Strabo
xiv.5.2.
c. 668.
155
See M. H.
Crawford,' Republican denarii
in
Romania:
the
suppression of piracy
and the
slave-
trade',
JRS
57(1977)
117ff.
at
121—2,
and
also
the
remarks
of
Stewart 1979,
65
ff.
and
i42ff.:(B
319).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE DEGREE OF ECONOMIC INTERPLAY 283
called Romans
(Rhomaioi) —
many were
in
fact Italians
—
at
Delos will
have been slave-dealers, many surely
were.
Nor should their suppliers be
sought only among camp-followers
and the
menu
peuple:
some
of
the
grossly wealthy
men
of
the
Greek Black
Sea
towns could well have
derived part
of
their wealth from the slave-trade,
156
while there
is
good
evidence that
the
kings themselves,
at
least after 166, saw advantage
in
supplying
the
market.
157
(b) Another institution which spread gradually
in
the
Hellenistic
period,
the
association
of
traders
and
merchant-ship owners
(KOIVCL
or
ovvoSoi
kfj/JTopcjv
KO\
vavKX-qpoiv)
from
one
port established
in an-
other.
158
Egyptian
and
Tyrian groups were already attested
(as
cult
groups)
at
Athens
in
the late 330s,
159
Sidonians by the late third century
(IG 11
2
.2946)
and
other groups
a
century later.
160
Delos similarly sees
associations
of
men
of
Tyre from
the
third century onwards,
161
from
Beirut (the later Poseidoniastai)
by
17 5,
162
and
from Alexandria
by the
120s,
163
thereby largely predating
the
proliferation from
the 140s
onwards
of Italian groups such as
the
Hermaistai, Apolloniastai, Poseidoniastai,
etc.
164
That such groups took cult form and theophoric
names
not only
re-
veals what sort of self-identification
was
most important (or most accept-
able in the host town) but also suggests that many of the similarly named
associations attested on Rhodes from the late third century onwards had
comparable origins
and
functions.
165
Such associations have
not yet
been identified elsewhere, e.g.
at
Demetrias, Ephesus,
or
Miletus: their
presence should
be
diagnostic
of
major long-term routes
of
exchange.
(c) The spread of certain other practices and institutions illustrative of
naval trading can also
be
traced
to
some degree. The one document
we
156
For
instance Protogenes
of
Olbia
(SIG
495), Apollonius
of
Chersonese
(ISE
132),
or
Dionysius
of
Istria
(ISE
128).
167
Strabo says
as
much
of
'the kings
of
Cyprus and
of
Egypt' (xvi.;.2, p. 669), while OGIS
345 =
FD
in.4.77 clearly shows Nicomedes
III of
Bithynia
in
102/1 supplying Delphi with slaves
(but as
a
favour,
be it
said, rather than as
a
commercial transaction).
So
too the injunction
to
the
Eastern kings, in the Roman piracy law
of
101/100
B.C.,
not to allow pirate bases in their territories,
was presumably
a
propos (FD m.4.37,
B
10—11,
with Rostovtzeff 1953, ".774 and 784:
(A
52), and
Hassall
el
al. 1974: (H 88)).
168
In
general Ziebarth 1896,
z6ff.:
(H 249); Poland 1909, 1066F.: (H 168); Picard 1920, 264-70:
(H
164); Ziebarth 1929, 90-9:
(H
252); Fraser 1972,1.186—8:
(A
15);
I.
Velissaropoulos,
Lesnaucleres
grecs
(Geneva—Paris, 1980), 91-124.
159
1G n
2
.337
=
Tod 189;
we are not
authorized
to
infer from /Gn
2
.i4i =Tod
139
that
the
Sidonians who came
to
Athens
KCLT'
kfinopiav already formed any such group
in
367.
160
IG
ii
2
.ioii = SIG 706 (112/11);
IG
n
2
.2952 (c. 97/6).
161
Insc.
Delos
50;
Michel
yy$ =
Insc.
Delos
1519.
162
OGIS
z4T
= doix
ji
= IGxi.4.114; Tod 1934:
(B
i(s-j)
=
Insc.
Delos 1520, with Robert 1973,
486ff.:
(B 149); later references
in
Picard 1921: (H 165) and Mouterde 1964,
156ff.:
(H
149).
163
Insc.
Delos
1528
(
= OGIS
140
= Choix 108), 1529. Cf. also a group from Hieropolis in Syria in
128 B.C.
(Insc.
Delos 2226)
and the' voyagers to Bithynia'
(KaranXeovres
is
Bt&vviav)
(Insc.
Delos
170 5).
184
Hatzfeld 1919,
3iff.:
(H 90); Laidlaw 1933,
2ozff.:
(D 145).
165 Pugliese Carratelli 1939-40,
16;
no. 19 (earliest evidence), 176?. (list),
i87ff.
(analysis): (E
141).
Cf.
also
the
Rhodian burial koina (Fraser 1977,
)8ff.:
(E 156)).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
284 8 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FEATURES
have
of
the Hellenistic period detailing
a
bottomry
loan
166
shows indeed
considerable change
in
format
and
legal background from fourth-
century Athenian practice
as
attested
in
Dem. xxxv.
10-13
but
recog-
nizably represents
an
extension
of
it,
in
this case
to
Red Sea
trading
financed and managed
by men
even more diverse
in
nationality than
those known from fourth-century Athens. These
and
many other
matters were reflected
and
regularized
in the
Kbodian
sea-law,
167
which
dates from
A.D.
600—800
in
its
present form but may trace some part of its
origin
to
Hellenistic practice as codified
in
Rhodian courts. So, too,
the
development
of
descriptive geography,
as
reflected
in
Polybius' great
excursuses
or
in travellers' guides
{periploi
otperiodoi),
gave increasingly
systematic guidance
for
such journeys
by
land
or
sea,
168
while
the
development
of
ports
and
harbour-installations
169
and
the
proliferation
of grants
of
proxeny-status
and
isopoliteia
110
will have smoothed
the
path
of
many
a
traveller
and his
goods.
Not
all of
these phenomena were new
or
significant. Associations
of
foreign merchants were
not a
purely Hellenistic phenomenon;
171
proxenoi were appointed
for
many reasons other than commercial
—
political, judicial, athletic, cultural,
or
religious; Athens by the 420s was
already importing goods to an extent and from within a radius very little
different from anything the Hellenistic world can show; Phaselis by 429
(Thuc. 11.69.1)
was
)
ust
as
muc
h
the
staging post
of
Graeco-Levantine
trade
as
Rhodes
was to be
two centuries later,
and so on. All
that
it is
prudent
to do is to
register
an
impression,
viz.
that
the
economic
interplay and exchange among the seaboard communities
of
the eastern
Mediterranean did increase in intensity during the Hellenistic period and
did
go
some
way
towards making
one
world
out of
what
had
been
hitherto
an
assemblage
of
economic zones less intimately
and
more
superficially connected:
but
that this increase took place
on
lines
(geographical and institutional) already familiar in Alexander's lifetime,
166
P.
Berl.
j
883
+
5853
=SB
7169, probably
of
the period 200—150 B.C. First edition
by
Wilcken
1925:
(F 346), with subsequent discussions summarized
by
Bogaert
196;,
147(1".:
(H
I
;);
add
Fraser
1972,
1.187 and
11.275
n
-
21<
>
an
d
321
n.
435; Ste
Croix
1974,
53—4:
(H 193).
167
Ashburner 1909: (H
2);
Kreller 1921: (H 122), Rostovtzeff 1953, n.688-9: (A j2),De Robertis
1953:
(H 47).
168
Rostovtzeff 1953, 11.1035—41:
(A
52).
169
Rostovtzeff 1953,
n.iO4iff.:
(A 52).
Cf.
Roehlig 1933, 61-2: (H 184),
for
Miletus.
170
For proxeny-grants and
isopoliteia
see below, n.
3
24.
Since the citations for proxeny-grants do
occasionally specify services
to
traders and merchant shipowners (e.g. IG n
2
.4i6 (Athens,
c.
330)),
their influence has been posited elsewhere, especially when
a
particular city predominates among
the honorands (e.g. Rhodians
at
Olous
in
Crete,
IC
1
xxii.4—5)
or
when
a
wide spread
of
ethnics
mirrors otherwise attested trading relationships, as at Chios (Vanseveren 1937,
3 2
5£F.
no. 6:
(B
169))
or
at
Heraclea (Robert 1951,
i79ff.:
(B 25 3)).
However, the absence
of
any such specification from
the citations
in
the numerous proxeny-decrees
of
Samos
is
noticeable, while
at
Delphi honours
to
theoroi
were
a
major component of SIG
5
8
5
(see
11.
3-6, note). Cf. also
C.
Marek,' Der Geldumlauf der
Stadt Histiaia
und
seine Bedeutung
fur die
Verteilung seiner Proxenoi', Talanta
8-9
(1977),
72-9.
171
Cf. IG
n
2
.337
=
Tod 189 (Athens, 333/2 B.C.).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
PIRACY
AND ITS
RAMIFICATIONS
285
was
at all
times precarious
and
subject
to
much distortion
and
impediment
for
political reasons (above all
fiscal),
and
was hampered
by
the limitations
and
fluctuations
of
effective demand. Apart from those
few ' trunk-routes' which
are
reflected
in the
associations
of
merchants
abroad, much movement must have been speculative
and
of
rapidly
fluctuating pattern, expressed
as a
strong need
for
one
port
of
redistribution
— be
it Athens, Rhodes, Phaselis, Chalcis, Delos, or where -
ever
—
but not
for
much more than that
at
any one time.
172
Such study
as
there
has
been
of
price-movements encapsulates
the
problem
of
description. Glotz's studies of prices at Delos from 315
to
166
173
brought
out clearly that their rise
and
fall were governed
not by any
supply—demand mechanism
but by
military events
and
political deci-
sions;
Heichelheim's study
of
1930
on a
wider canvas showed that
the
prices
of
a whole range
of
goods
and
services'tended
to
rise
and
fall
in
unison through
the
same period
and
beyond throughout
the
eastern
Mediterranean.
Our
difficulty
is
that both observations
are
true
and
pertinent.
IV. PIRACY AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS
Much
of
the
activity described in the preceding section was affected by a
phenomenon whose influence defined
the
life
of the
eastern Mediter-
ranean
no
less than that
of
monarchy: piracy. There is indeed
a
link
of
a
complex kind between piracy, monarchy,
and
Greek society
at
large.
Because
of
that complex inter-penetration, piracy needs extended
discussion
at the
levels both
of
description
and of
interpretation.
The descriptive framework
is
clear enough,
and has
often been
sketched.
174
After the Social War
of
3 5
7—3
5 5
Athens was unable
to
keep
an effective patrol fleet
at sea in the
Aegean. Spasmodic expeditions
in
lieu were insufficient
to
prevent
the
development
of
piracy based
on
small islands such
as
Melos, Cythnos, Halonnesos,
and
Myonnesos.
175
Most known pirate leaders
in
the late fourth-century Aegean were local
men,
but
incursions were also made
by
'Tyrrhenians',
i.e.
Italians
and
Etruscans, who had gained greater freedom of action after the erosion of
Dionysius' Syracusan empire
in
South Italian waters. The period
of
the
Successors may have seen a remission
in
piratical activity, partly because
they were themselves maintaining substantial fleets
and
partly because
many pirates
and
pirate ships
had
been recruited into those very fleets.
172
Thus rightly Picard 1979,
342-3:
(B 252).
173
Glotz 1913
and
1916: (H 79-80).
174
See imprimis Ormerod 1924: (H 158); Ziebarth 1929: (H 252); Rostovtzeff 1953, 1.195-200,
202-3,11.607—10, 679-82, 771-4, 783-6, and 948—55:
(A
52); Trofimova 1963: (H 229); Brule 1978:
(H
29).
175
Ormerod 1924,
n6ff.:
(H
158).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
286
8
CULTURAL, SOCIAL
AND
ECONOMIC FEATURES
However, with the weakening
of
Ptolemaic power
in
the Aegean
by the
250s and the subsequent gradual decay of the Macedonian fleet,
176
piracy
began again
in
earnest, the main practitioners this time being Aetolians
and Cretans, followed
by
Illyrians from
the
230s onwards.
177
The
responsibility
for
trying
to
deal with them gradually passed from
the
Ptolemies
to
the
Rhodians, who
are
known
to
have been active
in
this
capacity
by
c.
299
and
onwards into
the
second century.
178
However,
their ability
to
render the Aegean safe should not be overestimated in the
light
of
the endless epigraphical documentation
of
piracy from
the mid
third century onwards.
In
any
case, after
166
Rhodes
did
not
have
the
revenues necessary
to
keep any kind
of
fleet
at
sea,
and her
failure even
with Attalid help
in
the
Second Cretan
War
of
15
5-15
3
179
left Aegean
and eastern Mediterranean waters largely unpoliced
and
open
to the
organized
and
increasingly large-scale piracy which used Crete
and
the
coast
of
Cilicia
as its
base
of
operations from
the
140s till Pompey.
Implicit
in
such
a
sketch
is a
view
of
pirates
and
their landward
counterparts
in
brigandage
180
as
evil
and
marginal predators
on
settled
society. That view
is
unsatisfactory,
not so
much because
it
reflects
too
Manichean a morality (though, such is the equivocation
of
our age, such
doubts have justly been voiced)
181
as
because piracy was
too
pervasive,
and
too
firmly
interwoven in the fabric
of
Greek society,
to
be dismissed
as marginal.
Two
main aspects deserve comment.
The first
is
a
matter
of
manpower
and
skill.
The
superior technology
and seamanship evinced
by the
success
of
Illyrian
lemboi,
Black
Sea
kamarai,
or
Cretan mjdia
and
akatia
182
put the
pirates
and
their craft
paradoxically
far
more
in the
vanguard
of
military progress than
the
great powers with their increasingly expensive
and
elephantine sevens,
thirteens, and sixteens,
etc.,
183
while the battle of the Paxi islands (Polyb.
11.1
o)
revealed all too clearly how helpless the traditional navies
of
minor
powers could
be.
In
consequence pirate ships
and
their crews were
an
asset worth neutralizing
or
harnessing.
The
major powers
did
both,
by
176
Walbank
1940, 13 n. 10:
(D
43).
177
Aetolians: Benecke
1934, nff.:
(D
103);
Cretans: Brule
1978, 66-7: (H 29);
Illyrians: Dell
1967(2):
(D 10).
178
See
Blinkenberg
1938, 45 n.
2: (E
133), for a
list
of
Rhodian campaigns against pirates.
179
M.
Segre, 'KpijriKos 77-oAffioy',
Rip. Fil. 11
(1933) 365—92; Brule
1978, 61-6: (H 29). The
Rhodian fleet remained
in
being,
as did
those
of
Cos (Sherwin-White
1978,
208-10: (D
146)) and
Athens; Rhodes also played some role
in the
events which precipitated
the
Roman pirate
law of
101/100 B.C. (Hassall
et
al.
1974,
lines
12-13:
(H
88)), but
that role
may
have been diplomatic only.
180
Of
whom
in the
Hellenistic period there
has
been less systematic study.
Cf.
however Robert
1937,
90—110:
(B 139);
Rostovtzeff 1953,
1514 n.
49: (A
52); and
Briant
1976: (E 11); and for the
Roman period MacMullen
1967,
192-241
and
255—68
(H 135).
181
Brule
1978, 46: (H 29);
Garlan 1978, passim:
(H 72).
182
Casson
1971,
1
25ff.:
(j
137);
Strabo xi.2.12. c.495; Diod. xxxi.38.
183
Tarn 1930, 132?.: 0 M3)-
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008