The Economy of the Greek Cities: From the Archaic Period to the Early Roman Empire

Introduction

Introduction 1 THE PURPOSE AND NATURE OF THIS BOOK The study of the economy of the ancient world has been much reinvigorated and enriched over the last few decades. There have been many detailed research studies into realia and these have provided precious information, despite their non-theoretical nature, which in many cases limits them to observation and description. At the other end of the spectrum, studies have tackled the subject from a wider perspective, seeking to produce a new, overall, and abstract analysis of certain fundamental features of the ancient economy. The latter studies tend to be inspired by anthropological and economic models. In an innovative and sometimes stimulating fashion, they illuminate a number of aspects of the economic domain but do so at the cost of a somewhat reductionist effect, all too often freezing the past in a frame that reflects only one particular period or a limited part of the subject. There have also, happily, been quite a few studies that have brought new viewpoints to bear upon already familiar texts and either old or new archaeological data, deploying innovative methods that are mentioned below in my description of the sources I have used. It is also chiefly this third category of studies that has encouraged researchers to look afresh and critically at long-accepted ideas and dominant doctrines relating to the economy of the ancient world. Much of this research work is marked by fundamental old debates that need to be briefly summarized here. The earliest controversy dates back to the nineteenth century, when “Modernists” clashed with “Primitivists.” The Modernists, impressed by the dynamism of ancient craft industries and trade, described the ancient economy in modern terms, discerning between it and the economy of today differences not of nature but only of degree, as M. Rostovtseff, the most illustrious representative of this trend, put it. In contrast, the Primitivists, who frequently referred to the so-called primitive societies studied by anthropologists, considered the ancient world to have been static and set in its ways and to have practiced a rural subsistence economy in which trade played no significant role. M.I. Finley is considered the most typical representative of this trend, but the positions he adopts have sometimes been crudely caricatured : for example, he expressed certain reservations regarding the relevance, for Greek society, of models borrowed from civilizations without writing. The second controversy, which bore certain affinities to the first and which has frequently been confused with it, was between “Formalists” and “Substantivists.” The former, convinced that the science of economics had correctly identified the universal principles of economic rationality, sought to apply these to the study of the ancient economy, which 2 / Introduction they considered to be an autonomous sphere, certainly less developed than the economy of today, but comparable to it. The latter argued that this method, founded on the study of a market economy, was unsuited to an analysis of ancient economies, which were fundamentally different. In the 1950s, K. Polanyi vigorously defended in particular the idea that the Greek economy should only be studied within the framework of its own institutions, for it was “embedded” in all the networks and constraints of society as a whole. This fruitful idea provided much inspiration for M.I. Finley, who drew from it excellent conclusions concerning, for example, the role that social status played in economic behavior. In truth, it was an idea that, mutatis mutandis, could be applied to any economy, even that of the present day; for, contrary to theories according to which the domain of economics is an abstract entity that may be expressed in mathematical formulae, modes of production, exchange, and consumption are always influenced by their political, social, and cultural context. However that may be, for several decades research was dominated by the thinking of Finley, now described as “neo-primitivism,” now as “the new orthodoxy.” A number of recent studies have questioned it and tried to reach beyond it. The debate has thus moved into a whole new phase, which is all to the good. As a result, however, where many still controversial subjects are concerned, syntheses can be no more than provisional. The present work is designed to be both accessible to students new to the field and also concise. On the assumption that its readers will possess only an elementary knowledge of ancient history, it aims to constitute...