MARKETS, AMPHORA TRADE AND WINE INDUSTRY 233
the ancient amphora trade. The concrete examples in the following paragraphs
illustrate some of these uses.
- During the fourth century and the first half of the third century, Thasian amphoras
were consistently imported into the Black Sea area. Some 64 percent of all
stamped Thasian amphora handles found outside the island come from sites on
the periphery of the Black Sea; for the first three quarters of the fourth century
BCE this figure goes above 88 percent.^4 The ancients were aware that Thasian
and other Aegean wines were traditionally sold in the Black Sea. This is seen in
Polybius’ statement that the places around the Pontus ‘take our superfluous stock
of olive oil and every kind of wine’ (4.38), as well as in Demosthenes’ statement
that ‘Wine is carried to Pontus from places around us, from Peparethos, and Cos,
and Thasos and Mende, and from all sorts of other places’ (35.35). Thus we can
speak of the Black Sea as a ‘market’ for the Thasian wine amphoras in the sense
of ‘a geographic region considered as a place for sales.’- There were wines and then there were wines. Wine was an indication of social
status in antiquity (Garnsey 1999 : 118–19), and the Thasian wine stood at the
high end of the quality spectrum, at least in Classical Athens. Salviat’s ( 1986 )
comprehensive review of the references to Thasian wine in the written sources
has shown that most of these references are found in Athenian authors of the
fifth and fourth centuries and that Thasian wine is unanimously considered
top-quality high-priced wine. Thasian wine is usually mentioned in the context
of symposia and conspicuous consumption. Thus the textual evidence strongly
suggests that the Athenian élite was a ‘market’ for Thasian wine in the sense of
‘a subdivision of a population considered as buyers.’ Again, this is not a purely
modern point of view. Even if ancient Thasian winemakers had no idea who
demanded their product abroad, traders at the end of the line certainly knew
their customers.- Based on the distribution of Thasian amphora stamps, one can state that in the
second half of the third century BCE the market for Thasian amphoras declined
in the Black Sea, but remained stable in the Aegean. In this case ‘market’ stands
for ‘the business or activity of buying and selling a particular product or service.’These are at least three different ways one could speak of a market in an
abstract way. In the next section I will add a fourth one, a ‘market’ as ‘a demand
for a particular commodity or service.’
Volume and Frequency of Supplies
Very few Thasian amphoras have been preserved complete. Only several hun-
dred have been found, of which fewer than 200 have been published. But
there are myriad fragments spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and
the Black Sea area. Some 28,000 fragments, mostly handles dating from the