272 MARK L. LAWALL
seeing a shift from a greater role for individual interest in production and con-
sumption to a greater structuring role for the polis and the kingdom in order
that broader goals such as military success, benefactions, collection of revenues,
and necessary conspicuous displays are facilitated through developing institu-
tions, regardless of whether they are concerned primarily with exchange of
goods. This increased institutionalization might have brought some improve-
ment in the area of transaction costs (whether deliberate or not), but many
difficulties remain seemingly unaddressed (e.g., uncertainties still pertaining in
small-scale transactions, specific quantities and qualities of goods, etc.).
And yet, if the Hellenistic socio-political structure had this indirect effect
of facilitating exchange at least at the larger scale, what are we to make of
the fact that Archaic exchange, too, somehow ‘worked’? Osborne ( 2007 ) has
argued that merchants and consumers were well aware of one another’s inter-
ests. Alongside the evidence of Attic pottery catering to specific Etruscan mar-
kets, the point I noted earlier of Ionian amphoras so intensively shipped to
areas of Ionian settlement might well support Osborne’s view and move his
fineware-based argument into the broader freight realm. As I noted earlier,
however, what you see is largely what you get in buying a pot; when buying a
specific container of wine, oil, fish, fruit, cattle ribs, and so on, you could not
even see much less taste the commodity without considerable effort. Even
admitting some level, even a high level, of overseas knowledge, I still find it
hard to remove the substantial level of uncertainty as to the specific qualities of
goods bought and sold from amphoras on a daily basis in Archaic, or for that
matter, Hellenistic, retail marketplaces.Archaeology and Ancient Greek Marketing
The extent to which uncertainty in marketing was endemic to ancient com-
modity containers together with the rhetorical topos of the untrustworthy
merchant argue strongly for a market that had to contend with consider-
able uncertainty. A vast array of research, dealing with disparate cultural and
historical contexts, associates market uncertainty with a response based on
social networks and institutions. These surely dynamic institutional bases for
ancient markets did not, however, lead inexorably toward an ideal market with
ever-lower transaction costs and ever-more autonomous economic actors.
The possibilities for improvement were certainly known and accessible: the
improved capacity standardization and increasing frequency of amphora
stamping for Rhodian amphoras make this clear, as do the various economic
developments noted for the Hellenistic period. And yet, plenty of amphora
producers ignored these developments (even the famed Coan amphoras were
rarely stamped, and those that were provide little additional information). Even
in the later periods, uncertainty remained.