INTRODUCTION 25
number of specialists to produce; this was due primarily to simple technology.
Though vertical specialization remained relatively undeveloped, high levels of
demand in urban areas did allow it to develop to a small degree in the assembly
of some products, as Xenophon was well aware. In the following passage he
writes about the preparation of the king of Persia’s dinner; in so doing he pro-
vides revealing information on vertical specialization of labour in Greek cities.
For just as all other arts are developed to superior excellence in large
cities, in that same way the food at the king’s palace is also elaborately
prepared with superior excellence. For in small towns the same workman
makes chairs and doors and ploughs and tables, and often this same artisan
builds houses, and even so he is thankful if he can only find employment
enough to support him. And it is, of course, impossible for a man of many
trades to be proficient in all of them. In large cities, on the other hand,
inasmuch as many people have demands to make upon each branch of
industry, one trade alone, and very often even less than a whole trade, is
enough to support a man: one man, for instance, makes shoes for men,
and another for women; and there are places even where one man earns
a living by only stitching shoes, another by cutting them out, and yet
another by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who per-
forms none of these operations but only assembles the parts. It follows,
therefore, as a matter of course, that he who devotes himself to a very
highly specialized line of work is bound to do it in the best possible man-
ner. [Xen. Cyr. 8.2.5, tr. Miller]^124In a society where the rich alone exerted demand for market goods, this degree
of vertical specialization could not have developed. Both the high degree of
horizontal specialization and the degree of vertical specialization noted by
Xenophon in urban areas were a function of high levels of demand for a
variety of commodities by Athenian households, and not just those of the
liturgical class, but of Athenian society in general. This high level of demand
could not have been met by craftsmen working part time. As the passages from
Xenophon and Plato’s Republic indicate, craftsmen clearly had enough orders
from numerous customers to keep them busy on a regular basis, and discerning
customers would only have been satisfied by products made by craftsmen who
devoted all their energies to improving quality.
Avoiding Markets? The Concept of Autarky and Its
Relation to Popular Practices
What, then, of the much-vaunted ‘ideology’ of autarky? Whilst the average
Athenian could have bought a variety of products at market, we have been
led to believe that they tried to avoid reliance on markets as far as possi-
ble. This was because an ideology of self-sufficiency apparently permeated