30 EDwaRD M. HaRRIs aND DavID M. LEwIs
But the marketplace is not just a place where buyers and sellers can find
each other; it is also a place where they can safely transact business. By the fifth
century, if not earlier, many poleis appointed magistrates who kept order in the
marketplace. These officials, who included agoranomoi, made sure that buyers
and sellers could make transactions without fear of violence or intimidation.^135
They also provided weights and measures, which reduced transactions costs
and helped to create the trust needed to carry out market exchange.^136 When
transactions are dispersed over a large area, it is impossible for the polis to pro-
vide these services to buyers and sellers. When exchanges are concentrated in
a few places, the polis can set up official buildings and appoint officials in these
places to regulate transactions in a way that builds trust and reduces transaction
costs. Concentrating economic transactions in one place also brings advantages
to the polis by making it easier to tax sales and increase public revenue.
Mark Woolmer’s contribution to this volume questions the notion that
Greek states were not interested in trade more generally, but only in securing
a supply of necessities. He shows that honours offered to merchants – though
frequently bestowed to grain traders – also applied to those involved in the
trade in other goods. The Athenian state – and other Greek poleis – made con-
certed efforts to stimulate trade more generally, including the construction of
harbours, the maintenance of networks of proxenoi, the extension of ateleia (tax
exemptions) to merchants, the suppression of piracy (including the provision
of escorts for merchant ships) and the provision of swift justice in commer-
cial disputes. Woolmer’s contribution illustrates an important point stressed by
Douglass North: ‘Institutions affect the performance of the economy by their
effect on the costs of exchange and production.’^137
We noted earlier in this chapter that regional markets might bring together
buyers and sellers to trade in products not available at a local level. Here too,
city-states took an active interest in improving the ease with which trade took
place. Selene Psoma’s study of weight standards in the Greek world shows
vividly the degree to which regional markets were supported by the minting
of coins on a common regional standard to guarantee smooth and efficient
transactions between merchants. Thus, the minting of coins lowered transac-
tion costs not only in exchanges between members of the same polis but also
in broader regional patterns of exchange.
By shifting the focus to markets (in their various manifestations) and institu-
tions in the Greek world, this volume provides not only a compelling expla-
nation for the degree of economic growth that clearly occurred in the first
millennium BCE but also a more balanced assessment of the role of market
exchange in the ancient Greek economy than has been available in most stud-
ies to date. Much work remains to be done, but we hope that the framework
offered here can provide a helpful way of studying markets in the Greek world
that steers a sensible course between the excesses of those views which either