ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 53
and foreign relations as similar to their own that this example makes sense in
Aristotle’s argument.^48 The main reason why he chooses this example rather
than one taken from reciprocal relations between Greek states is to show that
such treaties cannot transform two communities (κοινωνίαι) into one and the
same city because their ethnic differences and geographical distance keep them
completely separate. One might add that the antiquity of the treaties between
Carthage and the Etruscans,^49 possibly renewed shortly before Aristotle wrote
the Politics, might have led him to take this example that everyone knew; no
educated Greek of the fourth century could really have been unaware of the
longstanding treaty that linked the Etruscans and Carthaginians. The fact that
Carthage as a state could be compared in Aristotle’s mind to a Greek city
emerges from a series of passages in which its constitution is described and
often given as an example. At no point is Carthage relegated to the barbarian
world; in fact, a reader who did not know that Carthage was a Phoenician set-
tlement^50 might assume that when Aristotle discusses Carthage, he is talking
about a Greek city like any other. It is true that if to gain an idea of the con-
tents of the treaties between Carthage and the Etruscan world one takes into
consideration the treaties between Rome and the Phoenician city (it would
also be a mistake to think that Aristotle was thinking specifically about Rome,
which had not yet achieved an exceptional position), one certainly sees on the
one hand that commercial factors are placed on the same footing as strictly
political factors, but also on the other hand that there is no explicit discussion
of trade in a particular product, but rather in regulating transactions in gen-
eral.^51 Later when we examine the parallel that exists between Byzantium and
Corcyra, we will nevertheless see that concerns about merchants are directly
linked to those about products. For the moment let us simply observe that
what we know about Carthage’s commercial relations in the fifth century
BCE corresponds perfectly to the notion of balanced exchange as formulated
by Aristotle. Diodorus, probably following Timaeus, attributes the prosper-
ity of Agrigentum in the fifth century BCE to exports of olives and wine
to Carthage because trees bearing these products had not yet (οὔπω) been
planted in Libya during this period. In this way, ‘those living in the territory of
Agrigentum acquire a remarkable amount of wealth by carrying on trade with
Libya’ (οἱ τὴν Ἀκραγαντίνην νεμόμενοι τὸν ἐκ τῆς Λιβυής ἀντιφορτιζόμενοι
πλοῦτον οὐσίας ἀπίστους τοῖς μεγέθεσιν ἐπέκτηντο).^52
As for συνθῆκαι περὶ τῶν εἰσαγωγίμων, nothing prevents us from con-sidering the possibility that they could have been included in treaties or
‘conventions’ of alliance. Gauthier would like to define συνθῆκαι strictly as
formal treaties.^53 He apparently believes that he succeeds in getting Aristotle
to contradict himself because Aristotle speaks first about συνθῆκαι περὶ τῶν
εἰσαγωγίμων (thus the idea of specific agreements about products) and a lit-
tle later about συνθῆκαι that aim at providing reciprocal protections against