ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 55
Being forced to dock in their ports, foreign merchants import foreign products
and export commodities produced by the Corcyreans, who thus do not have
to send their own merchants to other cities and are therefore not bound by
treaties. In particular, we know that the Corcyreans possessed extensive vine-
yards and that Corcyrean amphoras were exported.^57
Thus the αὐτάρκεια of the Corcyreans corresponds to the definition ofAristotle: the possibility of importing the goods one lacks, balanced by the export
of surplus products from one’s own territory. The parallel with Byzantium, a
city that we have already mentioned in our discussion of Polybius,^58 splen-
didly illustrates this principle. Though written three centuries apart, the com-
ments of Polybius are in perfect accord with those of Thucydides. Like Corcyra,
Byzantium is situated next to a strait through which navigators had to pass
when following a heavily travelled trade route. Therefore, Polybius tells us, the
Byzantines can export their surpluses and import goods that they lack, under
optimal conditions, without effort and without risk. It is the foreign merchants
who essentially come to them, just as with the Corcyreans. Here one encoun-
ters again Aristotle’s description of αὐτάρκεια. But the statement of Polybius,
just like that of Thucydides, also reveals the exceptional character of the autarky
of the Corcyreans and the Byzantines. The Corcyreans are able to make them-
selves the judges of legal disputes with foreigners arriving in their ports with-
out being in any way bound by treaties of this type because of their unusual
location. If their situation is unusual, it is because, conversely, cities should nor-
mally create ties through συνθῆκαι that regulate the rights of individuals as
well as other matters. Therefore, this is exactly what Aristotle tells us in the
relevant passage in the Rhetoric: συνθῆκαι and συμβολαί, which one concludes
with whomever it would appear advantageous, are intended to secure exports
and imports, by agreements about ἐξαγωγή and εἰσαγωγή, the former and
the latter being negotiated between cities which should reciprocally derive an
advantage from them and avoid any disadvantages for their merchants. The con-
nection between Thucydides and Aristotle’s statement in the Politics^59 (which
we have already mentioned) concerning the treaty between the Etruscans and
Carthaginians – that is, συνθῆκαι περὶ τῶν εἰσαγωγίμων καὶ σύμβολα περὶ
τοῦ μὴ ἀδικεῖν καὶ γραφαὶ περὶ συμμαχίας as well as Aristotle’s explanation
that the sole aim of these agreements is ‘that each side not be able to harm the
other’ – is striking. This is precisely the attitude toward foreigners for which
the Corinthian ambassadors criticize the Corcyreans because they have not
concluded συνθῆκαι with other cities insofar as they can import and export
without difficulty. One can see that Aristotle is quite naturally using a formula
alluding to the exchange of products (συνθῆκαι περὶ τῶν εἰσαγωγίμων) when
he discusses relations between Carthage and the Etruscans, whatever the precise
details regarding the text of these agreements (an explicit mention of a particu-
lar category of products or only the regulation of exchange).