ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 59
πρὸς ἐπαύξησιν δὲ ἀνήκουσαν τῶν τε τῆς πόλεως καὶ τῶν ἑκάστου τῶν
ἰδιωτῶν προσόδων ...... (sister of King?) Antiochus and that he had brought her to obtain from
her brother King Antiochus on behalf of our people an exemption from
import taxes for all products from the territory of Miletus exported into
his kingdom so that thanks to his concession, the award is famous for all
time and will serve to increase the city’s revenues as well as those of every
individual ...
The decree dates to somewhere between 167 and 160 BCE. The period when
the concession was granted certainly falls within the reign of Antiochus IV,
who ruled from 175 to 164 BCE. At that time, after the Peace of Apamea,
the Seleucid kingdom was pushed back behind the Taurus mountains: exports
from Miletus sent to the Seleucid kingdom were therefore long-distance
exports by sea and not trade with a neighboring territory. It was the Milesians
who took the initiative in the negotiations with Antiochus. It is worth not-
ing that the exemption explicitly affects the products from Milesian territory
and not persons.^75 We should also note the connection explicitly established
between the prosperity of the city and that of its citizens in the same way that,
following the devastation inflicted on their chora during long years as a result
of war, the Milesians lamented the simultaneous reduction of public and pri-
vate revenue.^76
There was a search for products to import for trophe and everything associ-ated with it, and a search also for markets by cities that drew their livelihood
from such and such a product. But to complete the agenda set by Aristotle
there are two conditions lacking, this time negative: first, the regulation of
imports and that of exports (political leaders should know what merchan-
dise to import and export, but they should also know those whose import or
export they should prohibit in terms of ‘appropriate expenditure’ [δαπάνη
ἱκανή]).
One often hears it repeated that the absence of concern on the part of theGreeks for foreign commerce is especially apparent in their casual attitude
toward their local products (a concept, which by itself would deserve to be
seriously rethought when it comes to the Greek city) because they were inca-
pable of providing fiscal measures about foreign products that could threaten
their chora (territory). The comments that we made earlier about the city’s
sovereignty concerning trade of course apply fully also to the regulation of
imports: the city reserved for itself the right to prohibit them because it could
issue import licenses (the privilege of εἰσαγωγή). Normally without a doubt
in cities that in practice had a vital need for imports of all kinds (one finds,
for example, neither iron, nor copper, nor linen, nor wood in the cities of the
Cyclades, not to mention grain in an insufficient quantity), one could scarcely
be choosy about imported goods. But as soon as a product became undesirable,