civic magistrates.^23 They are, nevertheless, invaluable as evidence of
legally binding processes and procedures. This fact alone makes the
appearance of public inscriptions in relatively remote parts of the
north a matter of considerable interest. Almost every single example of
a public document (and some private ones) from Thrace and Macedonia
adds something unique and valuable to our knowledge of the local
applications of what were, by the time such documents appear, widely
established principles, not just in central and southern Greece and Ionia,
but also in these neighbouring regions that are often excluded, con-
sciously or unconsciously, from the ‘Hellenic’cultural and political
realm.
There are potentially knowable data sets of various material residues
that can be examined scientifically (measured, dated, analysed); though
what they mean in economic terms is debatable. Since economists and
politicians debate the economic significance of various kinds of data even
today, we should not be surprised that there are grounds for dispute
about past economies. The existence of a debate does not invalidate the
process of discussion; nor should it diminish the potential value of the
data under discussion for determining economic relations or economic
conclusions. The development of new theoretical frameworks in recent
decades is making it easier to see how disparate data sets may neverthe-
lessfit into a coherent pattern of exchange, which is consistent with the
kinds of statements made by Ps.-Xenophon and Xenophon, as well as
other ancient authors.
Finley believed that new material data, or larger quantities of material
evidence, would not fundamentally affect the way we understand the
underlying nature of ancient economies.^24 He conceived the ancient
classical world as dominated by landowners of high status, although he
was unwilling to define who was to be included and what proportion of
the population was involved. The most glaring weakness of this assump-
tion is not so much its emphasis on a particular status group, as the
unchanging character of the underlying social framework. Since there is
no evidence that landowners, however defined, controlled the means of
production, there is no reason to think that the fundamental mechan-
isms of economic life were static. On the contrary, there are good reasons
to believe that change was constant, though significant step changes can
be demarcated in relatively restricted periods.
(^23) See in particular Fröhlich 2004, 51–76 (aims of control and the vocabulary of civic
control of magistrates); 113–15, 122–7, 147–52, 205, 265–6, 275–6, 292–3, 381–4, 400–1,
412 – 13, 429, 448; Hatzopoulos 1996, I, 371–429. See Index for individual documents.
(^24) Finley 1985 [1999] 33, 59, 136–7, 138, 144–5, 146–7, 157, 193.
94 Societies and economies