Before the introduction of the Asian Tax Law, we must assume that
each community was entitled to raise its own taxes and to use the
revenue therefrom for its own benefit. Harbour dues constituted one of
the most lucrative resources for civic authorities, but also for territorial
powers. The geographical or topographical foci of market centres
made them targets for greater powers to exploitfinancially. Kotys
I of Thrace could raise as much as 200 talents per annum from
emporiain his territories (Dem. 23. 110). Philip II of Macedon redir-
ected the harbour and market dues of Thessalian ports and other cities
to his royal coffers (Dem. 1.22; Just. 11.3.2). That kings could and did
intervene in the affairs of regions and individual civic communities is
not in doubt. However, these occasional references to high-level inter-
vention do no more than cast a strong but pin-like reflector on a very
limited range of evidence. They tell us almost nothing about normal
market operations.
Scholars of classical antiquity have been surprisingly reluctant to
investigate the role of markets in inter- and intra-state affairs. Alain
Bresson’s collection of essays,La cité marchande(2000), was thefirst
systematic attempt to engage with the commercial dimensions of Greek
and non-Greek cities. Its publication coincided with that of Horden and
Purcell’sThe Corrupting Sea, which may partly account for the compara-
tively limited influence that Bresson’s book has had on recent historical
approaches to markets.^45 Thefluid notion of an undifferentiated kind of
exchange has proved more amenable to the temperaments of many
historians than a more prosaic look at money and markets. Markets
have not been given due consideration by students of classical antiquity
partly because of the long association in modern times between the idea
of the market and industrialization. As a result, markets have become
tainted with the notion of‘progressivism’, as we have seen. If we dissoci-
ate markets from mass production, it becomes possible to see them in a
different light. This topic will be explored further in Chapters 4 and 5.
How then might we set about reconstructing markets in the north
Aegean region? We might begin with two approaches, one of which
explores the kinds of essential equipment that an average inhabitant of
our region would consider to form an inescapable investment for every-
day life; or we might investigate the kind of evidence we dispose of for
(^45) See however E. M. Harris’s review of Bresson, BMCR (2001.09.40). Bresson contrib-
uted to Harris 2005 (Bresson 2005b), but Bresson’s own oeuvre is not referred to by Purcell
in his own chapter (Purcell 2005a); Bresson and Rouillard 1993 is fundamental to the
discussion of inter-state exchanges in thefirst millennium bc; see also Descat 2000, 13– 29
Archibald 2005a; and nowTout vendre, tout acheter.
Societies and economies 103