and Maroneia, from their hinterlands, in an attempt tofind pretexts for
intervention and footholds to future control of the region. Once Roman
administration was established in the east Balkans, this policy had to be
abandoned and the network of connections with inland areas resumed.
Xerxes’coastal road became the basis for the Via Egnatia, and the cross-
continental routes from Abdera to the Danube, and from Ainos and
Byzantion northwards along the Black Sea coast, were reinvigorated.
The law on the sale of slaves and pack animals at Abdera provides a
connecting link between the different economic drivers of this landscape.
It is a technically demanding piece of legislation, requiring civic officials
to make informed decisions about the physical health of people and
animals to be put up for sale, and adjudicate in cases where sales were
cancelled. Notwithstanding the serious import of the legislation, the
content of this public document is reminiscent of the task placed on
that shady character, Herakleides of Maroneia, on behalf of Xenophon’s
‘Cyreans’, to sell the booty from the Thynian villages at Perinthos, which
amounted to 1,000 captives, 2,000 cattle, and a great many small animals
(Xen.Anab.7.3.48, 4.2, cf. 5.2). Perinthos, like Abdera, was one of the
leading harbour cities of the region. Even so, Herakleides was in effect
supplying the livestock for a major regional sale in one go. The fact that
this throughput of animals did not cause any significant problems at
Perinthos gives us some idea of the level of commercial traffic for which
this city was prepared. We need to think much more seriously about the
productive capacity of the north Aegean region.
There is a telling expression of this productivity in a funerary stele
found at Amphipolis, honouring Aulus Caprilius Timotheos, styledsoma-
temporos, a term that echoes Strabo’s description of the slave trade on
Delos.^95 The Caprilii were among the prominent Italian families who
established themselves in Macedonia after the creation of the Roman
province of Macedonia. One member of this family, P. Caprilius Secundus,
is the second in a long list of names on acippus, discovered close to
Herakleia Lynkestis on the Via Egnatia, and published by Léon Heuzey.^96
Timotheos was evidently a freedman of thisgens.^97 Although the monu-
ment from Amphipolis commemorates a Roman slave dealer, whose
power is illustrated in two registers below the main frieze in the form of
two superimposedfigure scenes, Timotheus chose to be represented in the
(^95) Geogr. 14.5.2 (óøìÆôåìðïæåEí); Duchêne 1986 andfigs 1–3 (dated to the latefirst or
early second centuryad).
(^96) Heuzey and Daumet 1876, 304–6; Duchêne 1986, 519.
(^97) The dedication reads: Asºïò ̊ÆðæåߺØïò,`hºï[ı]|IðåºåýŁåæïò,ÔØìüŁåïò |
óøìÆôÝíðïæïò; Duchêne 1986, 518.
126 Societies and economies