peoples had built up a thirst for Aegean wines and oil; but also because
the east Balkan–north Aegean‘super-region’had become economically
much more integrated. Changing social relations, gradual adaptations in
the regular movements of basic commodities, such as salt and seasonal
foodstuffs, and the parallel demand for a variety of extra-regional prod-
ucts had led to the increased coordination of road and riverine transport
routes. For those times when economic relationships intensified within
this region, and the number and pace of transactions accelerated, the
enhanced numbers of ships passing through the Straits and Bosporus
need to be factored into the equation.
Can we and should we attempt to calculate the volume of ships passing
through the Straits in an average season? Gabrielsen has estimated that
the revenue from convoying services (or from a more formal toll) that
could have accrued per ship wasc.15,000 drachmas (for an average cargo
of 3,000medimnoiof grain, if the price of grain wasfive drachmas a
medimnos).^2 Naturally, the price of grain varied.^3 This applies to ocean-
going, long-distance vessels, the most prominent in the scholarly litera-
ture, but probably the least numerous in terms of overall numbers of
boats. The celebrated convoy caught in Philip II’s trap in 340bc, which
numbered in excess of 230 ships, provides a convenient order of magni-
tude. The grain convoy in question gathered together those cargoes that
resulted from the sale of grain in Pantikapaion, following the late
summer harvest in the Crimean region.^4 Other traffic through the Straits
was not determined by this particular seasonal factor. Grain ships were
the container vessels of antiquity—large, easily spotted, easily taxed. No
ship-owner who commissioned such a vessel is likely to have taken on
any additional risks (getting such a cargo to its destination was risky
enough). It was easier for tax collectors to be assiduous about these kinds
of clients, who could deliver predictable revenue, than to chase up more
nimble craft. So we need not assume that all ships were subjected to these
same kinds of protection services.
The vulnerability of ships in the narrow passages of the Straits and the
Bosporus is already apparent in the earliest narratives about the area
(Herodotus describes how Histiaios of Miletos, using Byzantion as his
(^2) See refs Ch. 5 n.130.
(^3) Von Reden 2010, Ch. 6, 141–55 and App. I, Tables 4–7, for a recent review of data on
cereal prices (fifth–first centuriesbc); 5 drachmai is a comparatively conservative price for
the Aegean (though approximately twice the price of Egyptian wheat). The author takes
5 – 6dr. as a‘normal’price, whilst acknowledging that inter-annual variation must be taken
into account (Von Reden 2010, 154 4 – 5).
Bresson 2011, 77 (and more generally for a discussion of the timing of harvests in
different locations within the eastern Mediterranean).
250 The lure of the northern Aegean