for traders in the Pistiros inscription, as we have seen in Chapter 5. The
mechanism of bilateral trade agreements made it easy to offer such
advantages to some clients and not to others.Ateleiashored up existing
networks of trust. We should expect to see more evidence of these kinds
of trust-based contracts, which in effect operated in much the same way
as a‘sheltered’monopoly did, in other words, where the agents are
protected from potential competition.^7
Individual bilateral relations were the building blocks of exchange in
the north Aegean‘super-region’as they were elsewhere in the Mediterra-
nean. In any larger locality there would have been many such agree-
ments. Individual agreements delivered specific results. Since different
suppliers had access to a limited stock of resource, multiple suppliers
were needed to provide a reasonable range of stock. The Pistiros inscrip-
tion particularly favours traders from Maroneia (ll 21, 23, 27–28). Mar-
oneia’s prominent role in exchange here is not immediately apparent.
Why did this community offer Thracians of Rhodope and the Thracian
Plain advantages that they would not have had by trading with mer-
chants of Thasos, who are among those given various advantages at
Pistiros and otheremporiain the Odrysian realm, including the remis-
sion of tolls. But the road connections that are singled out as being toll-
free are those between Maroneia, the named and unnamedemporia.
There is undoubtedly a connection between Thracian regal bronze issues
and contemporary ones of Maroneia; and Maroneia’s bronze circulated
widely within and north of Rhodope.^8 Perhaps Odrysian princes were
playing off Thasian against Maronitan merchants, to prevent quasi-
monopolistic situations from arising amongst the competing merchants;
or perhaps there was a particular historical reason for Maroneia’s prefer-
ment. Maroneia’s production of substantial quantities of bronze coins in
three separate denominations (chalkoi, quarter obols, and hemiobols),
from the beginning of the fourth centurybconwards, does imply a
conscious attempt to provide liquidity for small transactions, while the
(^7) Gabrielsen 2011, 224 and n.26 (citing Plb. 5.89.8, 21.43.17 onateleiagranted to
Rhodian merchants or those based on Rhodes by Seleukos II); Plb. 5.88.7 and Diod. 26.8
(ateleiagranted by Hieron II to grain-bearing ships destined for Rhodes); 221 (‘sheltered’
monopolies); Oliver 2007, 30–41, on Athenian grants ofateleiato merchants shipping grain
to Athens and the special privileges granted to Kings Satyros, Leukon, Spartokos and
Pairisades of Bosporus for facilitating grain transports destined for Athens and reducing
the cost of these cargoes by remitting the tax of onefiftieth. Bilaterial treaties are explored in
Gauthier 1972; Bresson 2000a and taxes at various gateways by Purcell (2005a). 8
Nekhrizov and Mikov 2000, 161–72, withfigs. 1–3, showingfind spots; Schönert-Geiss
1987; see now Psoma et al. 2008, with a systematic study of Maronitan issues. De Callataÿ’s
comparative study of die numbers implies that Maroneia was a‘medium sized’producer of
coin (de Callataÿ 2005a, 82–3 and Figs 4.4 and 4.6).
252 The lure of the northern Aegean