acknowledgement opens a new understanding of the‘Balkan’strategy of
the last Antigonid rulers.
Kings could impose taxes on their subjects. We know something about
the kinds of taxes that Macedonian and Thracian rulers did impose and
these provide the outlines of how general revenues were raised on behalf
of the central authorities.^16 Tax details nevertheless provide only a
starting point. Scholarly interest has focused heavily on military expend-
iture. The military campaigns of the Macedonian and Thracian kings
form the substance of narrative histories, so this bias is not surprising.
Economic information appears only sporadically in such accounts.^17
Nevertheless, ancient rulers lacked many of the tools that have been
developed since the Middle Ages to regulate the terms of loans, control
flows of capital, and, in particular, to enforcefiscal policies. Ultimately,
the only sanction a ruler had against a recalcitrant entity was brute force.
As Philip II and his later namesake Philip V found, this tactic could be
ineffective, if not counter-productive. Cities with strong maritime links
could resist military attack, given the right extra-territorial support.^18
Even when vulnerable to arbitrary pressure from central authorities,
cities and looser community structures within the east Balkans could
and did develop their own economic networks, because of the segmen-
tary nature of ancient trading relationships (see‘Continental trade’,
below). Rulers might appropriate harbour dues from successful commer-
cial political units, a technique also adopted by Roman authorities when
theirportoriumcharges were similarly exacted. They did not usually
intervene, however, to dictate with whom commerce might be
transacted.
The capacity of Macedonian and Thracian rulers to facilitate the
provision of scarce resources is an aspect of power that has received far
less attention than their military, not to say predatory, activities. The
documentary record is rather different for cities within these two king-
doms, as compared with other areas of the eastern Mediterranean, partly
because the nature of the relationship between rulers and cities was
different in the core areas directly administered by kings. In the case of
Macedonia and of the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace, formal negotiations
between rulers and cities within their territories (as reflected in inscribed
texts) were required principally in cases where the negotiating authorities
were in some sense heterodox. Thus wefind Amyntas III negotiating an
alliance with the Chalkidians of Olynthos in the document referred to
(^16) See Ch. 2 for more detailed analysis and discussion.
(^17) See for example the comments of Millett 2010, 472–5.
(^18) See eg. Avram 2003; Gabrielsen 2007; Archibald forthcoming b/.
Introduction 11