and the development of overland routes, are central to understanding
how the landscape contributed to wealth and revenues beyond subsist-
ence level. Recent methodological trends that focus on the mutual
interdependence of urban and rural communities, and the networked
patterning of human dynamics in these historical societies, reinforce the
need to look at the whole Balkan region and its Aegean coastline as an
interrelated area. The chapters that follow explore the kind of evidence
that can be marshalled to investigate these postulates and discuss how we
might interpret the results in economic terms.
Introduction 35