The Ancient Greek Economy. Markets, Households and City-States

ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 57

also wonder what possible advantage could there be for the seller in granting

these privileges. It certainly was not a question of an outright gift with no

strings attached. During the fifth century BCE, one should not forget that

Athens – an imperial power, master of the seas – was at any rate a necessary

partner for Macedonia and even for the Bosporus if these kingdoms wanted

to sell all their produce (suffice it to recall the statement of the Old Oligarch

cited earlier in the chapter). In the fourth century conditions had changed, and

relations among these communities were on a more normal footing in terms

of commerce. But weren’t the Athenians an ideal commercial partner, with

their massive purchases and their regular payments (without a doubt normally

paid in kind)?^66 They enjoyed the privilege of the wholesale buyer: they could

buy at the best price, and one guaranteed them the quantities that they wanted.

Even in the fourth century BCE, therefore, granting export privileges to a city

like Athens attracted the easily understandable interest of the seller, who was

assured that he could sell all of his produce on a regular basis without any fear

or worry and receive steady payments of silver in return. One can see that from

their perspective the kings of the Bosporus were satisfied with benefits that

seem less important to us.

If we turn to the search for an export market, one can first of all mention

the famous Megarian decree,^67 which perfectly illustrates the statement of the

Old Oligarch. As Isocrates points out, this is an extreme example because the

Megarians had a small amount of fertile land, no revenues from ports and no

silver mines.^68 They made their living from their role as intermediaries for the

cities of the Peloponnese, from the export of agricultural food products and

from craft production.^69 The case of cities living in this way, mainly from the

products of small agricultural producers of food and from craft production,

was certainly not the norm. From this perspective, Megara cannot be com-

pared with the large cities of the Greek world, even if in fact, in the num-

ber of small cities of the Aegean even poorer than Megara, one had hardly

anything to export except their own workforce. G.E.M.  de Ste. Croix still

wished to show that because Thucydides reports that the decree of Pericles

forbade access for the Megarians to the Athenian agora, he meant the agora in

the political sense.^70 The decree would have had no economic effect. But this

extreme position was quickly refuted.^71 Even if they are wrong, for our topic

the arguments of the British historian still give us food for thought when

discussing our topic.

For de Ste. Croix, to believe that denying access for Megarians to the

Athenian agora and to the ports of the empire would have caused economic

problems for the Megarians is based on the assumption that the Megarians

were the only ones who transported their own produce: nothing would have

prevented the Megarians from giving their products to any intermediaries to

evade the Athenian blockade. According to de Ste. Croix, the ban imposed