ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 63
by exports: ‘The people of Clazomenae needed money during a famine: they decreed
that individuals who owned oil should lend it to the state in return for the payment of
interest (their country produced a large amount of olives). After contracting this loan,
they loaded their ships and sent them to ports where they obtained grain for the value
of the oil’. In reality, one is dealing with a very unusual situation because the state inter-
venes directly in imports and exports.
29 Austin and Vidal-Naquet 1972 : 253 note 15.
30 Thuc. 1.120.2. We will connect this passage of Thucydides with Poroi 1.4, where Xenophon
shows the importance of seasonal products for the exports of Attica (on seasonal products,
see Gauthier 1976 : 47–8). It is interesting that it is specifically the Corinthians who express
this opinion: Corinth was the emporion of the Peloponnese, and the commercial aspect of
the problem posed by Athenian sea power would not have escaped them.
31 Isoc. Paneg. 4.42.
32 Pl. Leg. 8.847b–d (we discuss the last part of the passage about import and export licenses
later in the chapter).
33 Xen. Hell. 6.1.11.
34 On the timber of Macedonia sent to Athens, see the passage from the Old Oligarch later in
the chapter.
35 Plb. 4.38.8–9 (see also later in the chapter the conclusions drawn on the basis of this
passage).
36 Marr and Rhodes 2008.
37 [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.2.11–12.
38 Pl. Resp. 2.11.369b–370e.
39 370e–371a (trans. Emlyn-Jones and Preddy).
40 We borrow the definition given by Gauthier 1976 : 7–19.
41 Arist. Rh. 1.4.7–13.1359b–1360a.
42 Arist. Rh. 1.4.11.1360a.
43 Gauthier 1972 : 90 note 70.
44 The dictionaries give good examples of this. Herodotus (3.157) recounts in detail the story
of Zopyrus, who portrayed himself as the victim of the Persians, with his nose and ears cut
off and scarred with lashes from the whip, to deceive the Babylonians. In this state, they were
inclined to grant him what he requested (ἕτοιμοι ἦσαν τῶν ἐδέετο σφέων). He asked for an
army (ἐδέετο δὲ στρατίης). In Soph. OT 1170, one finds the following dialogue: Oed.: ‘Do
not ask me.’ Th. ‘For what? Tell me.’ (πράγματος ποίου· λέγε).
45 The plural for δέονται goes naturally with ‘the city’ as a body (i.e., the citizens), which is the
subject of the discussion.
46 Gauthier 1972 : 91–2.
47 Arist. Pol. 3.5.11.
48 Here is a very interesting passage about how these two peoples were considered by the
Greeks, that is, on an equal footing.
49 From Polybius (3.22–4) we know about treaties concluded between Carthage and Rome,
one of the cities that Aristotle could have considered as part of the Etruscan world. The first
two treaties go back, respectively, to 508 and 348 BCE.
50 See above all Pol. 2.8.1–9.
51 These treaties are very important for providing evidence about commercial practices in
the ancient world. The choice of relations between Carthage and Etruria as an example fits
perfectly into the logic of Aristotelian thought (see briefly Bresson 2000 : 288–91).
52 Diod. Sic. 13.81.4-5. The main idea here is reciprocal exchange. Verbs like ἀντιφορτίζεσθαι
(‘take a cargo in return’) or ἀντεξάγειν (‘export in return’) refer specifically to the idea of
reciprocal exchange (we do not need to develop this point further here).
53 Gauthier 1972 : 91–2.
54 We cannot, therefore, follow the conclusions of Vélissaropoulos 1980 : 180–1 on the nec-
essarily bilateral character of συνθῆκαι, but we completely agree with Picard 1980 : 273–4