and the middle Hebros. Stoyanov used this data as a basis for a focused
research programme in the vicinity of Mesambria Pontika, to determine
whether the high concentration of relatedfinds was symptomatic of
production in Mesambria. This identification seems to be confirmed
both by clay analyses and by the coincidence of at least two names on
amphorastamps with those of magistrates at Mesambria.^19 The produc-
tion of Mesambrianamphoraeis particularly well represented at Kabyle
and in the hinterland of Mesambria during the second quarter of the
third centurybc.
Thasian wine jars disappeared from the Balkan region after the second
quarter of the third centurybc, conceding to Rhodian, Koan, Mesam-
brian, and Pontic producers. Tzochev attributes the changing patterns in
the export of Thasian wine to broader changes in the configuration of
political (and hence economic) power in the Aegean and more generally
in the eastern Mediterranean, beginning with the diminished role of the
Athenians under Macedonian rule. The export of bulk commodities such
as wine or oil was not unconnected to the export of other bulk products,
particularly in cases where ship-owners collaborated infinancing long-
distance voyages, hedging their investments with a succession of mixed
cargoes, aimed at multiple destinations—documented most famously in
the journey between Athens, via Mende or Skione in Chalkidike, and the
northern Black Sea grain ports, as described by the speaker of Demos-
thenes’speechAgainst Lakritos(35.10–13). In this case, 3,000 jars of
Mendean wine (whose containers have been identified at a wide number
of sites in the north Aegean) were pledged for a return cargo, which
would probably have consisted of grain. Surviving fragments of wine jars
give the perhaps false impression of large and consistent patterns of
imports. The speechAgainst Lakritosreflects the kinds of single trans-
ports that can also sometimes be documented from wrecks of merchant-
men. Although wine jars probably did travel mainly in irregular, seasonal
transports to the major coastal outlets, albeit often in smaller vessels, the
quantification ofamphorasherds by context at least suggests that con-
sumption was regular at recipient centres, so the supply of wine within
given localities seems to have been stored in sufficient quantities to
(^19) Kuleff et al. 2007 (INAA analysis); Stoyanov 2011, esp. 192–5 for magistrate Melseōn,
whose name alludes to the mythical founder of Mesambria, Melsas, and is also the name of
a coin issuer at Mesambria between 275 and 225bc(IGBR 12 308 (6)), as well as the middle
name of a strategos, one of a group of six civic magistrates who dedicated an altar in the late
second centurybc(IGBRV, 5104).
202 Regionalism and regional economies