markets by sea, but by no means all. As I have argued in Chapter 4, large
quantities of live animals on the hoof and cured hides, as well asfinished
products, descended on Byzantion from Thracian centres in the interior,
to supply the wide range of demand that the harbours of the city
attracted.^132
The Byzantines were forced to back down when their Asiatic posses-
sions were occupied by the ruler of Bithynia, Prusias I, who encouraged
the Thracian assaults on their back yard. In 217bc, the old configuration
of allies re-emerged after the impasse of three years before, when envoys
from Byzantion, Chios, Rhodes, and Ptolemy IV offered to negotiate
between Philip V of Macedon and the Aitolians (Plb. 5.100.9–11).
Having, in all probability, attacked and then made peace with Byzantion
in 200/199bc, Philip V maintained good relations with the city in his
later career, as did his son Perseus.^133 The extraordinary success of the
city of Byzantion was in part the result of shrewd use of natural advan-
tages; in part a consequence of regional specialization, backed by a
‘sheltered’monopoly;^134 and partly the fruits of aflexible strategy of
negotiation and networking, at one time with the Delian League, at
another with its regional neighbours, and with its principal trading
partners, particularly, but by no means exclusively, with Rhodes. When
Roman officials set about organizing a tax-collecting regime in the region
in the earlyfirst centurybc, Hieron and Chrysopolis continued to form
important nodes in their own network of toll stations. All cities and
regions, without exemption, were obliged to pay theportoriumand the
Bosporus was considered among the most lucrative sources of revenue.
The extension of the Via Egnatia as far as Byzantion may well have
helped to provide the physical means of putting into effect this economic
pincer movement.^135
REGIONAL DIVISIONS
The division of the old kingdom of Macedonia into four republican
states, as a result of Roman intervention, never found favour with its
(^132) See also Archibald (forthcoming/c).
(^133) Philip V in 200/199bc: Will,Histoire PolitiqueII, 45–6; Dumitru 2006; in 184bc:Plb.
22.14.12; Livy 39.35.4; Perseus: App.Mac. 11.1 & 7; Livy 42.13.8; 40,6; 42.4;HM III,497.
(^134) Gabrielsen 2011, 220–46, for an in-depth discussion of ancient and modern
monopolies.
(^135) Mitchell 2008, 211; Walbank 1985; Walbank 2002a; Lolos 2009, 266.
Regionalism and regional economies 245