Preliminary Programme

The power of monopoly is readily recognised equally by economists and the common person. In the Greek world monopolies were known at least from the classical and probably from the archaic periods. This paper explores the Greek perceptions of monopoly and its relation to wealth as well as the reception and use of monopolies by Greek poleis and polities. The paper discusses the different types and occasions of monopoly in the classical period, such as the Macedonian monopoly of timber, the effort of Kleomenes of Naukratis to create a monopolic network of grain distribution and the Athenian effort to create a monopolic arrangement in the case of Kean miltos. The official response of the polis to monopolies in trading partners and the reactions of ordinary traders are discussed, as well as the regulation of and against monopoly creation by individuals, for example the anti-cartel legislation in Athens.
Modern scholarly orthodoxy on the ancient economy argues that the Greek state intervened in trade only haphazardly and in times of crisis. However, the exploration of monopoly policies in the Greek world in the classical period shows that poleis made efforts to secure monopolies on the level of the state beyond the obvious monopolies of taxes and coinage, such as the Athenian effort with miltos and the monopoly arranged concerning lead, while at the same time regulating very carefully concerning the possibility of monopoly by individuals. (Show less)

The text of my monograph of 1981 (but effectively of 1965), Wealth and the power of wealth in Classical Athens, remains at present the only place where all the material illustrative of the property portfolios of the Athenian upper class in the C6-C4 BCE is assembled. Much change has supervened: new epigraphic evidence, a far less naive approach to surviving literary, historical and forensic texts, a greater willingness to see Athens in context, and above all a range of new approaches to the economic history of the Iron Age Mediterranean have combined to render Wealth seriously out of date. The present paper focuses on its principal theme, a survey of the various and varying sources of wealth-creation, and does not attempt to update studies of the stability of the upper class (ch.5) or of the rise and fall of property-power (ch.6). Comments and revisions are offered on non-agrarian activity, fiscal aspects, agrarian transformations, overseas landholding, urban property, tax-farming, banking and money-lending, the silver mines, and booty and political monies. The paper ends with some brief remarks on the difficulty of locating the approaches shown by Wealth within current economic anthropology. (Show less)

The Athens of the later 350s B.C. offers an excellent opportunity to reconsider the wealth of the polis and her citizenry. Athens, now deprived of revenues from the Second Athenian League and impoverished by her campaigns during the Social War, was faced with both economic and identity crises. Several sources - notably Xenophon’s Poroi, Isocrates’ On the Peace, and the early speeches of Demosthenes - attest the contemporary debates, replete with the vocabulary of chrêmata, poroi, prosodoi, and kerdos, which ensued. Here I will argue that a closer reading of these sources renders insufficient our standard conceptions of Athenian wealth, e.g. Kallet’s recent discussions (based on Thucydides) of ‘monetary’ and ‘non-monetary’ wealth. Although the fifth-century (and indeed Aristotelian) pedigree of such conceptions must be acknowledged, here, by examining some Demosthenic arguments in light of writings by Bourdieu and other social scientists on the many ‘forms of capital’ and the economic value of ‘rule sets’ and the ‘rule of law’, I aim to advance a much broader conception of Athenian wealth.
I have written previously on the emerging ‘economy of honours’ described by Xenophon and ably advocated by Demosthenes in his Against Leptines. These papers demonstrate the crucial importance of honour (timê, doxa) as a non-material currency with which cash-strapped (but still-renowned) Athens might conduct necessary exchange. Here, building on those discussions, I focus on Demosthenes’ Against Timocrates, which was written in opposition to legislation that, by allowing state debts to remain outstanding, might destroy the Athenian dioikêsis, her civil and military capabilities, and, ultimately, the order within which Athens had once prospered (§§91-101). Demosthenes’ closing gambit, describing nomoi as the currency of the state (§§212-214), renders rather explicitly his concern, throughout the speech, with the economic interdependency of Athens’ nomoi, ethê, and chrêmata. I argue that Demosthenes has correctly valued the Athenian nomoi: the laws themselves are a form of capital, as well as the foundation on which other capital is amassed. The nomoi, ethê, and tropoi of the Athenians are to be understood as both social and symbolic capital, the maintenance and use of which are integral to Athens’ fortunes.
I conclude by considering Demosthenes’ denouncement of the defendants’ seizure, recasting, and reinscribing of the Acropolis dedications (§§176-187). Demosthenes here stresses the necessity of civic pistis and timê, without which such non-monetary wealth is made ‘mean and unworthy’ of the Athenians (§183). Thus, by considering Demosthenes’ emphases on timê and nomos as economic factors, I will argue for a much more robust - and dynamic - conception of the wealth of Athens, one in which the non-material is anything but immaterial. (Show less)