BMCR 2009.08.17: Lytle on Bresson, L'e/conomie de la Gre\ce des cite/s (fin VIe-Ier sie\cle a. C.). Volumes I & II

Alain Bresson, L'e/conomie de la Gre\ce des cite/s (fin VIe-Ier sie\cle
a. C.). I. Les structures et la production. Collection U.  Paris:  A.
Colin, 2007.  Pp. 264.  ISBN 9782200265045.  EUR 25.00 (pb).

Alain Bresson, L'e/conomie de la Gre\ce des cite/s (fin VIe-Ier sie\cle
a. C.). II. Les espaces de l'e/change. Collection U.  Paris:  A. Colin,
2008.  Pp. 335.  ISBN 9782200353582.  EUR 28.50 (pb).

Reviewed by Ephraim Lytle, University of Toronto ([email protected])
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This two-volume guide to the economy of the Greek city-states is
destined to become an invaluable research tool for at least a
generation of students and scholars. This is owed in part to the recent
explosion in focused studies on various aspects of the Greek economy.
Add the emergence of a range of innovative approaches and the constant
accumulation of material evidence and you are left with a field
increasingly difficult to navigate, even for specialists. These
volumes, however, are much more than a mere introductory guide to
scholarship subsequent to Cavaignac, Heichelheim or Rostovtzeff. Their
greater value lies in the lucidity and learning of Alain Bresson, whose
contribution to the field is very nearly unrivalled. Bresson insists
with characteristic humility that his guide is not intended to produce
an economic history of Ancient Greece, or even a narrative history of
the ancient Greek economy, but rather selective thematic analyses of
the structures of the polis economy during the roughly five hundred
year period from the late Archaic to the end of Hellenistic age. In
fact these fifteen chapters amount to far more than a select survey,
offering what is in my view the most thorough and compelling portrait
of the ancient Greek economy available in any format, in any language.

Given the remarkable range of themes Bresson covers and the vast array
of evidence he commands, I can only hope to offer a basic outline of
the work's content, highlighting novel interpretations of key evidence.
The first volume opens with a chapter ("The Economy of the Greek
Cities: a Theoretical Horizon") introducing Bresson's
neo-institutionalism and placing it in the context of previous
theoretical approaches to the ancient economy. At the risk of perverse
over-simplification (a caveat that holds throughout),
neo-institutionalist economists reject the false dichotomy that would
characterize modern, capitalist economies as "rational" and pre-modern
economies as "irrational." On the contrary, ancient institutions
responded to unique constraints, and by understanding the internal
logic of these institutions it is possible to describe the Greek
economy and establish comparatively its degree of performance.

The second chapter ("Humans in their Environment") outlines some of the
basic geological and climatic constraints on economic activity in the
ancient Aegean, before turning eventually to demographic questions,
including discussions of issues ranging from fertility and mortality to
growth potential. Paying particular attention to Athens, Bresson
concludes that in the Greek world there existed the potential for
explosive population growth and that phases of expansion or contraction
depended not only on environmental but also social and economic
factors.

In the subsequent chapter (3: "Energy, Economy and Costs of Transport")
Bresson begins with the familiar problem of Heron's steam device and
the ancient Greeks' failure to find industrial applications for it.
Bresson turns this evidence of ancient lack of interest in economic
innovation on its head, noting that in addition to insurmountable
technical problems, between Heron and Newcomb's engine there stood
nothing less than the 3.5 million tons of English coal produced
annually in the early18th century. With no access to abundant fossil
fuel the Greeks relied instead on harnessing cheap and renewable wind
for maritime transport. It is for this reason that economic growth
stemmed primarily from growth in trade and the market. What follow are
detailed discussions of the costs of land and sea transport, the
conditions and techniques of maritime transport, and the nature and
limits of civic investments in ports and related infrastructure. Here
Bresson offers a novel thesis about the nature of the Hellenistic
project at Lake Nicomedia (Pliny, Ep. 10.41), suggesting it involved a
short canal not to the west but to the east, connecting the lake and
the river Sangarios. Noteworthy too is an interesting discussion of the
Corinthian diolkos.

Chapter 4 ("The City and the Economy") properly introduces the
relationship between the emergence of the polis and the evolution of
the Greek economy. In distinguishing the Greek economy from its peers,
Bresson focuses especially on the fact that, unlike producers in royal
economies, the citizens of Greek poleis controlled directly most of
their surplus production. This allowed in turn for the development of
the closely related phenomena of market exchange and the division of
labor. Bresson suggests that this distinction explains in part why the
demarcation between civic and royal land is carefully observed in the
Hellenistic period. Here he interprets records of royal gifts being
transferred to the status of civic land as suggesting that such gifts
normally remained royal land, subject to the appropriate rights and
taxes. As a formal demonstration Bresson offers a novel interpretation
of two Macedonian inscriptions. The first document (Hatzopoulos,
Macedonian Institutions 20; Syll.3 332) is essentially a dossier
recording a gift by Philip II of two estates to a certain Polemocrates,
with this gift renewed by Antipater, likely to the benefit of
Polemocrates' son Koinos, and then a third time under Cassander, this
time for the benefit of Polemocrates' grandson Perdiccas. The second
document (Hatzopoulos, Macedonian Institutions 22; SEG 38.619) records
an estate gifted by Lysimachus to a certain Limnaios in 285/4 BC.
Bresson argues that in each case these estates ultimately remained the
property of the king, requiring that each legal heir have the gift
renewed.

Chapter 5 ("Agricultural Production") turns well-tilled soil but even
here Bresson manages to offer an engaging synthesis, discussing the
central role of the Mediterranean Trilogy (grain, vine and olive), then
the important part played by complementary crops, before moving on to
consider l'e/levage. Bresson's discussion attempts to avoid the common
pitfall of conceiving of ancient agricultural production as a timeless,
unchanging regime, preferring instead to stress the existence of
evolution and change, while allowing for the possibility of growth in
production. On ancient e/ levage Bresson's incorporates a wide range of
epigraphic evidence and includes a current and markedly sane discussion
of transhumance.

In the subsequent chapter (6: "The Economy of the Agricultural World")
Bresson examines the evidence for land-holding patterns, for the
leasing of public, private and temple land, for inheritance laws, for
the alienability of land, and for settlement patterns, before
discussing the economics of production, noting that the problem of
uncertainty, especially in grain production, led to the development of
two strategies he characterizes as individual and collective. The
former requires further distinguishing between small landowners
attempting to minimize risk through polyculture and accumulation of
surpluses and larger landowners who might pursue very different
strategies. Bresson then touches on the relationship between tradition
and innovation in agriculture and stock rearing, observing that, while
traditional practice is not necessarily conducive to rapid change, we
ought not be blind to the possibility of innovation accumulating over
time. Bresson additionally argues that Greek agriculture did in fact
know more rapid changes based on innovations that included the
introduction of new crops and practices. Another source of increased
production is owed to a corresponding increase in cultivable surfaces,
primarily by terracing and by exploiting marsh and wetlands. The latter
leads to an insightful discussion of the evidence for drainage
projects, including that of a certain Chairephanes attested by an
inscription at Eretria as having assumed the costs of such a project in
exchange for the rights to exploit the reclaimed farmland for ten years
at the annual rate of three talents (IG XII.9 191). Here Bresson builds
on Knoepfler's important discussion,[[1]] placing the inscription in a
broader economic context and suggesting that this Chairephanes be
identified with a citizen of Cassandreia mentioned in another
inscription (SEG 47.940) as the recipient of privileges from Cassander.
In other words we have a precious example of an Hellenistic political
elite productively investing the spoils of power. Bresson suggests the
estates of landowners like Chairephanes likely had much in common with
that of Apollonius in the Fayoum, where ample evidence from Zenon's
archive shows a careful attention to increasing the productivity of the
land. Rather than being sources of economic stagnation, following Weber
and Finley, these estates may have been hotbeds of innovation, with
owners who could afford to wait many years to see their investments
bear fruit.

Bresson then tackles head-on the problem of assessing levels of
agricultural production that were by modern standards decidedly low.
Much like his discussion of Heron's steam engine, Bresson uses modern
comparative evidence to turn on its head the argument that the
inability to break free of a traditional system of biennial fallow is
attributable to a kind of cultural lack of interest in agricultural
innovation, concluding that a Greek 'Norfolk Revolution' (resorting to
a program of intense agricultural fertilization depending in turn on
massive stock rearing in close containment) was never a practical
possibility. He ends this chapter by tracing some of the possible
relationships between agricultural changes and trade, concluding that
the profit motive drove productivity and that the man vehicle was the
market. Much of the detailed discussion that follows (including a novel
treatment of I.Milet I.3 [Delphinion] 149.39-47) draws on evidence for
wine production, which depended not just on local but regional and
long-distance trade, with the price data clearly reflecting distinct
markets for wines of various qualities and from various regions. The
compelling portrait Bresson sketches here is a long way from a world of
autoconsumption.

Chapter 7 ("Production, Capital and Innovation") opens by arguing that
Aegean ecologies allowed for productive activities other than
agriculture. Bresson begins with a useful survey of the evidence for
fishing and related activities like salt production and the
exploitation of marshlands before turning to a host of artisanal
activities, paying special attention to the logic of production and the
question of innovation. Here Bresson offers a fascinating discussion of
the ancient evidence for textile production, including the emancipation
dedications of female wool-workers from Athens, suggesting that the
concentration of this kind of artisanal production resulted in part
from the freeing up of female labor thanks to more efficient
technologies for milling grain. Introducing overlooked evidence that
raw wool was transported on a large scale from zones of much greater
productivity, Bresson suggests that it was this trade in surplus raw
material that allowed cities like Megara and Athens to become centers
of production. It was not only exported silver, in the form of coined
money, but also the excess production of finished goods that allowed a
city like Athens to finance the purchase of oil and grain.

The first volume concludes with an important and strikingly original
chapter (8: "The Logic of Production") offering an overview of the
basic structures of the Greek economy in their larger historical
context. Bresson begins by effectively demolishing the thorny obstacle
of autoconsumption (or autosubsistance), often used to argue that
markets could only have played a marginal role. In fact as soon as the
price of grain falls to the level of that of its cost, the whole notion
of natural surplus disappears, and we ought to abandon altogether a
rousseauiste vision of autosubsistence: those farms consuming 80% of
their production would have been most dependent on the market simply
because their survival was always most precarious. This phenomenon is
introduced to explain some of the changes witnessed in Attica in the
early third century, when falling prices led to the abandonment or
forced sale of many small and marginal farms. This was a radical
departure from those conditions that prevailed right up until 322, when
a large population and high prices led to the maximal expansion of
Athenian agriculture. The trend accelerated over the course of the next
two centuries, when again only the largest landowners survived and
surveys suggest that even many average sized farms disappeared from the
landscape.

Bresson next tackles the question of growth, conceding that by modern
standards one might judge the Greek economy primitive. Bresson of
course rejects this approach, noting that we ought to judge the economy
in its specific institutional context, and here it cannot be denied
that the economy knew considerable growth. Summarizing much of the
discussion from previous chapters he points to some of the developments
responsible for economic growth that he estimates at 0.4% annually, far
more feeble than the full percentage point(s) shown by modern economies
but comparable to that of Holland during its Golden Age. This is
followed by an attack on the old question of the "failure" of ancient
civilization to achieve the industrial or capitalist revolutions.
Bresson observes that the entire approach is colored by the decline of
Rome. Bresson proceeds to re-evaluate the reasons for that decline,
arguing that the failure of the Roman economy was not due to the
absence of innovation or properly functioning markets, but rather the
Roman Empire was the victim of its own success: technological and
institutional innovation occurred constantly but only at a rate that
was much slower than the rate at which market forces undermined the
social conditions that allowed for their existence. This engaging
portrait affords a useful contrast with the Classical poleis, wherein
the growth of the economy fundamentally relied on the prosperity of
egalitarian civic bodies. The existence of the civic cadre and a
multiplicity of independent city-states, a society of poleis, allowed
exceptional economic development resulting in an interregional division
of labor and the maximal utilization of diverse ecological resources.
The remarkable achievements of the Greek economy mark a distinct phase
of progress that can best be appreciated by abandoning an approach that
polarizes ancient versus modern.

Volume II

The second volume moves from the basic structures of the Greek economy
to themes specifically related to markets and trade. Bresson opens the
first chapter ("Institutions of Internal Exchange") by treating the
relationship between Greek law and various concepts like private
property, commercial exchange and contracts. This is followed by a long
section detailing the world of the agora, characterized as above all a
legal space where the city played an active regulatory role. This
institution, Bresson argues, was a powerful factor in inciting
exchange, offering decided advantages to both buyers and sellers,
including its ability to lower the costs of exchange, in part by
minimizing the persistent economic problem of asymmetry of information
(the difference in quality and quantity of information that sellers and
potential buyers possess regarding goods offered for sale). Finally he
concludes with a detailed discussion of the politics and economics of
price controls.

In the subsequent chapter (2: "Money and Credit") Bresson briefly
traces the development and extent of Greek monetary and credit systems,
with a special emphasis on coinage, which he characterizes as a novel
by-product of a polis system that encouraged lateral exchange among
peers. He then explores a number of related themes, including the
emergence of truly international types, the usages and circulation of
coinage, and the tricky question of whether money can be anything other
than a measure of economic activity or if it can actually itself
contribute to this activity. Here he is decidedly Keynsian, arguing
that Attic coinage constituted the triggering factor in a dynamic of
production and exchange, and accompanying economic growth, for a vast
region of the Mediterranean. Finally Bresson surveys the forms of
credit available in the Greek poleis, concluding that the various
credit institutions available in the Greek poleis acted in conjunction
with a markedly original monetary system as powerful stimulants to the
development of trade and to economic life more generally.

In the next chapter (3: "Cities, Taxes and Exchange") Bresson treats
the evidence for the taxes on exchange that represented a principal
source of revenue for the cities, especially for those with direct
access to the sea. Noteworthy is Bresson's discussion of the evidence
for grants of fiscal privileges to foreigners. He agrees with Knoepfler
that in many instances these decrees were intended to grant privileges
already enjoyed by citizens,[[2]] but observes that the evidence
specifically for customs exemptions is more problematic. Here Bresson
includes a novel argument about the honorary decrees from independent
Delos, which frequently include grants of ateleia. Arguing that for the
purposes of trade the Delians are unlikely to have actively
disadvantaged themselves relative to privileged foreigners operating at
a lower cost, Bresson concludes that the Delians likely exempted
themselves from customs duties on commercial goods, a practice that
seems also to be attested elsewhere. This analysis would have obvious
consequences for discussions about the scale of trade on Delos before
166, given that the figures preserved in the accounts for revenues from
the sale of the pentekoste would in no way correspond to the true
volume of trade. Likewise the establishment of Delos as a free port
after 166 consisted of simply extending these exemptions to all
foreigners putting into port.

There follows a detailed discussion of the economics of customs duties.
Bresson admits that duties would have inhibited trade and indeed
economic development, with the strong growth enjoyed by Delos after 166
providing a telling opposite case. But the weight of taxation was
alleviated in part by the benefits owed to what Bresson describes as
the transparency of institutional information and by the security of
the sea. Bresson describes the way in which networks of exchange also
acted as information networks, with certain locales functioning as
veritable emporia of information, offering as an example Hieron at the
entrance to the Black Sea.[[3]] He similarly argues that cities took an
active role in promoting trade by attempting to guarantee the security
of international exchange. Here Bresson introduces evidence for a range
of phenomena from the payment of reparations to the "sacralization" of
trade routes. He closes by treating the central problem of piracy,
arguing that investments in fighting the problem likely repaid
themselves in the increased security of exchange.

In many respects the next chapter (4: "The Emporion and Markets") is
the most important in either volume. Bresson opens with an interesting
discussion of a passage of Chariton (Chaireas and Callirhoe
1.11.4-2.1.9), wherein Theron's predicament reveals the advantages
offered by the emporion: goods might be subject to duties but these
costs could easily be offset by legal protections and the increased
transparency of transactions. Bresson subsequently discusses the
evidence for special officials and various taxes distinct from those
levied on cargo, before turning to a detailed treatment of the
collection of duties and the passage of goods into the emporion and the
deigma ("bazaar"). There are a host of noteworthy discussions here. For
example, Bresson argues that the common portrait of the deigma as a
place of fluctuating prices constantly (re)negotiated between importers
and middlemen is misleading, in part because it does not take into
account constraining regulatory practices, such as the (postulated)
general requirement that importers declare their intended sale prices
to customs agents. And, regarding the difficult question of the
relationship between emporia and local ports, Bresson concludes that
purchases could have been effected in the deigma or emporion with the
subsequent documentation allowing for the local embarking of cargo,
thereby avoiding a ridiculous inefficiency of transport. Next surveying
the evidence for specific regulations in the emporion, Bresson argues
that officials took an active role in regulating exchange and
especially in trying to keep price pressures low, offering as a key
illustration a reconstruction of the Athenian grain market. Having
already concluded that the sale price would have been previously
declared and formed the basis for import duties, Bresson attempts to
explain evidence attesting active negotiations over price by arguing
that importers could only negotiate prices lower than their declared
price.

Bresson next argues that we ought to avoid the fatalistic view that
international traders were subject to the law of the jungle. Networks
of laws and conventions may have been complex, but they recognized
shared legal principles capable of explaining the intense growth of
commercial exchange among the Greek states. Here the right of reprisal
always played a key role, but treaties between Greek city-states also
attest the existence of legal guarantees and procedures for mediating
disputes that might allow merchants to seek justice without having to
resort to reprisals.[[4]] And, discussing a host of treaties, Bresson
notes that financial clauses are very frequently found even if they are
not exclusively the focus. Here he argues that formulas with
<greek>sumbo/laion</greek>, such as that found in a 4th century treaty
between Miletus and Pontic Olbia (I.Milet I.3 136.14-17=Syll.3 286),
frequently refer specifically to commercial contracts, with the key
point that commercial disputes were heard in the city where the
contract itself was made, which he argues was a dominant principle of
international law. But at Athens we find another principle giving rise
to very different judicial processes related to international commerce,
<greek>di/kai e)mporikai/</greek>. This process accorded foreign
merchants access to a civic tribunal and also formally allowed for
procedures to be brought in a location other than where the contract
itself was concluded, so long as Athens was designated as the final
destination for the goods.

Bresson concludes this important chapter by surveying the various
methods city-states employed to try to ensure the adequate provisioning
of their markets while attempting to ameliorate the constant problem of
price shocks, especially for grain. These tactics included granting
privileges to merchants willing to provide grain at below market cost
during short-term crises, and it is again in this context that Bresson
argues that one responsibility of Athenian market officials was to
encourage importers to sell at an "official price," a practice that he
argues may have contributed to conditions of monopsony, wherein the
existence of a single buyer can indeed lower prices but generally leads
to an overall reduction in supply. Finally Bresson discusses the
evidence for public grain funds and buyers as well as the more
draconian measures that might be resorted to in times of crisis,
including the public seizure of grain from producers or the forced sale
of stores.[[5]]

In Chapter 5 ("International Networks of Exchange") Bresson argues that
there existed in the world of the Greek cities a true international
division of labor and that this can best be demonstrated by an analysis
of the flow of goods over international networks of exchange. Bresson
relies especially on the theory of comparative advantage, concluding
that the development of the Greek economy was possible due to strong
differences in productivity between the Aegean and regions at its
periphery, with the integration of these regions by international trade
giving rise to important gains in productivity. Subsequent discussions
include the concepts of center and periphery, the structure of networks
of exchange, and the evidence for niche markets. As a detailed
illustration, Bresson brings together the archaeological, epigraphic
and literary evidence for the small city of Hermione in the Southern
Argolid. Its diverse specializations included the production of purple
dyes, concerning which Bresson offers a novel interpretation of the
anecdote given by Plutarch (Alexander 36) about the discovery at Susa
of 5,000 talents of purple from Hermione, arguing that this was liquid
purple dye rather than dyed wool, and that these "talents" corresponded
to 5,000 amphoras of dye. Bresson concludes that specialization allowed
Hermione to support a population exceeding the carrying capacity of the
land, feeding it with imports of grain paid for by exports of oil,
textiles and dyes.

What follows is a discussion of the effects of the costs of transport
as a constraint on networks of exchange, including the tendency of
goods to circulate regionally, with long distance trade generally
reserved for goods with a high unitary value relative to volume and
weight. Exceptions can be explained by the notion of "free riders," a
concept that Bresson illustrates with a discussion of ancient trade in
ceramics. Finally Bresson discusses the various actors involved in
trade and the structure of the networks they traveled, concluding that
local merchants may have dominated most commerce zones but
international traders could easily move across those zones and in fact
the origin of a particular trader mattered less than the place in which
a contract was made. After a discussion of the evidence for direct
trade and cabotage, including a useful synthesis of the shipwreck
evidence, Bresson concludes by observing some of the various ways in
which merchants, producers and consumers may have exchanged
information, none of which need imply or require direct contact between
producers and consumers.

Bresson opens Chapter 6 ("Strategies of International Exchange") by
observing that the necessity of resorting to foreign trade gave rise to
a collective relationship, a kind of "society of cities." What follows
is a thorough treatment of shared principles and the range of trade
strategies employed by cities. Here he argues that during the Classical
and Hellenistic periods cities could not rely solely on reciprocal
trade agreements and that exclusive trade pacts could not even have
constituted the usual method of exchange. Instead cities increasingly
depended on private actors, guided by their own initiative, to move
goods across networks of exchange. This market orientated system of
exchange had limits however, especially with regard to needed imports
of grain for smaller, out-of-the-way cities, with limited supplies of
silver, and particularly during times of political uncertainty. In
these instances cities frequently resorted to strongly proactive
approaches such as appointing commissioners to negotiate purchases of
key commodities.[[6]]

Bresson next observes that while certain regions were regularly
exporters of grain, nevertheless prohibitions against export appear to
have been common in Aegean cities and would have contributed to
measurable inefficiency in the grain market. And just as a city could
intervene to prevent exports of grain, it could also augment supplies
made available for export by employing various strategies including
taxation or forced sales.[[7]] Bresson concludes the chapter by
offering a detailed portrait of the perpetual problem of the grain
supply at Athens in the light of demographic and modern comparative
evidence, arguing that the history of Athenian imperialism must be
understood in the context of a dependence on imported grain that goes
all the way back to Solon. Athens was in a certain sense exceptional,
but a host of other cities also had annually to import grain, a basic
underlying economic condition that informs the entire history of Aegean
conflict. This, however, need not be thought of as a necessarily
damaging situation in that it allowed these cities to benefit from
differential productivity yields of as much as 30 to 43%.

The final chapter (7. "Greek Cities and the Market") seeks to tie
together much of the material introduced in previous chapters while
addressing the larger tasks of assessing the scale and limits of
ancient markets and evaluating their relative degree of performance.
Particularly noteworthy discussions include Bresson's treatment of the
problem of prices, regional divergences in which have been used to
argue for the absence of ancient market integration. Bresson
acknowledges regional or even local divergences, chiefly owed to
discontinuity of supply, but argues that short-term swings should not
obscure the existence of long-term trends over wide regions responding
in part to a global money supply. Price trends in the Archaic and
Classical period correspond to the activity of the Laurion mines and
phenomena such as the monetization of reserves from Delphi. Attested
inflation in the early Hellenistic period is owed to the liberation of
Persian reserves, while the subsequent price declines at Delos in the
early third century cannot be attributed to purely local or regional
factors, but must reflect the erosion of Aegean monetary supplies.
Bresson similarly reprises his recently presented conclusions about the
Delian price data for oil and grain versus those for wood and pork,
arguing that prices for the former rose in response to intense local
demand exceeding available supply in a decidedly regional market,
whereas stagnant or declining prices for oil and grain reflect broader
trends in international markets.[[8]]

Bresson next examines the performance of ancient markets in the context
of a theoretically perfect market, suggesting that with respect to the
agora many of the conditions were met: buyers and sellers were not
constrained to buy or sell, could carry away or introduce goods at
their leisure, and were both present in sufficient numbers. And market
officials, by enforcing regulations, saw to the transparency of
information about prices and the quality of goods. Likewise the initial
impression of international markets is no different. There existed
zones of different productive levels, between which there was intense
exchange on a large scale, at least in certain cities, and in some a
majority of consumer goods might be imported, their value balanced by
corresponding exports. These exchanges created an international
division of labor and great productivity gains. But here Bresson admits
there were also serious divergences from the ideal, most notably in how
markets were provisioned, especially for commodities like grain and
oil. Market interventions and risk management strategies such as
banning exports or hoarding surpluses would in aggregate have greatly
limited the supply of grain on the market. Conditions of monopsony and
monopoly would have exacerbated the supply problem, as would
inelasticity in demand, even in good years, when interdictions against
export would force prices strongly downward leading to the paradox
whereby farmers might suffer as badly in years of good harvests as bad.
These factors certainly affected the performance of ancient markets,
especially by limiting supply, but without paralyzing them. At the same
time, given the fierce competition between cities, with the logics of
security and predation often trumping open cooperation and free
markets, it is clear that for any individual city to adopt a radically
different attitude would have been a form of suicide. And here Bresson
identifies another of the chief paradoxes of the ancient Greek economy:
its performance and those limits on its performance were inexorably
linked. The internal rationality of each city as an institution
prevented the maximal optimization of an external rationality.
Conversely it is this same internal logic that allowed for individual
cities to offer internal markets that were exceptionally legally
secure. And by optimally utilizing the ecological milieu and exploiting
the possibilities of wind and sea, the Greek cities managed to put in
place a less than ideal but nevertheless well performing international
market, resulting in a society of cities much better integrated into
networks of external trade than most of their medieval or even early
modern counterparts. Properly understood in its institutional contexts,
the economy of the Greek cities is, Bresson concludes, an astonishing
achievement.

The criticisms I can offer of the work's production are slight. The
text is attractive and generally free of errors. Those that exist seem
concentrated in the notes and bibliography (for example, just among
those works that I have cited above, the title of Knoepfler 2001a is
misspelled and the book is routinely cited in the notes as 2001b). Here
my greatest complaint is that the volumes are not always easy to use.
Chasing a reference will often involve turning back to remind oneself
of the chapter number (the endnotes are not indexed by page number),
before turning to the end of the volume to find the appropriate
endnote, a process required to find even basic epigraphic citations.
And author-date citations in the endnotes often can be decoded only by
further consulting the bibliography in the back of the second volume.

My criticisms of the content are even slighter. Given the diversity of
themes Bresson tackles, and the vast range of evidence he incorporates,
errors are inevitable. These are often borrowed from his sources. For
example, in his discussion of fishing, Bresson claims (I.186) that tuna
dedications to Poseidon are attested at Halieis in the Southern
Argolid, when in fact this relies on an unlikely interpretation of an
oft-emended passage of Antigonus of Karystos.[[9]] Likewise Bresson
follows Dumont in citing IG IV 941 as a document concerning Troezen and
Hermione, when in fact this is the same inscription republished as IG
IV2 77, subsequently shown to join with IG IV2 76 and record the
arbitration of a dispute not between Troezen and Hermione but Troezen
and Arsinoe (Ager 138).[[10]] More problematic here is that Bresson has
also followed Dumont in suggesting that this document supports the
notion that Greek cities routinely laid claim to territorial waters
wherein marine fishing rights were controlled, much like the rights of
pasturage on public domains.[[11]] But the tuna fisheries and
accompanying installations attested near Troezen were located at
specific points on a stretch of coast held in common with Arsinoe, with
the revenues from their lease subsequently shared. This practice in no
way suggests a general attempt (or ability) to control marine fishing
rights or the existence of territorial waters. One could argue (in
another venue) that much of the other evidence cited by Dumont (and
subsequently Bresson) has been similarly misinterpreted. It is
noteworthy, however, that these and similar quibbles in no way
invalidate Bresson's larger conclusions about the importance of marine
fisheries for the economies and alimentation of coastal poleis.

Nevertheless even sympathetic readers will likely take issue with
various of Bresson's larger conclusions. I for one find myself
unconvinced by Bresson's argument that customs duties were routinely
assessed based on declared sale prices, for which his key comparandum,
the Delian charcoal law (I.De/los 509; Syll.3 975), is decidedly
imperfect. This interpretation affects in turn Bresson's reconstruction
of the functioning of the deigma and the Athenian grain market.
Speaking of that grain market, the relevance of monopsony to its
functioning relies entirely on Bresson's interpretation of
<greek>kaqesthkui=a timh/</greek> as corresponding to an "official
price" actively negotiated by Athenian market officials, about which I
continue to harbor serious reservations.[[12]] In places a less
sympathetic reader is likely to have even stronger doubts, particularly
where Bresson's narrative seems to rely more on comparative indications
and inference than explicit ancient evidence. For example, Bresson's
discussion of the productive gains achieved by the Greek economy is
fascinating, but skeptics are unlikely to be reassured by the fact that
his proposed annual rate of growth relies solely on Ian Morris'
analysis of the size of Greek houses.[[13]] Likewise I suspect some
orthodox monetarists are unlikely to be convinced by Bresson's argument
that some (unquantifiable) share of economic growth coinciding with the
rise of Athens can be attributed specifically to an increase in the
money supply. On the other hand, this discussion, much like his
discussion of the economic benefits of regulating exchange in the
agora, is given a fascinating urgency by events currently unfolding in
the world economy, and here even critics will have to concede that
Bresson and his neo-institutionalist approach succeed not only in
offering a great deal of unexpected insight into the economy of the
Greek poleis but also in demonstrating the continued relevance of its
study.


------------------
Notes:


1.   D. Knoepfler, "Le contrat d'E/re/trie en Eube/e pour le drainage
de le/tang de Pte/chai," in: P. Briant (ed.), Irrigation et drainage
dans I'Antiquite/. Qanats et canalisations souterraines en Iran, en
E/gypte et en Gre\ce, se/minaire tenu au Colle\ge de France sous la
direction de Pierre Briant (Paris 2001) 41-80.

2.   D. Knoepfler, Eretria, XI, De/crets e/re/triens de proxe/nie et de
citoyennete/ (Lausanne 2001).

3.   This section, as well as Bresson's earlier work on Hieron
("L'attentat d'Hiero/n et le commerce grec," in: P. Briant, R. Descat
and J. Andreau (eds.), E/conomie Antique, Les e/changes dans
l'antiquite/: le ro^le de l'e/tat [Entretiens d'Arche/ologie et
d'Histoire 1] (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges 1994) 47-68 [repr. in La
cite/ marchande (Bordeaux 2000) 131-149]), can profitably be read in
conjunction with Alfonso Moreno's recent detailed study of the site and
its history, "Hieron: the Ancient Sanctuary at the Mouth of the Black
Sea," Hesperia 77 (2008) 655-709.

4.   Bresson interprets one of the oldest of these treaties, that
concluded between Athens and Phaselis (IG I3 10, c. 460 BC), as an
addendum to conventions already concluded in greater detail, and he
suggests that Phaselis is being offered commercially valuable
concessions intended to compensate it for the loss of a privileged
position of trade with the Persian Empire after Eurymedon and as an
enticement to enter the Delian League. Commercial disputes would not be
mediated by a small board of officials in the emporion but would be
introduced before the Polemarch, suggesting the Phaselites would have
the privileged status of metics in seeking justice before a jury.

5.   Concerning famine at Pisidian Antioch in 92 or 93 AD, where the
governor Antistius Rusticus intervened at the behest of civic officials
in regulating the sale of grain, Bresson argues, against most recent
interpretations, that the emptors named in the inscription (AE 1925,
126b) correspond precisely to the public buyers of grain, or sitonai,
for the colony of Antioch. The interpretation that follows is one of
radical intervention, with the grain market superceded by a system of
requisitioned grain sold by public officials.

6.   In this context Bresson includes novel discussions of a number of
documents. He argues for example that a decree honoring the Rhodian
financier Athenodoros (IG XI.4 1055+1025=Syll.3 493) for having
assisted sitonai from Histiae at Delos, is likely a result of the
Byzantine blockade of the Bosporus and Macedonian preparations for war.
Bresson interprets another decree from Delos (IG XI.4 1049) as
recording the intervention of the Delian financier Mnesalkos on behalf
of public grain buyers sent to buy grain on behalf of their city and
likewise, perhaps, to procure financing. Bresson also proposes,
convincingly in my view, that the city in question is likely Karystos
and that the Theophantos named in the decree is likely the same
Theophantos of Karystos attested on Delos in 279 BC (IG XI.2 161.A.52).

7.   Here Bresson suggests that much of the gain made available by
Cyrene in the early 320s may have been collected by some form of
requisition, likewise the more than 80,000 medimnoi of grain furnished
to Rome by the Thessalian League at the request of Quintus Caecilius
Metellus (SEG 34.558).

8.   A. Bresson, "Marche/ et prix a\ De/los: charbon, bois, porcs,
huile et grains," in: R. Descat (ed.), L'e/conomie helle/nistique
[Entretiens d'arche/ologie et d'histoire 7]
(Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges 2006) 311-339. As a final illustration of
the relationship between coinage and broader social and economic
developments Bresson introduces evidence for the annual production of
Athenian stephanephoroi between 164/3 and 87/6, suggesting that these
saw a big jump in production after 146 because the destruction of
Corinth favored the development of Delos, where these stephanephoroi
exercised a quasi-monopoly. And Bresson ties the marked decline in
137/6 through the end of the 130's to the war with Aristonicus and
perhaps the great slave revolts on Sicily.

9.   Quoted in Athenaeus at 7.297e (Bresson misprints 6.297e) and
mentioned again at 7.303e. Here Bresson has followed Jameson et al. (A
Greek Countryside: the Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present
Day (Stanford 1994), p. 314, n.7) in interpreting
<greek>a(lie/as</greek> as referring specifically to the citizens of
Halieis. Although emended by Wilamowitz (Antigonus von Karystos
[Philologische Untersuchungen 4] (Berlin 1881, repr. Zurich 1965), p.
174) to refer specifically to the Aeolians (<greek>*Ai)ole/as</greek>)
and by Toepffer (Attische Genealogie (Berlin 1889), p. 301) to the
residents of Attic Halae (<greek>*(Alaie/as</greek>), the passage is,
as the Roberts saw ("Pe^cheurs de Parion," Hellenica 9 (1950) 80-94, at
p. 83, n.6), certainly best interpreted as referring to a general
practice among tuna fishermen.

10.   Cristina Carusi has recently offered a welcome new edition of the
inscriptions, although I am unconvinced by her argument that IG IV 752
preserves not a second copy of the same document preserved in IG IV^2
76 + 77 but a distinct Troezenian document concerning the same dispute,
("Nuova Edizione della Homologia fra Trezene e Arsinoe (IG IV 752, IG
IV^2 76 + 77)," Studi Hellenistici 16 (2005) 79-139).

11.   J. Dumont, "Liberte/ des mers et territoire de pe^che en droit
grec," RD 5 (1977) 53-57.

12.   "Economic Growth in Ancient Greece," Journal of Institutional and
Theoretical Economics 160 (2004) 709-742.

13.   This discussion reprises arguments presented already in A.
Bresson, La cite/ marchande (Bordeaux 2000) 183-206.