Ancient Greek Trade: Goods, Routes Partners

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ANCIENT GREEK TRADE


cargo ship

Grain (wheat, oats and barely), olives, grapes, olive oil and wine were commonly traded goods. They were stored and transported by ships in large jug-like clay amphoras. Merchants in the Italian colonies grew wealthy by exporting wheat, oats and barley to Greece in return for pottery and bronze figurines.

There are many proofs of the existence of an extended and active commerce in the Mediterranean world, but none is more convincing than to note the far-distant places in which Athenian pottery has been found. The cities and tombs of Italy have furnished many of the most beautiful specimens, but vases have been found in Asia Minor, Egypt, the islands of the Aegean, and the Crimea. A specimen of ancient advertising appears on three glass cups signed by the maker Ennion, a Sidonian. One was found in Cyprus, a second near Venice, and a third near Nazareth. Each bears the maker’s signature and the words, “Let the buyer remember.” [Source: “The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans”, Helen McClees Ph.D, Gilliss Press, 1924]

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ““As a predominant naval force in the latter part of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., Athens exerted its influence over sea trade. Athenian pottery was widely exported, especially to Etruria and to the colonies in southern Italy, where it inspired local imitations. In the Hellenistic period, Syracuse dominated much of Sicily, and local artistic styles flourished. Particularly ornate sculptural and painted vases were produced at Centuripe.

By this time, Syracuse as a cosmopolitan city rivaled any other in the Greek world. It boasted major temples, as well as civic buildings and monuments. In fact, the theater at Syracuse—one of the largest ever built in antiquity—continues to be a celebrated destination for dramatic performances. In 272 B.C., the Romans conquered Magna Graecia, and Sicily came under Roman rule when Syracuse fell to Rome in 212 B.C. As a result, the newly conquered western Greek colonies played an important role as the transmitters of Greek culture to the Romans and the rest of the Italian peninsula.” \^/

Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; British Museum ancientgreece.co.uk; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Hampden–Sydney College hsc.edu/drjclassics ; The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization pbs.org/empires/thegreeks ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org

Long-Distance, Large-Volume Traders in Ancient Greece

Long-distance large-volume traders as a rule were owners of ships; they fetched their goods themselves on their journeys, or commissioned responsible subordinates in their place. The ship was laden at home with goods which were likely to find a good sale at the port to which she journeyed; of course the owner made inquiries beforehand about the best places for disposing of his goods, the private conditions, possible competition, etc. It was, therefore, very important to hit the right moment, and artificial manoeuvres for sending up the price of goods were not unknown.

Arrived at their destination, the wares were publicly sold, for which purpose bazaars were erected in large harbours; then the goods were either bought collectively by a wholesale dealer, or in small quantities by smaller traders; there were also agents who undertook the mediation between the buyer and seller in return for a commission. As a rule, therefore, goods were purchased with the money, chiefly products of the country which might be sold with advantage at home; it was almost necessary to make fresh purchases, since the money of another state would have no value at home, though Attic money could pass current anywhere. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

A merchant did not always content himself with putting in at one single port; he often visited a succession of neighbouring ports, calling at smaller stations on the way, sometimes selling, sometimes buying, and often the cargo of a ship changed three or four times during a journey. Probably these wholesale dealers did not deal only with particular goods as at the present day, but took anything which was likely to find a good sale, such as corn, wine, oil, honey, skins, wool, clothes, textile ware, metal work, even statues and books. Payment was made in coined money, and the calculation cannot always have been an easy one, owing to the variety of money systems prevailing in antiquity. In the Homeric age barter was usual, but afterwards this ceased in civilised countries, though in some districts, as for instance the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, it continued for some time longer.

Ancient Greek Trade Routes and Items Trade


pile of Egyptian amphoras

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Trading stations played an important role as the furthest outposts of Greek culture. Here, Greek goods, such as pottery, bronze, silver and gold vessels, olive oil, wine, and textiles, were exchanged for luxury items and exotic raw materials that were in turn worked by Greek craftsmen. The Greeks established trading enclaves within existing local communities in the Levant, such as at Al Mina. In the Nile Delta, the port town of Naukratis served as a commercial headquarters for Greek traders in Egypt.

“Likewise, well-established maritime trade routes around the Mediterranean basin enabled foreigners to travel to Greece. In the seventh century B.C., contacts with itinerant eastern craftsmen, notably on Crete and Cyprus, inspired Greek artists to work in techniques as diverse as gem cutting, ivory carving, jewelry making, and metalworking. After the unprecedented military campaign of Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 B.C.), more extensive trade routes were opened across Asia, extending as far as Afghanistan and the Indus River Valley. These new trade routes introduced Greek art to cultures in the East, and also exposed Greek artists to a host of artistic styles and techniques, as well as precious stones.

Garnets, emeralds, rubies, and amethysts were incorporated into new types of Hellenistic jewelry, more stunning than ever before. In the ensuing centuries, the Greeks continued to live in these eastern regions, but always maintained contact with the Greek mainland. East Greek artists also emigrated to Etruria, where they settled at Caere, an Etruscan city on the Italian coast. \^/

Ancient Greece's Relations with Other States

The Greeks traded all over the Mediterranean with metal coinage (introduced by the Lydians in Asia Minor before 700 B.C.); colonies were founded around the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores (Cumae in Italy 760 B.C., Massalia in France 600 B.C.) Metropleis (mother cities) founded colonies abroad to provide food and resources for their rising populations. In this way Greek culture was spread to a fairly wide area. ↕

Greece was resource poor and overpopulated. They needed to colonize the Mediterranean to get resources. Beginning in the 8th century B.C., the Greeks set up colonies in Sicily and southern Italy that endured for 500 years, and, many historians argue, provided the spark that ignited Greek golden age. The most intensive colonization took place in Italy although outposts were set up as far west as France and Spain and as far east as the Black Sea, where the established cities as Socrates noted like "frogs around a pond." On the European mainland, Greek warriors encountered the Gauls who the Greeks said "knew how to die, barbarians though they were." [Source: Rick Gore, National Geographic, November 1994]

During this period in history the Mediterranean Sea was frontier as challenging to the Greeks as the Atlantic was to 15th century European explorers like Columbus. Why did the Greeks head west? "They were driven in part by curiosity. Real curiosity," a British historian told National Geographic. "They wanted to know what lay on the other side of the sea." They also expanded abroad to get rich and ease tensions at home where rival city-states fought with one another over land and resources. Some Greeks became quite wealthy trading things like Etruscan metals and Black Sea grain.

Trade Between Ancient Greek and Phoenicians

Before the Ancient Greeks became a significant economic power, trade in the Mediterranean was dominated by the Phoenicians. On the relationship between the Greeks and Phoenicians, Herodotus wrote in “Histories,” Book I, '1-2 (480 B.C.): “The Phoenicians, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Persian Gulf, having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria. They landed at many places on the coast, and among the rest at Argos, which was then pre-eminent above all the states included now under the common name of Hellas. [Source: Source: Herodotus, “Histories”, translated by George Rawlinson, New York: Dutton & Co., 1862]


Greek colonies in red; Phoenician colonies in yellow


“Here they exposed their merchandise, and traded with the natives for five or six days; at the end of this time, when almost everything was sold, there came down to the beach a number of women, and among them the daughter of the king, who was, they say, agreeing in this with the Hellenes, Io, the child of Inachus. The women were standing by the stern of the ship intent upon their purchases, when the Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon them. The greater part made their escape, but some were seized and carried off. Io herself was among the captives.

The Phoenicians put the women on board their vessel, and set sail for Egypt. Thus did Io pass into Egypt, and thus commenced the series of outrages. . . .At a later period, certain Greeks, with whose name they are unacquainted, but who would probably be Cretans, made a landing at Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, and bore off the king's daughter, Europa. In this they only retaliated. The Cretans say that it was not them who did this act, but, rather, Zeus, enamored of the fair Europa, who disguised himself as a bull, gained the maiden's affections, and thence carried her off to Crete, where she bore three sons by Zeus: Sarpedon, Rhadamanthys, and Minos, later king of all Crete.”

In “Histories” Book V, '57-59, Herodotus wrote: “Now the Gephyraean clan, claim to have come at first from Eretria, but my own enquiry shows that they were among the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus to the country now called Boeotia. In that country the lands of Tanagra were allotted to them, and this is where they settled. The Cadmeans had first been expelled from there by the Argives, and these Gephyraeans were forced to go to Athens after being expelled in turn by the Boeotians. The Athenians received them as citizens of their own on set terms. These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks.

As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician. I have myself seen Cadmean writing in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Boeotian Thebes engraved on certain tripods and for the most part looking like Ionian letters.


Phoenician trade


Trade Routes between Europe and Asia during Antiquity

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “New inventions, religious beliefs, artistic styles, languages, and social customs, as well as goods and raw materials, were transmitted by people moving from one place to another to conduct business. [Source: Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2000 \^/]

“Long-distance trade played a major role in the cultural, religious, and artistic exchanges that took place between the major centers of civilization in Europe and Asia during antiquity. Some of these trade routes had been in use for centuries, but by the beginning of the first century A.D., merchants, diplomats, and travelers could (in theory) cross the ancient world from Britain and Spain in the west to China and Japan in the east. The trade routes served principally to transfer raw materials, foodstuffs, and luxury goods from areas with surpluses to others where they were in short supply. Some areas had a monopoly on certain materials or goods. China, for example, supplied West Asia and the Mediterranean world with silk, while spices were obtained principally from South Asia. These goods were transported over vast distances— either by pack animals overland or by seagoing ships—along the Silk and Spice Routes, which were the main arteries of contact between the various ancient empires of the Old World. Another important trade route, known as the Incense Route, was controlled by the Arabs, who brought frankincense and myrrh by camel caravan from South Arabia. \^/

“Cities along these trade routes grew rich providing services to merchants and acting as international marketplaces. Some, like Palmyra and Petra on the fringes of the Syrian Desert, flourished mainly as centers of trade supplying merchant caravans and policing the trade routes. They also became cultural and artistic centers, where peoples of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds could meet and intermingle. \^/

“The trade routes were the communications highways of the ancient world. New inventions, religious beliefs, artistic styles, languages, and social customs, as well as goods and raw materials, were transmitted by people moving from one place to another to conduct business. These connections are reflected, for example, in the sculptural styles of Gandhara (modern-day Pakistan and northern India) and Gaul (modern-day France), both influenced by the Hellenistic styles popularized by the Romans. \^/


trireme


Large Merchant Ships

At the Antikythera shipwreck large hull planks were found Jacques Cousteau in the 1960s. Jo Marchant wrote in Smithsonian Magazine: “At four inches thick, they rival those of 19th-century warships and are bigger than planks from the largest ships discovered from antiquity—including two 230-foot floating palaces sunk in Lake Nemi, Italy, built for the Roman emperor Caligula in the first century A.D. [Source: Jo Marchant, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2015]

“If the ship is as large as the hull planks and anchors suggest, Foley speculates, it might be a grain carrier, either repurposed to carry a luxury cargo or transporting treasures along with what was most likely primarily wheat. These grain carriers were the biggest seagoing vessels in antiquity. Not one has been found, but ancient writers described how these oversized freighters traveled from Alexandria to Rome.

“In the second century A.D., the Roman satirist Lucian described one such vessel, Isis, when it pulled in at Athens. Even larger was the Syracusia, reportedly built by Archimedes in the third century B.C. It carried grain, wool and pickled fish, and was equipped with flowerbeds, stables and a library. The cargo list of the maiden voyage, from Syracuse in Sicily to Alexandria, suggests it carried almost 2,000 tons. Finding one of these giants “has been one of the holy grails for archaeologists for generations,” Foley says. He can’t resist describing the Antikythera to journalists as “the Titanic of the ancient world.”“

Cyprus Shipwreck Yields Clues on the Ancient Greek Wine Trade

The examination of a Mediterranean shipwreck from the 4th century B.C. discovered in 2006 on the seafloor south of the island of Cyprus has yielded information on ancient sea routes and trade, researchers say. The remains of a merchant vessel was full of amphoras that probably had been filled with wine. The findings were described in a paper in the December 2010 issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. [Source: By Clara Moskowitz, msn.com, Ancientfoods, November 5, 2010]

Clara Moskowitz wrote for msn.com: “The particularly well-preserved remains, especially the amphoras, which were oval, narrow-necked vases, reveal many clues about the ship’s story, the research team says in a new paper. “We know by having studied a lot of these ceramic containers — we have created catalogs with different shapes — we know where they come from and where they date,” said Stella Demesticha, a professor of maritime archaeology at the University of Cyprus, who is leading the shipwreck research team.


Roman tablet showing the transport of amphorae

The amphoras found at this site, she said, are very typical of those made on the Greek island of Chios in the Aegean Sea. “We know the red wine from Chios was praised,” Demesticha told LiveScience. “It was very good quality, very expensive.” A large collection of olive pits was also discovered at the shipwreck site. The scientists don’t know whether the olives were packed as a source of food for sailors or were a commodity to be sold.

“There’s a lot to learn from this wreck,” Demesticha said. “We know that wine commerce was flourishing in antiquity. But because we haven’t excavated many shipwrecks, we don’t know many details about how exactly this was happening.” For example, she said, researchers would like to know how cargo was stowed on ships, as well as how trade deals were brokered and how many transactions took place, particularly between people from the Aegean (between Greece and Turkey) and the rest of the Mediterranean, including Cyprus. “By studying the cargo of the ship, we’re going to find more details about contacts between the two areas in that period,” Demesticha said.

DNA Analysis Shows that Ancient Greek Ships Carried Many Kind of Foods

DNA analysis of ancient storage jars found in ancient Greek shipwrecks suggests that the Greeks traded a wide variety of foods — not just wine, olive oil and grain as was previously assumed. The study — by archaeologist Brendan Foley of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts and geneticist Maria Hansson of Lund University, Sweden, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science — found evidence of vegetables, herbs and nuts in nine amphorae — the storage containers of the ancient world — taken from Mediterranean shipwrecks dating from the fifth to the third centuries B.C. [Source: Jo Marchant, nature.com, October 14, 2011]

Jo Marchant wrote in nature.com: “The researchers found grape DNA — as would be expected for containers of wine — in only five of the nine jars, and olive DNA, possibly from olive oil, in six of them. Other ‘hits’ included DNA from legumes, ginger, walnut and juniper and from herbs such as mint, thyme and oregano.


amphorae from the Kyrenia shipwreck

Amphorae have been found in their thousands in wrecks all over the Mediterranean Sea. Some of them contain residues of food, such as olive pits and fish bones, but the vast majority of them are discovered empty and unmarked. Foley says historians tend to assume that these containers were used mainly to transport wine — in a survey of 27 peer-reviewed studies describing 5,860 amphorae, he found that 95 percent of the jars were described as having carried the beverage.”

Foley and Hansson “gained permission from Greek authorities to test amphorae that had been held in storerooms in Athens since their retrieval as many as 20 years ago... The tests were successful, possibly because the jars had been kept in the dark, protecting the DNA from the damaging effects of sunlight. The range of ingredients found in each jar suggests that amphorae were commonly reused, and that they may have contained more complex foodstuffs than previously imagined, incorporating herbal flavourings or preservatives.

Mark Lawall, a specialist in ancient Mediterranean trade at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, says that historians have been quick to make assumptions about how the jars were used. “They just restated the common opinion without any thought,” he says. He says the team’s results fit with other archaeological and written evidence suggesting wine, oil and honey were traded, as well as fruit, fish, meat and resin. He says the DNA approach offers “great promise for advances in terms of analysing amphora contents from archaeologically documented wrecks”, where DNA data can be combined with other sources of information about a ship and its contents.”

Ancient Greek Colonies

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Ancient Greek colonization began at an early date, during the so-called Geometric period of about 900 to 700 B.C., when many seminal elements of ancient Greek society were also established, such as city-states, major sanctuaries, and the Panhellenic festivals. The Greek alphabet, inspired by the writing of the Phoenician sea traders, was developed and spread at this time. [Source: Collete Hemingway, Independent Scholar, Seán Hemingway, Department of Greek and Roman Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007, \^/]

“Greece is a country surrounded by water and the sea has always played an important role in its history. The ancient Greeks were active seafarers seeking opportunities for trade and founding new independent cities at coastal sites across the Mediterranean Sea. By the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., Greek colonies and settlements stretched all the way from western Asia Minor to southern Italy, Sicily, North Africa, and even to the coasts of southern France and Spain. Regional schools of artists exhibited a rich variety of styles and preferences at this time. The major Ionian cities along the coast of Asia Minor prospered. They cultivated relationships with other affluent centers like Sardis in Lydia, which was ruled by the legendary King Croesus in the sixth century B.C. Indeed, by this time, the eastern Greeks controlled much of the Aegean Sea and had established independent cities to the north along the Black Sea. This region, in particular, opened up further trade connections to the north that gave access to valuable raw materials, such as gold.” \^/

John Porter of the University of Saskatchewan wrote: “In order to head off revolution and the rise of a tyrannos, various poleis began to adopt measures designed to ease the social and economic hardships exploited by the tyrannoi in their bid for power. One measure that became increasingly popular, beginning c. 750-725, was the use of colonization. A polis (or a group of poleis) would send out colonists to found a new polis. The colony thus founded would have strong religious and emotional ties to its mother city, but was an independent political entity. This practice served a variety of purposes. First, it eased the pressure of overpopulation. Second, it provided a means of removing the politically or financially disaffected, who could hope for a better lot in their new home. It also provided useful trading outposts, securing important sources of raw materials and various economic opportunities. Finally, colonization opened up the world to the Greeks, introducing them to other peoples and cultures and giving them a new sense of those traditions that bound them to one another, for all of their apparent differences. [Source: John Porter, “Archaic Age and the Rise of the Polis”, University of Saskatchewan. Last modified November 2009 *]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except the Africans, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024


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