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Economic Conditions in Fourth-Century Athens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

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Extract

The flute players who in 404 B.C. celebrated the demolition of the Athenian walls with a hymn of joy for the liberation of Greece were thought to be hailing the dawn of a new era. It was an era in which Athens herself could participate, for even in defeat she had been spared the worst fate: her citizen population had not been butchered or enslaved; her land was not divided among alien colonists. Nevertheless the future which she faced was expected to be hard, in accordance with her humbled status. Her treasure was spent, her empire at an end; her losses in manpower had been terrible; the farming land which had traditionally been the economic basis of her existence, had been deliberately and extensively damaged. Thucydides in retrospect described the war as the most destructive in history: and Athens had ended as the loser. No wonder that historians have regarded the Peloponnesian War as a turning point of European history; and many have terminated their studies at this point, as if to divert their eyes from the tragic sight of Athens' decline into a new era of poverty and humiliation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , April 1991 , pp. 24 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

NOTES

1. Jones, W. H. S., Malaria: a Neglected Factor in The History of Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 1920)Google Scholar.

2. Lysias, vii. 4—8.

3. Xen, . Oeconomicus 20.22–24Google Scholar.

4. For a discussion on methods of training farm bailiffs see Xen, . Oeconomicus 12.3–9; 15.1Google Scholar.

5. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (on Lysias, 34.1.8—10), a proposal at Athens in 404 B.C. to limit citizenship to landowners would have disenfranchised about 5,000 men, i.e. less than a quarter of the citizen population.

6. Plutarch, , Pericles 16Google Scholar.

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8. The view was summed up by F. W. Walbank in his review of C. Mossé's La Fin de la democratie Athenienne: ‘Following upon the Peloponnesian War many of the small landed proprietors of Attica had been dispossessed, and real estate became concentrated in few hands; its exploitation was systemized with the help of servile labour’ (CR 13 (1963), 317ff.)Google Scholar.

9. Finley, M. I., ‘Land, Debt, and the Man of Property in Classical Athens’, Political Science Quarterly 68 (1954), 249–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Andreyev, V. N., ‘Some Aspects of Agrarian Conditions in Attica’, Eirene 12 (1974), 5–46Google Scholar . But the ‘man of property’ could apparently be beggared by the expenses incurred in holding high office: the general Timotheus is said to have mortgaged his entire property to pay the crews of the flotilla he was commanding, when money was not forthcoming from the public treasury in 373/2 (Demosthenes, , Against Timotheus 2–5)Google Scholar.

10. ‘This is the great era of settled, moderate prosperity in Attica, and life would never be so comfortable again’ (Pickard-Cambridge, A., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens2 (Oxford, 1968), p. 52)Google Scholar . For the discussion see Pecirka, J., ‘The Crisis of the Athenian Polis in the Fourth Century B.C.’, Eirene 14 (1976), 5–29Google Scholar.

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12. Isocrates, 4.42.

13. Dem. 18.73.

14. Dem. 8.29, 40; 34.36; Tod ii. 167.

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16. Dem. 8.51.

17. A.P. 51.

18. Andocides, 1.133.

19. Andocides, 1.134; see also Aristotle, , Econ. 2.1350aGoogle Scholar ; Polybius, 30.31.12. For a high estimate of the level of trade at the end of the fifth century, see Sanctis, G. De, Attis: Storia della Repubblica Ateniese (Turin, 1912), ii. p. 157Google Scholar.

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24. Xen, . Poroi 4.7.Google Scholar

25. It is not possible to form any firm conclusions about the exact extent of Athens' dependence on imported food in the fourth century; the figures on which calculations are based are both scanty and unreliable. Demosthenes, 20.31.2, implies that in the year 355/4 Athens imported about 800,000 medimni of grain. On the basis of an inscription from Eleusis dated to 429/8 it has been calculated that Athens produced about 370,000 medimni that year. A comparison of the two figures suggests that Athens could not produce even half its consumption. But the dates are wide apart, and the production figure may be from an untypical yield; the value of Demosthenes' figure is seriously questioned. For details of the controversy see Garnsey, P., ‘Grain for Athens’, Crux, Essays in Greek History presented to G. E. M. de Ste Croix (London, 1985), pp. 63ffGoogle Scholar.

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27. ‘War has made us poorer… If we make peace, we shall dwell in our city in security and advance in prosperity, relieved of paying war taxes, of building triremes, and carrying the burdens of war; cultivating our lands without fear, sailing the sea, and engaging in other occupations which now have been terminated by warfare. We shall see our city enjoying twice the revenue she now receives, and thronged with merchants, foreigners, and resident aliens, by whom she is now deserted’ (Isocrates, , On the Peace 19–21)Google Scholar.

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29. A.P. 47.2: Hopper, R. J., ‘The Attic Silver Mines in the Fourth Century B.C.’, BSA 48 (1953), pp. 200–54Google Scholar.

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31. Dem, . Phil. 4.37–38Google Scholar.