WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF HELLENISTIC WARFARE
campaigns and raids. At the same time, the damage caused by war had to be
compensated, and this was also an important motor for economic activity:
the loss of production could be alleviated through the import of grain,
wine, and olive oil. The creation of large networks of grain trade is connected
with the efforts of communities to safeguard the supply of their
population with the necessary food items at low prices, in a period in which
isolation was no longer possible (or desirable). Piracy, which was a permanent
danger for trade ships in the eastern Mediterranean, was at the same
time one of the most important contributors to trade (Gabrielsen 2001b).
One of the most important impacts of warfare on the Hellenistic economy
(and society) can be seen in the redistribution of material goods, land,
and money (see Austin 2001: 90). The conquest of the Persian Empire by
Alexander the Great released immense ammounts of wealth in the form
of new coinage (de Callataÿ 1989), and the foundation of new cities and
military colonies provided large numbers of immigrants from mainland
Greece, the islands, and the coastal cities of Asia Minor with land. Economic
and social mobility is not a one-way process: the profit of one party
is usually the loss of another. Property changed hands due to wars in the
ways described above, and the victims of war not only faced the prospect of
losing property and life but were handled as property, generating profit
for their conquerors. In total, for almost two centuries this redistribution
of wealth within the Hellenistic world took place without creating intolerable
misery for all, only for some – exactly as it had been for centuries.
The coming of Rome disturbed this balance in a dramatic way. The
problem was not the fact that the wealth of the defeated Hellenistic states –
and their manpower in the form of slaves – was brought to Rome. More
severe was the impact of the indemnities that defeated monarchs and leagues
had to pay (Gruen 1984: 291–5) and which reached unprecedented levels.
The Romans demanded 1,000 talents from Philip V (196 BC), 500 from
Nabis of Sparta (195 BC) and the Aitolian League (189 BC), 15,000 from
Antiochos III (188 BC), and 300 from Ariarathes of Kappadokia (188 BC).
The Romans intervened in the exploitation of local resources by forbidding
the working of mines in Macedonia after 167 BC. Taxation and the notorious
greed of the publicani (private businessmen) who untertook contracts
on public works and were responsible for the collection of public revenues
(e.g., in Boiotia and Asia Minor), were new external burdens (Badian 1972).
The dynamic presence of Italian businessmen (negotiatores), bankers, and
traders in the East was a new factor in economic life, which substantially
limited the opportunities of native traders. The effects of Roman interventions
were felt in a very dramatic way in Rhodes, a major trade power, when
the Romans made Delos a free harbor which immediately superseded the
importance of Rhodes as a trade center. In other areas the effects were less
visible, but the massacre of thousands of Italian traders, tax collectors,
and other foreign residents in Asia Minor on the orders of Mithridates VI
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