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Ecology and Beyond 105
Then it should be clear that the hinterland was not deprived
of connection with the coast. Thus, in the case of Greece,
Horden and Purcell point out, with regard to Arcadia, in the
centre of the Peloponnese, that the Aeginetans could communicate
with the people there ‘by means of track animals from the
port that they had established at Kyllene’ (it should be stressed
that Kyllene, near Elis, was located on the west coast of the
Peloponnese). 28 Since Herodotus already mentioned that as
early as 480 bc the Aeginetans exported grain to the Peloponnese,
29 the fourth-century dedication of the Arcadians to the
Spartokid Leukon, dynast of Bosporus, would ideally be
explained by exports in grain from their ports towards the
Peloponnese. 30 Arcadian access to Cyrenaean grain in the 320s
confirms the existence of these imports. 31 These Arcadian
examples have many parallels. It should be clear that even
inland regions had normal access to Mediterranean trade.
A recent view of the economy of Athens and of its grain trade
unfortunately leaves the impression of a complete separation
between the town and the countryside. 32 It is explained that in
the countryside people lived in a face-to-face society, exchanging
only commodity for commodity, without the use of money.
True, when forced to live inside the walls of the city during the
Peloponnesian war, the Acharnian in Aristophanes, complaining
about his lot, longs for his village where he was not constantly
badgered to buy. 33 But it is a bold assumption to consider that the
town was, economically speaking, completely separated from the
countryside. It has been argued that transport costs within
Attica were so high that in town local barley or wheat could not
compete with their imported Black Sea counterparts, the reverse
being true in the countryside. 34 All the same, it is assumed that a
28 29
Pausanias 8.5.8, with CS 370. Herodotus 7.147.
30
M. N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, 2nd edn.
(Oxford, 1949), no. 115A, ii.
31
SEG 9.2, with A. Laronde, Cyrène et la Libye hellénistique: Libykai
Historiai (Paris, 1987), 30–4; P. Brun, ‘La Stèle des céréales de Cyrène et le
commerce du grain en Égée au IVe s. av. J.-C’, ZPE 99 (1993), 185–96, and
Horden and Purcell’s map (CS 73).
32
V. J. Rosivach, ‘Some Aspects of the Fourth-Century Athenian Market
in Grain’, Chiron 30 (2000), 31–64.
33 34
Aristophanes, Acharnians 33–6. Rosivach, ‘Some Aspects’, 59.