Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

The Public Sphere 231
Specific cities specialized in the production of specific products.
Athens was noted for its painted pottery, Corinth for its metalwork,
and Megara for its cloaks. Most citizens whose livelihood derived
from manufactured goods were content to leave their businesses in
the hands of trusted slaves rather than devote any time or energy to
them themselves. Many more products were produced in the home
than is the case today. Spinning, weaving, and baking were done
almost exclusively by women.
The evidence for retailing is very meager. Most establishments
took the form of temporary booths set up in the marketplace on
specific days each month, since many retailers were both the producer
and the manufacturer. Only a few permanent establishments
have come to light. A notable example is a shoe shop in the Athenian
Agora, which was identified by the discovery among its ruins
of leather thongs for sandals and boots, bone eyelets, and hobnails.
Although Athens and the Piraeus were the principal markets for
the exchange of foodstuffs and wares, each deme possessed its own
agora where local exchanges took place.
Employment
The Greeks regarded the condition of working for someone else to
be worse than that of a slave, since slaves at least enjoyed some measure
of security. Temporary employees, in addition to being laid off at
a moment’s notice, had to endure the indignity of taking orders from
a fellow citizen. Contemptible though employment was, however, it
was probably widespread. Athenians seeking to hire themselves out
as wage laborers gathered on a hill overlooking the Agora.
The most acceptable type of employment was as an employee of
the state, because this did not entail subjection to a fellow citizen.
In the second half of the fifth century b.c.e., the livelihoods of an
increasing number of Athenians were made possible by the tribute
accruing to Athens’s empire. Even when Athens had lost its empire,
the state continued to be a major employer. Though Aristotle’s claim
that state pay supported “over twenty thousand men” in the fourth
century b.c.e. is an exaggeration (Constitution of Athens 24.3), there
can be little doubt that it provided the means by which the poor
could participate in democracy.
Most of the revenue went to pay the rowers of Athens’s fleet.
Sailors’ rate of pay reflected Athens’s changing economic fortunes.
When its naval expedition was dispatched to Sicily in 415 b.c.e. , it
stood at one drachma per day. At the end of the Peloponnesian War,
when Athens’s reserves were well-nigh exhausted, that figure was