Hamilton, 'Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, 314-167 B.C.', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9503
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9503-hamilton-regionalism
@@@@95.3.33, Reger, Regionalism and Change . . . Delos
Gary Reger, Regionalism and Change in the Economy of
Independent Delos, 314-167 B.C.. Hellenistic Culture and
Society vol. XIV. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Pp. 396, xvii; 36 tables. ISBN 0-520-08460-8. $55.00.
Reviewed by Richard Hamilton -- Bryn Mawr College
rhamilto@cc.brynmawr.edu
R's book is an extended, meticulous and intelligent argument
against the common idea that the Delian economy was affected by a
"universal price-setting market"; in fact he doubts even the
concept of an "Aegean market" and seeks "local explanations for
local phenomena" using a genial combination of reason, careful
extrapolation and sophisticated analysis of the mounds of data
supplied by the priests' monthly ledgers during the island's
independence (314-167 BC).
R begins with a look at those who benefited economically
from their relations with Delos and finds that almost without
exception they come from nearby: loans are to people from Delos
or the Kyklades; craftsmen, as far as we can tell, were mostly
Kykladic. Proxeny decrees, on the other hand, involve a
widespread net of Greek cities, but these reflect parochial
Delian political worries rather than long-distance economic
connections. Of the sixteen decrees honoring citizens of
Hellespontine or Black Sea cities five are clearly
non-commercial. Only one is commercial, and here the honorand's
city of origin "had nothing to do with the source of his goods".
The same is true of the Rhodian and Chian decrees: the ties are
religious and political not economic.
R then shows how easily Delos, given its size, population
and location, could have satisfied its need for grain (which
supplied 70% of the ancient diet) from nearby islands. "Roughly
half of the regular annual aggregate Delian demand for grain
could have come out of the surpluses of Apollo's immediate
neighborhood" since Delos itself (pop. 2600-9100) could supply
230-350 people with grain, Rhenea about 725, Mykonos (pop.1625)
somewhere from 1960 to 5660. [This conclusion is hardly, as
claimed, "inescapable" since the worst-case would put the total
for Delos at 230+500+335, which could be as little as 12%, but,
since the best case (350+700+4035) is 196%, it seems reasonable
enough.] R then goes on to argue that "the Kyklades must
normally have been more or less self-sufficient in grain" given a
population of about 37,000 and grain for 50-100,000 if we assume
cultivation of 20-40% of the land. Admittedly, modern data from
the 1930's suggests cultivation of only 6-8% (i.e., enough grain
for 15-20,000), but R argues (1) recent study of Melian
countryside has found it 17-58% arable (14% cropped in 1971); (2)
terracing in Delos (probably "in place by the fifth or fourth
century B.C.") would have made it 70% arable; (3) in 329 B.C.
Skyros (total area 20,900 hectare) produced 9600 medimnoi of
wheat and 28,800 of barley; and Lemnos (total area 47,600 ha)
produced 56,750 medimnoi of wheat and 248,525 of barley,
suggesting cultivation of 12-44% of the land by my calculations
(R gets 20-50% but does not explain how, nor does he footnote the
source for this information until five pages later). When grain
was scarce, the Kykladic islanders could go a bit farther afield:
"Lemnos, Lesbos, Samos, Khios, Kos and Rhodos, lying but a short
sail east of Delos, were remarkably productive". Why then has
Delos been considered a great center of grain trade? R argues
that Delos' central location and relatively high need for
imported grain made it a local (but not international)
distribution center; when international politics of late 3rd C.
became destabilized, Delos developed as a transshipment point
around the Kyklades especially for soldiers' grain, for instance,
in the 230's Demetrios II sent a grain buyer to Delos, in the
190's the Nesiotic League sent grain purchasers, and about that
time the Histaians sent sitonai to borrow money and buy
grain, presumably because of a local shortage. Eventually a
permanent local sitonia fund was created. On the other
hand, Delian prices seem not to fluctuate with Egyptian prices or
even in response to a shortage along the Euripos.
R then turns to the data in the priests' accounts, namely
the prices of olive oil, firewood and pigs, which he studies both
short-term and long-term. Oil, wood and pigs may seem odd
bedfellows, but R had no choice: "the majority of the thousands
of prices recorded in the inscriptions are useless for economic
analysis". Olive oil is said to show [though I cannot see it]
spring and fall adjustments, which can be explained by the
sailing season and the seasonal cycles of the olive. More
persuasive is the explanation for the general lack of variation
(42 of 63 prices, 67%, do not vary): calculations suggest it
would take only 2-4 shiploads to satisfy annual Delian demand and
once these had arrived prices would tend to be set across the
whole year. Firewood is said to show spring declines and fall
increases linked to seasonal change of temperature (though again
I doubt the pattern; year-end activity is more evident). [Here
the lack of variation (31 of 64, 48%) is less pronounced, though
from 224 it becomes noticeably more so (6 of 24 25% before; 25 of
40 63% after)]. "Monthly pig prices show less patterned
behavior" and considerable variation (only 18/83, 22%, do not
vary). Since pigs are not a staple like wood and oil, demand was
extremely sensitive to price, resulting in a "sawtoothed price
curve with a periodicity of about six months" because of the
pig's two-litter/year cycle. Notably, prices tended to rise at
the Thesmophoria: "an increase in temple demand from one to five
pigs apparently delivered a substantial boost to the price."
Long-term price histories are clearer. Oil shows high but
declining prices from 304 to 279 and then a long period of
fluctuating but steady prices, contrary to the usual assumption
of a steady decline. The decline can be explained by Delian
attempts, once independent, to find non-Athenian sources for
imports (for oil mostly Rhodes); high local prices should have
encouraged local Kykladic plantings which would gradually
supplant the Rhodian oil (Rhodian amphora handles drop 50% in the
period after 275)--at the same time the Nesiotic League "first
tied the Kyklades together into a region focused on Delos".
Firewood prices fluctuate considerably but at a lower average
level before 218 than after, with unusually low prices in 250.
Three possible causes: a law (ID 509) controlling sale of wood
required its value to be declared before sale and no possibility
of resale ("sellers would therefore prefer to set prices high");
economic expansion in the late 3rd C. meant a rising demand for
wood for construction and probably for all wood; deforestation on
neighboring islands. Pig prices are very high in 302/1 (when
Demetrios Poliorketes and 10,000 troops were in the area) then
fluctuate around a low mean before 200 and a higher mean
thereafter. Surprisingly, pig prices moved in the same direction
as wood prices from year to year (after a delay): presumably the
pigs would feed amid the trees ("pannage"); and rising wood
prices would increase wood harvesting, reducing the acreage
available for pannage. (There are no significant relationships
between pigs and oil or oil and wood.) Study of the relationship
between military activity in the area and price fluctuations
confirms that only firewood was drawn from a relatively broad
trade network: "Delos was a Kykladic backwater, very unlike its
subsequent incarnation under the Athenians in the late second and
early first centuries B.C."
The following chapter, "The Rent Histories of Estates and
Houses," confirms the findings of the previous chapter (once the
estates are properly grouped by presence or absence of vines):
from 270 BC on oil prices predict rents for vineless estates very
well; the same is not true of wood or pig prices (which we have
seen together move independently of oil) but is confirmed by
barley prices, with which "estate rents move in exact
conjunction". [There is a problem with the chart here, which does
not record the disjunctive rise of rents in 269, but presumably
this error is not repeated in the statistics.] Thus, as barley
and oil prices were set by the local market so too must have been
rents, though the relationship between oil and estates, which
lacked olive trees, is considerably less obvious than barley,
which we can assume was their main crop (not herding as earlier
scholars surmised). The well-known drop in prices in 290 is best
explained as a combination of a post-independence rise in rents
once non-Athenians (or Athenian sympathizers) were allowed to
rent and a subsequent series of defaults culminating in a sacred
law (ID 503) with stricter requirements for guarantors, which
considerably reduced the appeal of the estates (and increased the
seizure of private property for default). Wine prices seem to
have played a part in the collapse of rents after 220, not
because of an international price decline as others have argued
but because of cheap foreign competition.
At last R can write a partial economic history of Delos
under independence: 314-290 high estate rents and declining oil
prices; 272-212 commodities and house prices level, estate prices
gradually declining; 207-167 house rents, wood and pig prices
rise while oil remains steady and estates, except for those
without vines, continue to fall.
R's anti-Aegean market stance turns what could be a numbing
series of charts and statistical print-outs into a virtual
narrative that impels the reader on to the denouement. Yet the
data are not compromised, just efficiently presented, with
supporting detail relegated to seventy pages of appendices.
Linear regression is effectively deployed where useful (and only
there); extrapolation is done with the widest parameters; and
those for whom Durbin-Watson and the F-statistic are not daily
fare have numerous graphs to view (though I missed one on wood
and rents,whose non-significant relationship would have provided
a valuable contrast). I am sorry that daily wages did not fit
into R's argument since his good sense might have produced some
interesting comparanda, but I was delighted by the range of
topics that did result, such as population, per capita grain
consumption, cultivatable acreage, yield, rainfall, sailing
season, biennial production of olives, cultic requirements, birth
cycle of pigs, coppicing, pruning olive trees.
R's book is important for the questions it asks, the many
ways it addresses them, and the care with which its argument is
built. As R says, this is only the beginning, but he has mapped
the terrain and the rest should be relatively easy. This book is
not only for Delian specialists or ancient economists but for any
one interested in studying the ancient world. It is a fine
addition to a remarkably substantial series.