Trade, Traders and the Ancient City

by Parkins,Helen; Parkins,Helen

• ISBN13: 9780415165174
• ISBN10: 0415165172
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781134709410
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-05-29
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This collection addresses the nature of trade, and the effects it had in cities throughout the ancient world, from the Bronze Age Near East to late Roman northern Italy, and challenges the received notion of the unsophisticated nature of early trade. The book explores a variety of aspects of ancient trade, a study of archaic central Italy which stresses the role of the artisan in social development, and a discussion of the complex issue of the exchange of grain between Athens and the Black Sea in the fifth and fourth centuries. A comprehensive and well-researched book, this volume employs the most current archaeological, papyrological, epigraphic and literary evidence to offer innovative and stimulating analyses of the importance and influence of trade in the ancient world.

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables	vii	(2)
Notes on contributors	ix	(2)
Preface	xi	(1)
List of abbreviations	xii
1 Time for change? Shaping the future of the ancient economy	1	(15)
HELEN PARKINS
2 The Old Assyrian merchants	16	(15)
AMÉLIE KUHRT
3 Traders and artisans in archaic central Italy	31	(21)
CHRISTOPHER SMITH
4 Trade on the Black Sea in the archaic and classical periods: some observations	52	(23)
GOCHA R. TSETSKHLADZE
5 Ceramics and positivism revisited: Greek transport amphoras and history	75	(27)
MARK LAWALL
6 The grain trade of Athens in the fourth century BC	102	(27)
MICHAEL WHITBY
7 Land transport in Roman Italy: costs, practice and the economy	129	(20)
RAY LAURENCE
8 Trade and traders in the Roman world: scale, structure, and organisation	149	(19)
JEREMY PATERSON
9 Trade and the city in Roman Egypt	168	(35)
RICHARD ALSTON
10 Trading gods in northern Italy	203	(22)
MARK HUMPHRIES
11 Ancient economies: models and muddles	225	(32)
JOHN K. DAVIES
Index	257