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Article

salted fish products  

Robert I. Curtis

The Mediterranean Sea dominated Greco-Roman society in many ways, but none more importantly than as a source of food. Early Punic settlers in the West and later Greeks and Romans, motivated by the need for long-term storage and commercial transportation of highly spoilable marine products, developed methods for salting fish that have persisted, albeit in more technically sophisticated ways, into modern times. Salted fish products took two basic forms, salt-fish (salsamentum, tarichos) and fish sauce (garum, liquamen, allec, muria). The former served as an appetite enhancer during the gustatio; the latter was the primary condiment used in food preparation and consumption. In addition, both products had perceived dietary and therapeutic value. Ancient literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological sources show that salt-fish products were produced at family, artisanal, and industrial levels and played a significant role in long-distance trade. Greeks and especially Romans, for whom evidence is more plentiful, established processing centers at places on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, including in some urban areas, that offered sources for fresh water, salt, and fish, particularly pelagic species. Extant remains of fish salteries (cetariae), especially in Spain, North Africa, and the Black Sea, display consistent patterns of vat construction, arrangement, and operation that imply a common origin for the salting process. The most active period of production of and commerce in salted fish occurred between the 1st century bce and the 3rd century ce, with some installations active into the early 6th century ce.

Article

senate, regal and republican period  

Arnaldo Momigliano and Tim Cornell

In the time of the *Gracchi (c.133–121 bce) the senate was a body of around 300 wealthy men of aristocratic birth, most of them ex-magistrates. Although the sources tend to assume that this state of affairs had always existed, in fact it was the product of historical development and change. Since in the early republic there were very few magistrates, and iteration of office was common, it follows that there was a time when either the majority of senators had never held a magistracy, or their number was considerably less than 300. Probably both conclusions are true for the 5th cent. This must cast doubt on the notion that the number 300 is connected with the three tribes and thirty curiae (see curia(1)); in fact there is no basis for this theory in the ancient sources, and tradition itself implicitly denies it in maintaining that *Romulus, who founded the tribes (see tribus) and curiae, chose 100 men to form the first senate.

Article

shops and shopping  

Claire Holleran

Almost all inhabitants of the ancient world were dependent to varying degrees on retailers to supply them with at least some food items, raw materials, or manufactured goods, and this was particularly true of urban inhabitants. While the amount of built commercial space increased in the Hellenistic period and was a particular feature of Roman urban centres, we cannot trace a simple linear development from periodic markets through to permanent shops. Instead the retail trade remained varied throughout antiquity, consisting of periodic and permanent markets, shops and workshops, and street stalls and ambulant hawkers, all of which performed complementary roles within an integrated network of distribution. The size of the local market, however, inevitably had an impact on the organisation of the retail trade, with increased specialisation and clustering of trades possible in larger urban centres, where a wider range of products was typically available to the consumer and capital investment in dedicated commercial space was encouraged by the level of demand for goods. Ancient shopping was an immersive and interactive experience. Prices fluctuated in response to market pressures and were very often arrived at through haggling and bargaining. Markets, shops, and streets were as much places of social interaction as they were of shopping, and men and women mixed freely as both buyers and sellers. Advertising and marketing may have been rudimentary, but the attempts by retailers to maximise sales contributed to the colorful and vibrant nature of the ancient commercial environment; the open doorways of shops and workshops facilitated interaction between those inside and outside, and goods, sellers, and customers often spilled out onto the street, while painted notices and signs displayed goods for sale, and the distinctive shouts of sellers competed loudly for the attention of potential customers.

Article

silk  

J. P. Wild

Silk (τὸ σηρικόν, serica vestis), a fine light-reflecting filament extruded by silkworms, especially the domesticated mulberry silkworm of China (Bombyx mori), to build cocoons. The earliest extant silk fabrics in the classical world come from a high-status grave in the *Ceramicus cemetery, Athens, dated to c.430–400 bce. They show the hallmarks of western, not eastern, weaving. *Aristotle (Hist. an. 5. 97. 6 (551b)) describes briefly the lifecycle of a wild silkmoth associated with *Cos in the eastern Aegean. Coan silks (Coae vestes), a byword for hedonism, are frequently mentioned by the Augustan poets—but no later. Pliny (HN 11. 76) extends Aristotle's account to an Assyrian wild silkmoth; this and the Coan moth are arguably the Pachypasa otus. On present evidence it seems unlikely that Bombyx silk reached the Mediterranean from China (see seres) before Han expansion into central Asia in the 2nd cent. bce.

Article

silver  

Frederick Norman Pryce, John Boardman, and Michael Vickers

While *gold could be easily obtained from alluvial deposits by washing, silver had to be extracted by regular mining processes. The *Phoenicians are said to have been the first to bring silver into general use; several of the silver objects mentioned in *Homer have Sidonian associations (see sidon). The main sources for classical Greece were Mt. *Pangaeus in *Thrace, *Lydia, *Colchis, *Bactria, Siphnos, and *Laurium which provided abundant supplies for *Athens. In the western Mediterranean *Spain was the most prolific source of supply, with *Sardinia, Gaul, and Britain as minor sources. The conquests of Spain and Asia made silver plentiful at Rome, where it had previously been rare.Silver was worked with a hammer into plates which were soldered or riveted together and then decorated with repoussé work (ἐμπαιστική), stamping, chasing, or engraving. Vases might be hammered or cast from a mould and were often adorned with reliefs (emblemata) let into the body of the vessel or crustae soldered upon the surface.

Article

sitophylakes  

D. M. MacDowell

Athenian officials appointed annually by lot to supervise the sale of grain, barley-meal, and bread, and prevent overcharging. There were originally five for the town of Athens and five for *Piraeus, but later the numbers were increased to twenty and fifteen respectively.

Article

slavery, Greek  

David Lewis

Our earliest glimpses of slavery in Greece are afforded by Linear B tablets from the Bronze Age. Following the collapse of the palatial institutions, slavery disappears from view; but when we catch sight of it again in the Homeric epics and in Hesiod’s Works & Days, it appears as an important and entrenched feature of society. Our evidence again becomes patchy for the late archaic period, before a mass of evidence pertaining to the classical era (mainly focused on Athens) affords us a much more granular knowledge of slavery and its role in society. Literary evidence for slavery becomes thinner as we move into the Hellenistic and Roman periods, but this deficiency is remedied by a profusion of inscriptions and papyri.Slavery is the status or condition of a person subjected to the powers of ownership by some person, persons, state, or institution.1 Slavery first comes into view in Greece in .

Article

slavery, Roman  

Ulrike Roth

Slavery, a destiny that could affect anyone in the ancient world, had a defining role in Roman society. Sanctioned by law and never seriously challenged in thought or action, Roman slavery ordinarily subjected the enslaved to another’s powers of ownership (dominium), regularly for the purpose of labour exploitation, despite the law’s simultaneous recognition of the shared humanity of enslaved and enslaver; consequently, enslavement was defined according to the law of nations (ius gentium) rather than—and in fact against—natural law (ius naturalis) (Dig. 1.5.4.1). Slavery (servitus) signalled the antithesis to freedom (libertas), including in the wider civic context: being free meant to be in one’s own power (in potestate sua), privileging an androcentric notion of freedom focused on patria potestas. Freedom from slavery was often, but not necessarily, related to the enjoyment of Roman citizenship (civitas), and Romans were not normally enslaved within the civic community.

Article

stipendium  

Brian Campbell

S tipendium denoted a cash payment and later a permanent tax; it also meant the regular cash payment received by soldiers at the end of the campaigning season, and consequently came to mean a period of military service, originally a season, but subsequently a year. In the imperial period stipendium designated military pay, specifically one of the three annual instalments by which the troops were paid, or one year of service.Around 400 bce during the war with *Veii a payment was first made to Roman soldiers while on long campaigns to assist with their living expenses. In the 2nd cent. bce according to *Polybius (1) (6. 39) the legionary was receiving two obols a day, which, if this represented five asses, would be 180 denarii in a year of 360 days. After the revaluation of the coinage in the time of the *Gracchi this will have amounted to 112½ .

Article

symmoria  

Friedrich M. Heichelheim and P. J. Rhodes

Symmoria (‘partnership’), in Athens a group of men liable for payment of the tax called *eisphora or for the *liturgy of the *trierarchy. In 378/7 bce all payers of eisphora were organized in 100symmoriai, for administrative convenience: each member continued to be taxed on his own property, but from a later date the three richest members of each symmoria could be made to advance the sum due from the whole symmoria as a proeisphora. In 357/6 a law of Periander extended this system to the trierarchy: the 1,200 richest citizens were grouped in 20symmoriai (probably independent of the symmoriai for eisphora, but this has been doubted), and through the symmoriai the total cost of the trierarchy each year was divided equally among all of the 1,200 except those who could claim exemption. Reforms in the trierarchic symmories were proposed by *Demosthenes (2) in 354 and made by him in 340; further changes were made later.

Article

tamiai  

D. M. MacDowell

Tamiai means ‘treasurers’. In Athens the most important officials with this title were the treasurers of Athena. They were ten in number, appointed annually by lot, one from each of the ten *phylai. According to a law attributed to *Solon only *pentakosiomedimnoi were eligible, but by the 4th cent. bce this rule was no longer enforced. They had charge of the money and treasures of Athena on the Acropolis. They kept the money in a building called opisthodomos (the location of which is doubtful), and they received and made payments in accordance with the decisions of the people. They paid out money not only for religious purposes but also for military use, especially during the *Peloponnesian War, and to defray other secular expenses. Many of their records are preserved on stone and are an important source of information about Athenian finance. In 434 a similar board of ten treasurers of ‘the other gods’ was instituted to take charge of money and treasures belonging to other Attic shrines, which were now brought together into a single fund. It also was kept in the opisthodomos, but separately from the money of Athena.

Article

taxation  

Peter Fibiger Bang

Taxation is best understood as a form of payment for protection. Greco-Roman taxation developed and expanded with the rise of monarchies and empires. Formerly independent city-states were made to pay a tribute to their imperial masters. In return, imperial government guarded the peace and prevented rivals to make similar claims on their subject communities.

Initially, the world of the Classical city-states was one of low taxation. Per capita, tax demands were minimal and mostly met from indirect taxes. As long as the citizenry, dominated by landowners, could avoid direct taxation of their property or the produce of their lands, the main source of their income, they did, praying to the gods, as Dio Chrysostomus later remarked, that it would never come to the point “that each man would have to contribute in proportion out of his own wealth” (Dio Chrys. Or. 31.46, author’s translation). Much of the expenses for what ancient states did, public building, religious festivals, cult ceremonies, could normally be met from other sources, such as customs and harbour dues, natural resources, state-owned properties, or if need be, temporary contributions. In that respect the experience of the Classical city-state corresponds quite closely to that of other pre-industrial societies. The only factor that seriously could break the pattern of no or little direct taxation was warfare. Military activity generated by far the highest expenses regularly undertaken by premodern states. Historically it is the need to finance armies that has driven the expansion of taxation and the introduction of permanent land-taxes.

Article

textile production  

Miko Flohr

Textile production was a central part of everyday life in the Greco-Roman world, both in cities and the countryside. In the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, increasing urbanization and acculturation transformed dress practices throughout the Mediterranean and created a more complex manufacturing economy, even if not all textile production was market oriented. Textiles were mostly of wool and linen, though other materials, including cotton and silk, also existed. Raw materials were prepared and then spun into yarn using simple, handheld tools. Weaving was mostly done on upright, weighted looms, but loom design began to show increasing variation in the Roman Imperial period, reflecting innovation that served to increase the quality of the output rather than productivity. While textile production had a strong basis in household production for personal needs, there are some signs of increasing professionalization, and it is clear that, particularly in the Roman imperial period, there was a significant (and unprecedented) trade in textiles over longer distances. At the same time, textile production, and particularly spinning and weaving, remained of enormous cultural significance and contributed enormously to the personal identities of men and, especially, women.

Article

theōrika  

Friedrich M. Heichelheim and P. J. Rhodes

Theōrika, grants paid by the state to the citizens of Athens to enable them to attend the theatre at the major festivals. Attributions of these grants to *Pericles(1) (who introduced payment for jurors) and to *Agyrrhius (who introduced payment for attending the assembly) are both undermined by the silence of *Aristophanes (1) on the subject, and the likeliest attribution is to *Eubulus(1) and Diophantus after the *Social War (1) of the 350s bce (schol. Aeschin. 3. 24). In peace time the fund received not only a regular allocation (merismos) but also any surplus revenue, and became rich enough to pay for a variety of projects; this, together with the fact that the treasurer of the fund was elected and could be re-elected, and shared with the council the oversight of the old financial committees, made the fund and its treasurer very powerful. A law of the 330s weakened the treasurer, perhaps by substituting a board of ten for the single official and limiting tenure, but a similarly powerful position in Athenian finance was occupied in the 330s and 320s by *Lycurgus (3).

Article

thētes  

Arnold Wycombe Gomme, Theodore John Cadoux, and P. J. Rhodes

Thētes, hired labourers, the lowest class of free men in a Greek state. At Athens, after *Solon, the lowest of the four property classes, said (perhaps by false analogy with *pentakosiomedimnoi) to comprise men who did not own land yielding as much as 200 medimnoi of corn or the equivalent in other produce. (The others classes were *zeugitai, *hippeis). Solon admitted them to the assembly (*ekklēsia) and *ēliaia (indeed, probably they had never been formally excluded from the assembly), but not to magistracies (see magistracy, greek) or, presumably, the council (*boulē) (Arist. Ath. pol. 7. 3–8. 1). This limitation was never formally abolished, but by the second half of the 4th cent. it was being ignored in practice. Because they could not afford the armour, thētes did not fight as *hoplites, but when Athens became mainly a naval power they acquired an important role as oarsmen in the fleet; they may also have served in such bodies as the archers. Whether they were included among the *ephēboi (‘cadets’) as reorganized in the 330s is disputed.

Article

Thoricus  

John Ellis Jones

Thoricus, coastal *deme of SE *Attica, now a bare twin-peaked hill (Velatouri) north of modern Laurion. In legend, one of King *Cecrops' twelve Attic townships, home of the hunter king *Cephalus, and landing-place of *Demeter, travelling from *Crete to *Eleusis. An important centre of the Classical silver-mine industry, it became a ghost-town by the 1st cent. ce (partly reoccupied in 5th/6th cent. ce). Excavated remains include, on the higher slopes, five Helladic tombs, Geometric graves and houses, and, lower down, extensive remains of the Archaic–Classical town: a theatre of unusual plan (see theatres (greek and roman), structure; theatre staging, greek), adjacent temple-foundations, tombs, houses, ore-washeries (one restored) and a large mine-gallery (with early bronze to later Roman sherds), and an ‘industrial quarter’ of streets, houses and washeries, an outlying tower, and a silted-over temple, perhaps Demeter's. A remarkable inscription (Ant.

Article

timber  

Benjamin Graham

At the beginning of the Holocene, arboreal taxa grew out of glacial refugia and quickly settled into ecological niches around the Mediterranean basin.1 The composition and location of the region’s forested ecosystem remained relatively stable for several thousand years before and during the dawn of the classical world.2 Tall trees took root in middle and high altitudes with plentiful rain, while drought-resistant maqui found homes in low, dry soils. This schema shaped the political and economic dynamics of the Greco-Roman world, as it separated the Mediterranean’s best source of timber—straight, tall trees—from low-lying agricultural settlements.3 Since the growth of woodlands suitable for high-quality timber was difficult for humans to control, issues of distance and transport made timber a precious resource across the ancient world, with varying historical outcomes.

The dynamics of timber, defined here as large, structural pieces of wood, were distinct from other kinds of arboreal relationships in the classical age.

Article

tin  

Oliver Davies and David William John Gill

Combined with copper is used to make the alloy of *bronze. Its addition to copper reduces the melting-point of the alloy, and also gives a product stronger than copper. A 4th-cent. bce inscription from *Eleusis gives the alloy composition as 8.33% tin. Tin was also used to make pewter; five parts with two parts of lead. The principal sources available to the classical world were the Erzgebirge (cf. Scymnus 493) and western Europe. Small quantities were mined in Etruria (see etruscans) in pre-Roman times, and tin was worked at *Cirrha near *Delphi. The *Phoenicians probably controlled the Spanish tin through their settlements in the western Mediterranean. The colony of *Massalia gave the Greeks access to supplies in northern Europe and possibly Cornwall via the Rhône valley. The mythical source of tin was the *Cassiterides. There is ample evidence for the Roman pursuit of tin, including the expedition recalled by *Strabo (3.

Article

trade, Greek  

Paul Cartledge

Exchange in some form has probably existed since the emergence of the first properly human social groups. Trade, whether local, regional, interregional or international, is a much later development. It is a certain inference from the extant documentary records in Linear B script that the world of Mycenaean age palace-economy knew all four main forms of commerce (see mycenaean civilization; mycenaean language), and a reasonable guess that a considerable portion of the long-distance carrying trade was in the hands of specialized professional traders. But whether that trade was ‘administered’ (state-directed) or ‘free-enterprise’ is impossible to say. It is one sign among many of the economic recession experienced by the Greek world generally between about 1200 and 800 bce that in these dark centuries regional and international trade dwindled to vanishing-point; the few known professional traders were typically men of non-Greek, especially *Phoenician, origin. See traders.In book 8 of Homer's Odyssey the sea-battered hero finds his way at last to the comparative calm and safety of Phaeacia, a never-never land set somewhere in the golden west (see scheria), only to be roundly abused by a Phaeacian aristocrat for looking like a sordidly mercenary merchant skipper rather than a gentleman amateur sportsman.

Article

trade, Roman  

Jeremy Paterson

The central issue for historians has long been, and remains, how to characterize properly the scale and importance of trade and commerce in the overall economy of the Roman empire. Some seek to emphasize how different, and essentially backward, the Roman *economy was in comparison to the modern. They point to the Roman élite's apparent snobbish contempt for commerce (Cic.Off. 1. 150–1). The primacy of *agriculture cannot be denied, and it is noteworthy that the Roman *agricultural writers, with the large landowner in mind, betray both very little interest in markets and an aversion to risk which did not inspire entrepreneurial experiments. Factories in the modern sense did not exist in the ancient world (see industry). Cities did not grow up as centres of manufacturing; far from it, they can be represented merely as centres of consumption (see urbanism). The cost and difficulty of transport, particularly over land, are claimed to have made it uneconomic to trade over long distances anything other than luxury products. Of course, basic goods, such as *wine, *olive oil, and grain, also *pottery of all kinds, can be demonstrated to have been carried in large quantities over long distances.