Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- List of references to Greek terms
- Maps
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Coming to terms
- Chapter 2 Classical modes and patterns of exchange
- Chapter 3 The juridical place of maritime traders
- Chapter 4 The level of wealth of maritime traders
- Chapter 5 Official attitudes towards maritime traders
- Chapter 6 Unofficial attitudes toward maritime traders
- Chapter 7 Archaic modes of exchange and the personnel involved c. 800–475 b.c.
- Chapter 8 Conclusion: then and now
- Appendix 1 Emporoi and nauklēroi: their attested states of origin
- Appendix 2 Cohesion among maritime traders
- Appendix 3 The dikai emporikai
- Appendix 4 Catalogue of emporoi and nauklēroi
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Chapter 1 - Coming to terms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- List of references to Greek terms
- Maps
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Coming to terms
- Chapter 2 Classical modes and patterns of exchange
- Chapter 3 The juridical place of maritime traders
- Chapter 4 The level of wealth of maritime traders
- Chapter 5 Official attitudes towards maritime traders
- Chapter 6 Unofficial attitudes toward maritime traders
- Chapter 7 Archaic modes of exchange and the personnel involved c. 800–475 b.c.
- Chapter 8 Conclusion: then and now
- Appendix 1 Emporoi and nauklēroi: their attested states of origin
- Appendix 2 Cohesion among maritime traders
- Appendix 3 The dikai emporikai
- Appendix 4 Catalogue of emporoi and nauklēroi
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
This chapter addresses several questions. In the Greek world of the classical period what sorts of people engaged in inter-regional trade? Was there a clear division of labor, whereby some earned most of their living from long-distance trade and still others engaged in it as a sideline activity?
I argue that in the classical period there was a clear division of labor. One group, composed of those called emporoi and nauklēroi, derived most of their livelihood from inter-regional trade. (These two words are commonly and somewhat misleadingly rendered in English as “traders” and “shipowners”; in his 1935 article Finley [333–6] rightly pointed out that nauklēroi may have regularly engaged in emporia themselves.) The second group consists of various sorts of people who engaged in emporia from time to time but who did not rely on it for most of their livelihood.
That in brief is the general picture. Can we be more specific? Yes and no. On the one hand we can mention other traits that usually seem to characterize those called emporoi or nauklēroi. On the other, as Finley (1935: 320–2, 333–6) showed, the ways in which these words were actually used prevent us from claiming that, because someone is called an emporos, then by definition he must have made a career of wholesale trade in goods, carried by him on someone else's ship, that were owned but not produced by him.
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- Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World , pp. 6 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003