6 - The limits of ancient globalisation

Summary

The development of systems of distribution in classical antiquity, in both scale and scope – the range of goods being distributed, as well as the distances involved – depended above all on changes in the level and nature of demand. That can involve a simple change in the aggregate demand for the same basic goods, and the evidence does suggest a reasonably steady increase in the population of the Mediterranean and north-western Europe from about the ninth or eighth centuries bce until some time in the second century ce (Sallares 1991: 50–107; Frier 2000; Scheidel forthcoming). However, the vast majority of this population continued to support itself largely from its own production; distribution enters the picture only when it is required to support a population which has exceeded the carrying capacity of its locality, as an alternative to emigration or controls on fertility. Far more significant was the development of social complexity in archaic Greece; an aristocracy that sought to differentiate itself through distinctive patterns of consumption, and a state which deployed increasingly large resources in the construction of communal monuments and festivals and in warfare. Very similar patterns can be seen later in Italy, Spain and Gaul, as the locals gained access to new goods and new habits through contact with Greeks and Phoenicians (C. Smith 1998; Cunliffe 2001).