Trade in Ancient Greece

Very early on, the geographic position of Greece and the necessity of importing wheat forced the Greek world to engage in maritime trade. The areas which provisioned Greece with wheat were Cyrenaica, Egypt, Italy (specifically the Magna Graecia area and Sicily), and regions surrounding the Black Sea. Athens and Corinth served as way-stations of exchange for the islands of the Aegean Sea. Other imported products included papyrus, spices, fabrics, metals, and shipbuilding materials such as wood, linen, and pitch. For their part, Greek cities exported wine, pottery, and olive oil. Athens sold marble extracted from Penteli, renown in the Greek world, and also silver coins, known for their elegant workmanship and high proportion of silver. These served not only as a means of exchange, but also as a source of metal: in places that did not use money, they were melted back into silver. Available sources do not provide enough information to evaluate with moderate precision the volume of goods exchanged in Greek trade.

The main participants in Greek commerce were the class of traders known as emporoi. The state collected a duty on their cargo, which in Athens' port Piraeus was set between 1% and 2%. By the end of the 5th century, the tax had been raised to 33 talents (Andocides, I, 133-134). In 413, Athens ended the collection of tribute from the Delian League and imposed a 5% duty on all the ports of her empire (Thucydides, VII, 28, 4) in the unrealized hope of increasing revenues. These duties were never protectionist, but were merely intended to raise money for the public treasury.

The growth of trade in Greece led to the development of financial techniques. Most merchants, lacking sufficient cash assets, resorted to borrowing to finance all or part of their expeditions. A typical loan for a large venture in 4th century Athens, was generally a large sum of cash (usually less than 2,000 drachmas), lent for a short time (the length of the voyage, a matter of several weeks or months), at a high rate of interest (often 12% but reaching levels as high as 100%). The terms of the contract were always laid out in writing, differing from loans between friends (eranoi). The lender bore all the risks of the journey, in exchange for which the borrower committed his cargo and his entire fleet, which were seized upon their arrival at the port of Piraeus as a precaution.

Trade in ancient Greece was free: the state controlled only the supply of grain. In Athens, after the reorganization of the Athenian government by Cleisthenes in 508-507 BC, following the first meeting of the new Prytaneis, regulations on trade were reviewed, with a specialized committee overseeing the trade in wheat, flour, and bread.

The number of shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean Sea provides valuable evidence for the development of trade in the ancient world. Only 2 shipwrecks were found that dated from the 8th century BC. However archaeologists have found 46 shipwrecks dated from the 4th century BC, which would appear to indicate that there occurred a very large increase of the volume of trade between these centuries. Considering that the average ship tonnage also increased in the same period, the total volume of trade increased probably by a factor of 30.