The Price of Grain and Long-Distance Trade

To the positive evidence limiting to the Kyklades Delos's role in the movement of grain can be added some negative considerations. If Delos had played an important part in the trade in grain outside the islands, then prices on Delos for grain should have been affected by conditions that set prices in supplying or purchasing regions.^[117] But evidence for such impacts is very hard to find.

Egyptian traders are largely absent from Delos, which should be no surprise if, as Edouard Will and others have argued, the Ptolemies depended

[117] Just as Kleomenes' manipulations of Egyptian prices affected both Rhodos and Athens: cf. [Demosth.] 56.7–8, [Arist.] Oik. II.2.33e (1352b14–20).

on the Rhodians to move their goods around.^[118] The abundance and price of Egyptian grain was determined almost entirely by the character of the flood of the Nile. When the flood was poor, prices should have been high; when the flood was normal, prices should have been normal; and when the flood was good, they should have been normal or low. We happen to know the character of the flood for many years, and in the few cases in which we can match a flood with grain prices on Delos, the prices show no relation either for wheat or for barley.^[119]

Even more revealing is the shortage of ca. 174–173 B.C. along the Euripos. Four or five inscriptions from a number of cities on both Euboia and the mainland attest to troubles with the grain supply in these years just before the Third Makedonian War. (Another inscription is generally

[118] Will I 181–91, esp. 191; Rathbone, 50–52. The rest of Rathbone's arguments unfortunately often rest on inadequate or misinterpreted evidence. Contra: Marasco, 127–28.

[119] Drexhage, Preise, 21–22; Danielle Bonneau, Le Fisc et le Nil (Paris, 1971), 217–58. For wheat purchases for the Posideia in the second century: flood of 170, abundant, price of wheat 10 dr/med (Bonneau, Fisc, 226; ID 461Bb53 [169 B.C. ]); flood of 175 ? ("perhaps good?": land along the desert was seeded, cf. P. Teb. III 826.47), price of wheat 11 dr/med (Bonneau, Fisc, 225; ID 440A69 [174 B.C. ]). Unfortunately no data on the flood are available for the years before the Posideia of 190 and 178 B.C. (ID 401.22, 445.13). Barley: flood of 259, abundant, barley on Delos, ca. 5.1 dr/med (Bonneau, Fisc, 221; IG XI 2.224A29 [258 B.C. ]); flood of 252, normal or good, barley on Delos declining from ca. 5.1 in Lenaion and 5.0 in Thargelion (April-May) to ca. 4.6, 4.1, 3.6, and 3.1 in Panemos-Bouphonion (May-September) (Bonneau, Fisc, 222; IG XI 2.287A45, 59–60, 64, 66, 67–68, 71 [250 B.C. ]).

Fritz Heichelheim has suggested that the Athenian Kephisodoros's service in 203/2 B.C. as secretary of the sitonia was related to a devaluation of Egyptian currency in 204 B.C. that disrupted the grain market (Aegyptus 17 [1937]: 61–64; the Kephisodoros decree, B. D. Meritt, Hesperia 5 [1936]: 419–28, no. 15, at 11. 13–15 = ISE 33; a grain shortage accepted by Will II , 123, "à expliquer aussi bien par la situation en Egypte que les opérations de Philippe dans le Nord"). A. H. McDonald and F. W. Walbank, JRS 27 (1937): 184, relate Kephisodoros's service to Philip V's attack on the Hellespontos in 202 B.C. (Walbank repeats this view in Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Macedonian Heritage, 230), an argument that is unconvincing on chronological grounds. More important, Tony Reekmans, Studia Hellenistica 7 (1951): 67–69, 83–85, 94–95, 104, detects devaluations in 221–216, 183–182, 173, and 130–128 B.C. , and a reorganization in 211–210 (75–80), but not in 204 B.C. Moreover, he dates a crucial piece of evidence for Heichelheim's argument, P. Mich., III 173, to 170 B.C. , much later than Heichelheim, and argues that Heichelheim misconstrued the number of copper drachmas to the stater (92 n. 2, 93); cf. now also W. Clarysse and E. Lanciers, Ancient Society 20 (1989): 117–32. The connection Heichelheim drew between Kephisodoros's activities and changes in the price of Egyptian grain evaporates.

thought to belong to the period of the Third Makedonian War itself.^[120] Wheat and/or barley prices are preserved from Delos for the Posideia in 179, 178, 174, and 169 B.C. , right during the period of this shortage (table 4.7).

These prices can hardly be said to reflect the storage on the Euripos. The minor variation in prices for barley in 178 and 169 B.C. (both, be it noted, lower than typical) and for wheat in 174 B.C. are perfectly in line with typical year-to-year fluctuations. The serious shortage, which led cities near Thisbe to embargo exports of grain, makes no mark here (ISE, 1.66 = Migeotte, 41–44). If Delos had really become an important center for the grain trade by the 220s B.C. , we would expect its prices to rise during nearby shortages as supplies were diverted to areas in need and sitonai of the cities spread out looking for grain. The absence of any impact at Delos of the shortage along the Euripos reinforces the view that limits Delos's role as a distribution center for grain to the Kyklades even as late as the 170s B.C.^[121]

Delos relied virtually entirely on production in the Kyklades for its grain supplies. No doubt the frequent, although irregular, movement of grain

[120] Most recent discussion with the date in Denis Knoepfler, BCH 114 (1990): 490–91; generally, Will II , 262–64. For the evidence, see Appendix I.

[121] It makes no difference that the shortage may not date precisely to 175–174 B.C. The 170s are certain enough, and we have prices for three years in that decade. The market disruption of a serious shortage should ripple across several years, as farmers, dealers, and townsfolk competed to replenish stocks. There ought to have been some effect on Delos. Moreover, the prices of 190 B.C. , clearly long before the shortage, are identical to those of the 170s, again suggesting no important impact.

from the other islands to the port of Delos for sale and consumption there promoted a localized trade in grain and the creation of a transit trade among the islands. Delos certainly became a convenient center for neighboring islands to sell surpluses and to make up shortfalls, and such trade must have resulted in a varying but continuous exchange on Delos among merchants who did not plan on leaving their grain on the island. This exchange in turn encouraged outsiders, like the Histiaians and the representatives of Demetrios II, to seek grain on Delos on occasion, although their activities cannot have been constant or large in scale. By the last third of the third century, however, evidence accumulates that local transit trade in grain had increased along with a rising public interest in grain provisioning for the Delian population that resulted in the creation of a permanent local sitonia fund. I attribute these changes to the generally rising prosperity of the islands during this period of independence from any outside hegemon; we shall explore this in more detail in chapter 7.