Olive Oil

The candidates for unusually high prices are 307–306, 281, 279, and 259 or 256–251 B.C.

The first three years belong to the period of decline from generally high prices; this, with the rarity of prices from the whole period from 307 to 273 B.C. , makes it very difficult to decide whether a price is in fact high. There was military activity in the Kyklades in 307 and 306. Demetrios Poliorketes, who besieged Athens during the winter of 307/6, passed through the islands traveling between Athens and Asia Minor; although the inscription giving the prices does not assign them to a particular month, they may nevertheless well be associated with Demetrios's activities. The prices of 304, I have argued above, can be explained by the impact of Demetrios's siege on Rhodos, and thus are related to military activity. The price of 281 does seem quite elevated in comparison to prices just two years later, but in view of the scarcity of figures it is impossible to know for sure. Finally, the price of 279 B.C. might also be related to military activities. That year saw a war between Ptolemaios II and Antiokhos that resulted in the acquisition of Samos and parts of Ionia by the Egyptians. Since the Ptolemies had controlled the Kyklades for eight years or so, operations may have been staged from the islands.

That leaves only a single unusually high oil price of 125.1, 13.6 percent above mean, from an inscription that can only be dated to 259 or 256–251 B.C.^[121] The period is that of the Second Syrian War, which Rhodes exploited to seek connections in the Kyklades, including on Delos, against her long-time Egyptian allies. The price might be attributable to the presence of the Rhodian fleet, but without a more precise date for the inscription it is impossible to be sure.

With but one exception, all the many other years that show a military presence in the Kyklades—260–258, 246, 200, and 170 B.C. —yield oil prices that are either perfectly normal or low. The exception is 169 B.C. , with a price 51.6 percent above the mean for 179–170 B.C. (or 35.1 percent above the 272–170 B.C. mean). I have already argued that this price from Posideon represents a poor harvest owing to the bad winter of 169–168 B.C. , but if troops were stationed on Delos itself, as in the following year, they may have contributed additional stress.

These results can be explained by the model for Delian oil supplies worked out above. Before 272 B.C. , Delos was dependent on supplies brought in from relatively great distances, but by the 260s the temple could satisfy its needs from sources on Delos itself and on very close neighbors. Only disruption of trade in the neighborhood—say between Delos and Rheneia, Mykonos, and perhaps Tenos—would affect its supplies. Hence the complete absence of any impact by fleets or troops even as close as

Andros, and even when—as we shall see presently—those troops did cause the prices of other commodities to rise.