ABSTRACT
IN the whole field of Greek history there are few more controversial subjects than that of the conduct and development of Athenian trade in the fifth century B.C. The abundant quantities of Athenian pottery relating to this period, and found at various sites, especially in South Russia, Italy and Sicily, western Asia Minor, and the central Aegean area, and the large quantities of foreign pottery found at Athens, prove that there was a considerable exchange of plain ware, filled with the products of the earth, and of fine ceramics, between Athens and the outside world. But the historical conclusions to be drawn from all this ware are rather limited. 1 We can make inferences about the geographical pattern of trade; about the comparative importance of certain cities as suppliers of ceramics and their contents; and about the importing habits of certain states. Such inferences, based as they are upon a small sample of evidence, must be considered speculative even as regards the trade in ceramics. We are entitled to make surmises about the comparative level of trading activity in certain cities, but not about the absolute level of trade. Even if we can prove that trade (in certain products) was greater in one city than in another, this information is not really important to the historian unless he is satisfied that trade was of more than trivial importance to the economy of one or both of them. In the case of fifth-century Athens the archaeological evidence cannot tell us whether trade was really important to her economy or not. We are forced back upon the literary and epigraphic evidence, and it is the meagreness of this evidence, and the extreme difficulty of drawing reliable conclusions from it, which has made the subject of Athenian fifth-century trade so very controversial. 2
