Trade, Manufactures, and Banking.
76. The Commercial Importance of Athens.—While the funeral mourners
are wending their slow way homeward we have time to examine certain
phases of Athenian life at which we have previously glanced, then
ignored. Certain it is, most “noble and good” gentlemen delight to be
considered persons of polite uncommercial leisure; equally certain it
is that a good income is about as desirable in Athens as anywhere else,
and many a stately “Eupatrid,” who seems to spend his whole time in
dignified walks, discoursing on politics or philosophy, is really
keenly interested in trades, factories, or farms, of which his less
nobly born stewards have the active management. Indeed one of the
prime reasons for Athenian greatness is the fact that Athens is the
richest and greatest commercial city of Continental Hellas, with only
Corinth as a formidable rival.[*]
[*] Syracuse in distant Sicily was possibly superior to Athens in
commerce and economic prosperity, although incomparably behind her in
the empire of the arts and literature.
To understand the full extent of Athenian commercial prosperity we must
visit the Peiræus, yet in the main city itself will be found almost
enough examples of the chief kinds of economic activity.
77. The Manufacturing Activities of Athens.—Attica is the seat of much
manufacturing. Go to the suburbs: everywhere is the rank odor of the
tanneries; down at the harbors are innumerable ship carpenters and sail
and tackle makers, busy in the shipyards; from almost every part of the
city comes the clang of hammer and anvil where hardware of all kinds is
being wrought in the smithies; and finally the potter makers are so
numerous as to require special mention hereafter. But no list of all
the manufacturing activities is here possible; enough that practically
every known industry is represented in Athens, and the “industrial”
class is large.[*] A very large proportion of the industrial laborers
are slaves, but by no means all. A good many are real Athenian
citizens; a still larger proportion are “metics” (resident foreigners
without political rights). The competition of slave labor, however,
tends to keep wages very low. An unskilled laborer will have to be
content with his 3 obols (9 cents [1914] or $1.51 [2000]) per day; but
a trained workman will demand a drachma (18 cents [1914] or $3.02
[2000]) or even more. There are no labor unions or trade guilds. A
son usually, though not invariably, follows his father’s profession.
Each industry and line of work tends to have its own little street or
alley, preferably leading off the Agora. “The Street of the Marble
Workers,” the “Street of the Box Makers,” and notably the “Street of
the Potters” contain nearly all the workshops of a given kind. Probably
you can find no others in the city. Prices are regulated by custom and
competition; in case any master artisan is suspected of “enhancing” the
price of a needful commodity, or his shady business methods seem
dangerous to the public, there is no hesitation in invoking an old law
or passing a new one in the Assembly to bring him to account.
[*] For a very suggestive list of the numerous kinds of Greek
industries (practically all of which would be represented in Athens)
see H. J. Edwards, in Whibley’s _Companion to Greek Studies_, p. 431.
[Illustration: At the Smithy]
Manufacturers are theoretically under a social ban, and indeed yonder
petty shoemaker, who, with his two apprentices, first makes up his
cheap sandals, then sells them over the low counter before his own
ship, is very far from being a “leisurely” member of the “noble and the
good.” But he who, like the late Lycophron, owns a furniture factory
employing nigh threescore slaves, can be sure of lying down on his
couch at a dinner party among the very best; for, as in twentieth
century England, even manufacture and “trade,” if on a sufficiently
large scale, cover a multitude of social sins.[*]
[*] Plato, probably echoing thoughtful Greek opinion, considered it bad
for manufacturers to be either too wealthy or too poor; thus a potter
getting too rich will neglect his art, and grow idle; if, however, he
cannot afford proper tools, he will manufacture inferior wares, and his
sons will be even worse workmen then he. Such comment obviously comes
from a society where most industrial life is on a small scale.
78. The Commerce of Athens.—Part of Athenian wealth comes from the
busy factories, great and small, which seem everywhere; still more
riches come in by the great commerce which will be found centered at
the Peiræus. Here is the spacious _Deigma_, a kind of exchange-house
where ship masters can lay out samples of their wares on display, and
sell to the important wholesalers, who will transmit to the petty
shopkeepers and the “ultimate consumer.”[*]
[*] Of course a very large proportion of Greek manufactures wares were
never exported, but were sold direct by the manufacturer to the
consumer himself. This had various disadvantages; but there was this
large gain: _only one profit_ was necessary to be added to the mere
cost of production. This aided to make Greece (from a modern
standpoint) a paradise of low prices.
There are certain articles of which various districts make a specialty,
and which Athens is constantly importing: Bœtia sends chariots;
Thessaly, easy chairs; Chios and Miletos, bedding; and Miletos,
especially, very fine woolens. Greece in general looks to Syria and
Arabia for the much-esteemed spices and perfumes; to Egypt for papyri
for the book rolls; to Babylonia for carpets. To discuss the whole
problem of Athenian commerce would require a book in itself; but
certain main facts stand out clearly. One is that Attica herself has
extremely few natural products to export—only her olive oil, her
Hymettus honey, and her magnificent marbles—dazzling white from
Pentelicos, gray from Hymettus, blue or black from Eleusis. Again we
soon notice the great part which _grain_ plays in Athenian commerce.
Attica raises such a small proportion of the necessary breadstuffs, and
so serious is the crisis created by any shortage, that all kinds of
measures are employed to compel a steady flow of grain from the Black
Sea ports into the Peiræus. Here is a law which Domsthenes quotes to
us:—
“It shall not be lawful for any Athenian or any metic in Attica, or any
person under their control [_i.e._ slave or freedman] to lend out money
on a ship which is not commissioned to bring grain to Athens.”
A second law, even more drastic, forbids any such person to transport
grain to any harbor but the Peiræus. The penalties for evading these
laws are terrific. At set intervals also the Public Assembly
(Ecclesia) is in duty bound to consider the whole state of the grain
trade: while the dealers in grain who seem to be cornering the market,
and forcing up the price of bread, are liable to prompt and disastrous
prosecution.
79. The Adventurous Merchant Skippers.—Foreign trade at Athens is
fairly well systematized, but it still partakes of the nature of an
adventure. The name for “skipper” (nauklëros) is often used
interchangeably for “merchant.” Nearly all commerce is by sea, for
land routes are usually slow, unsafe, and inconvenient[*]; the average
foreign trader is also a shipowner, probably too the actual working
captain. He has no special commodity, but will handle everything which
promises a profit. A war is breaking out in Paphlagonia. Away he
sails thither with a cargo of good Athenian shields, swords, and
lances. He loads up in that barbarous but fertile country with grain;
but leaves enough room in his hold for some hundred skins of choice
wine which he takes aboard at Chios. The grain and wine are disembarked
at the Piræus. Hardly are they ashore ere rumor tells him that salt
herring[+] are abundant and especially cheap at Corcyra; and off he
goes for a return cargo thereof, just lingering long enough to get on a
lading of Athenian olive oil.
[*] Naturally there was a safe land route from Athens across the
Isthmus to Corinth and thence to Sparta or towards Ellis; again, there
would be fair roads into Bœtia.
[+] Salt fish were a very usual and important article of Greek
commerce.
80. Athenian Money-changers and Bankers.—An important factor in the
commerce of Athens is the “Money-changer.” There is no one fixed
standard of coinage for Greece, let alone the Barbarian world. Athens
strikes its money on a standard which has very wide acceptance, but
Corinth has another standard, and a great deal of business is also
transacted in Persian gold darics. The result is that at the Peiræus
and near the Agora are a number of little “tables” where alert
individuals, with strong boxes beside them, are ready to sell foreign
coins to would-be travelers, or exchange darics for Attic drachmæ,
against a pretty favorable commission.
This was the beginning of the Athenian banker; but from being a mere
exchanger he has often passed far beyond, to become a real master of
credit and capital. There are several of these highly important
gentlemen who now have a business and fortune equal to that of the
famous Pasion, who died in 370 B.C. While the firm of Pasion and
Company was at its height, the proprietor derived a net income of at
least 100 minæ (over $1,800 [1914] or $30,248.07 [2000]) per year from
his banking; and more than half as much extra from a shield factory.[*]
[*] These sums seem absurdly small for a great money magnate, but the
very high purchasing power of money in Athens must be borne in mind.
We know a good deal about Pasion and his business from the speeches
which Deosthenes composed in the litigation which arose over his
estate.
81. A Large Banking Establishment.—Enter now the “tables” of Nicanor.
The owner is a metic; perhaps he claims to come from Rhodes, but the
shrewd cast of his eyes and the dark hue of his skin gives a suggestion
of the Syrian about him. In his open office a dozen young half-naked
clerks are seated on low chairs—each with his tablet spread out upon
his knees laboriously computing long sums.[*] The proprietor himself
acts as the cashier. He has not neglected the exchange of foreign
moneys; but that is a mere incidental. His first visitor this morning
presents a kind of letter of credit from a correspondent in Syracuse
calling for one hundred drachmæ. “Your voucher?” asks Nicanor. The
stranger produces the half of a coin broken in two across the middle.
The proprietor draws a similar half coin from a chest. The parts match
exactly, and the money is paid on the spot. the next comer is an old
acquaintance, a man of wealth and reputation; he is followed by two
slaves bearing a heavy talent of coined silver which he wishes the
banker to place for him on an advantageous loan, against a due
commission. The third visitor is a well-born but fast and idle young
man who is squandering his patrimony on flute girls and chariot horses.
He wishes an advance of ten minæ, and it is given him—against the
mortgage of a house, at the ruinous interest of 36 per cent, for such
prodigals are perfectly fair play. Another visitor is a careful and
competent ship merchant who is fitting for a voyage to Crete, and who
requires a loan to buy his return cargo. Ordinary interest, well
secured, is 18 per cent, but a sea voyage, even at the calmest season,
is counted extra hazardous. The skipper must pay 24 per cent at least.
A poor tradesman also appears to raise a trifle by pawning two silver
cups; and an unlucky farmer, who cannot meet his loan, persuades the
banker to extend the time “just until the next moon”[+]—of course at an
unmerciful compounding of interest.
[*] Without the Arabic system of numerals, elaborate bookkeeping surely
presented a sober face to the Greeks. Their method of numeration was
very much like that with the so-called Roman numerals.
[+] “Watching the moon,” _i.e._ the end of the month when the debts
became due, appears to have been the melancholy recreation of many
Athenian debtors. See Aristophanes’s _Clouds_, I. 18.
82. Drawbacks to the Banking Business.—Nicanor has no paper money to
handle, no stocks, no bonds,—and the line between legitimate interest
and scandalous usury is by no means clearly drawn. There is at least
one good excuse for demanding high interest. It is notoriously hard to
collect bad debts. Many and many a clever debtor has persuaded an
Athenian jury that _all_ taking of interest is somewhat immoral, and
the banker has lost at least his interest, sometimes too his principal.
So long as this is the case, a banker’s career has its drawbacks; and
Demosthenes in a recent speech has commended the choice by Pasion’s son
of a factory worth 60 minæ per year, instead of his father’s banking
business worth nominally 100. The former was so much more secure than
an income depending on “other people’s money!”
Finally it must be said that while Nicanor and Pasion have been
honorable and justly esteemed men, many of their colleagues have been
rogues. Many a “table” has been closed very suddenly, when its owner
absconded, or collapsed in bankruptcy, and the unlucky depositors and
creditors have been left penniless, during the “rearrangement of the
tables,” as the euphemism goes.
83. The Potter of Athens.—There is one other form of economic activity
in Athens which deserves our especial notice, different as it is from
the bankers’ tables,—the manufacture of earthen vases. A long time
might be spent investigating the subject; here there is room only for a
hasty glance. For more than two hundred years Attica has been
supplying the world with a pottery which is in some respects superior
to any that has gone before, and also (all things considered) to any
that will follow, through night two and a half millenniums. The
articles are primarily tall vases and urns, some for mere ornament or
for religious purposes,—some for very humble household utility;
however, besides the regular vases there is a great variety of dishes,
plates, pitchers, bowls, and cups all of the same general pattern,—a
smooth, black glaze[*] covered with figures in the delicate red of the
unglazed clay. At first the figures had been in black and the
background in red, but by about 500 B.C. the superiority of the black
backgrounds had been fully realized and the process perfected. For a
long time Athens had a monopoly of this beautiful earthenware, but now
in 360 B.C. there are creditable manufactories in other cities, and
especially in the Greek towns of Southern Italy. The Athenian industry
is, however, still considerable; in fifty places up and down the city,
but particularly in the busy quarter of the Ceramicus, the potters’
wheels are whirling, and the glazers are adding the elegant patterns.
[*] Sometimes this glaze tended to a rich olive green or deep brown.
84. Athenian Pottery an Expression of the Greek Sense of
Beauty.—Athens is proud of her traditions of naval and military glory;
of the commerce of the Peiræus; of her free laws and constitution; of
her sculptured temples, her poets, her rhetoricians and philosophers.
Almost equally well might she be proud of her vases. They are not
made—let us bear clearly in mind—by avowed artists, servants of the
Muses and of the Beautiful; they are the regular commercial products of
work-a-day craftsmen. But what craftsmen! In the first place, they
have given to every vase and dish a marvelous individuality. There
seems to be absolutely no duplication of patterns.[*] Again, since
these vases are made for Greeks, they must—no matter how humble and
commonplace their use—be made beautiful—elegantly shaped, well glazed,
and well painted: otherwise, no matter how cheap, they will never find
a market.
[*] It is asserted that of the many thousands of extant Greek vases
that crowd the shelves of modern museums, there are nowhere two
patterns exactly alike.
The process of manufacture is simple, yet it needs a masterly touch.
After the potter has finished his work at the wheel and while the clay
is still soft, the decorator makes his rough design with a
blunt-pointed stylus. A line of black glaze is painted around each
figure. Then the black background is freely filled in, and the details
within the figure are added. A surprisingly small number of deft lines
are needed to bring out the whole picture.[*] Sometimes the glaze is
thinned out to a pale brown, to help in the drawing of the interior
contours. When the design is completed, we have an amount of life and
expression which with the best potters is little short of startling.
The subjects treated are infinite, as many as are the possible phases
of Greek life. Scenes in the home and on the farm; the boys and their
masters at school; the warriors, the merchants, the priests
sacrificing, the young gallants serenading a sweet-heart; all the
tales, in short of poet-lore and mythology,—time would fail to list one
tenth of them. Fairly we can assert that were all the books and formal
inscriptions about the Athenians to be blotted out, these vase
paintings almost photographs one might say, of Athenian daily life,
would give us back a very wide knowledge of the habits of the men in
the city of Athena.
[*] In this respect the Greek vase paintings can compete with the best
work in the Japanese prints.
The potters are justly proud of their work; often they do not hesitate
to add their signatures, and in this way later ages can name the
“craftsmen” who have transmitted to them these objects of abiding
beauty. The designers also are accommodating enough to add descriptive
legends of the scenes which they depict,—Achilles, Hercules, Theseus,
and all the other heroes are carefully named, usually with the words
written above or beside them.
The pottery of Athens, then, is truly Athenian; that is to say, it is
genuinely elegant, ornamental, simple, and distinctive. The best of
these great vases and mixing bowls are works of art no less than the
sculptures of Phidias upon the Parthenon.