Trade, Traders and the Ancient City by Helen Parkins; Christopher Smith

Review by: Philip De Souza

The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 52, No. 2 (May, 1999), pp. 385-386
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History Society
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BOOK REVIEWS 385
countryside to peddle their goods. Practically the only export from Spain was
specie which was either brought back to Malta or turned into cargo on the way
home. In the early 1760s the Maltese were responsible for 14-17 per cent of
silver officially exported from Spain, probably an underestimate since the Maltese
traders were notoriously adept at smuggling.
The Maltese lived cheaply, sold cheaply, and often offered credit, practices
which did not endear them to their Spanish and French retail competitors who
managed to persuade the authorities to clamp down on the ambulant trade,
thus forcing the Maltese to adopt a more settled shopkeeping trade from the
1760s. Restrictions did not stop peddling and the extension of credit to the
poor, however, and the Maltese continued to do well by selling cheap to
encourage a high turnover. By the end of the century there were over 1,000
Maltese traders in Spain and some 3,000 Maltese altogether there, nearly all
men, out of a total island population of about 100,000. Most operated on a
small scale and few stayed in Spain for good, the typical shopkeeper putting in
several two- or three-year stints in Spain before finally retiring to his island home.
The book betrays its origins as a thesis by too much detail, but it tells a
fascinating story, which illuminates not just Maltese and Spanish economic
history but that of the Mediterranean as a whole.
London School of Economics and Political Science PETER EARLE
Helen Parkins and Christopher Smith, eds., Trade, traders and the ancient city
(London: Routledge, 1998. Pp. xiv + 268. 12 figs. 2 tabs. ?45)
This wide-ranging collection of essays on ancient trade will be essential reading
for anyone interested in the economic history of classical antiquity. It also has
much to offer to economic and social historians of other periods in terms of
comparative material, case studies that involve the quantitative analysis of difficult
data, and the development and application of theoretical models of pre-industrial
economies. The contributions range in time from the early second millennium
BC (Amelie Kuhrt on Old Assyrian merchants) to the fourth century AD (Mark
Humphries on the role of trade networks in the diffusion of Christianity),
but the emphasis is on the fifth- and fourth-century Greek world and the
Roman empire.
Any work on this subject must be considered in relation to Moses Finley's
highly influential book, The ancient economy (1973), with its 'primitivist' emphasis
on agricultural self-sufficiency and its downplaying of trade and traders. Parkins'
succinct introductory essay outlines the growing dissatisfaction among scholars
with the Finley approach, sketching some of the current debates in which the
contributors are engaged. Her discussion helps the non-specialist reader to
appreciate the significance of Smith's sensitive examination of the role of traders
and artisans in archaic central Italy, Gocha Tsetskhladze's cautious critique of
work on Greek trade with the Black Sea, and Mark Lawall's more speculative
analysis of Chian transport amphoras; their common focus on archaeological
evidence contrasts strongly with Finley's emphasis on texts. Perhaps the most
important divergence from Finley, however, is the contributors' appreciation of
the diversity of economic activity in antiquity. Most of them clearly share the
conviction that there is a plurality of ancient economies which cannot be made
to fit a single explanatory model. The fine chapters by Ray Laurence on the
integration of transport systems in Roman Italy, Jeremy Paterson on the pivotal
role of negotiatores (financers/wholesalers) in Roman trade, and Richard Alston
on local, regional, and long-distance trade networks in Roman Egypt all envisage
? Economic History Society 1999
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386 BOOK REVIEWS
an overlapping combination of economic units, which range from small agricul-
tural establishments to large, inter-regional markets, and are linked by a complex
web of trading activities. These chapters, like those of Kuhrt, Humphries, and
Michael Whitby (on the Athenian grain trade), make excellent use of the diverse
textual evidence available to ancient historians. Paterson's exploitation of Roman
legal texts and Alston's detailed analysis of papyri from Karanis and elsewhere
are particularly good examples of current trends.
In the final chapter John Davies discusses the strengths and weaknesses of
the approaches to the ancient economy employed in this book and elsewhere,
before embarking on an ambitious project to provide 'a means of tracing on a
single surface all the economic flows that can be detected for the societies of
antiquity' (p. 251). The resultant flow diagrams and their accompanying com-
mentary offer a way of defining ancient economic 'cells' and building up a
model of economic interaction between cellular structures of varying magnitude
and complexity. This approach is not entirely original to Davies, but his careful
presentation will help to stimulate further debate among historians. This excellent
volume is a very important contribution to the study of ancient economic history
in the dynamic, post-Finley era.
St Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill, Middlesex PHILIP DE SOUZA
Alexander Cowan, Urban Europe, 1500-1700 (London: Arnold, and New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. ix + 229. 2 figs. 1 tab. ?40; pbk. ?14.99)
Urban Europe is an ambitious examination of the shared and contrasting experi-
ences of a range of west European towns. It is well researched and provides a
good introduction to the urban dimension of early modem Europe. Part 1 is
concerned with urban frameworks, the formal and informal structures that
governed the lives of those touched by the town the urban economy, govern-
ment, elites, social horizons, and religion. Part 2 examines the changes and
tensions to be found in many early modern towns. The emphasis here is on the
urban fabric, poverty and poor relief, order and disorder.
Cowan employs an economic/functional definition of what constitutes a town.
In theory, this should allow some consideration of a wide range of settlements,
from smaller market towns to capital cities and city states. In practice, and not
surprisingly, most of the evidence comes from the experience of larger towns.
Despite this limitation, Cowan clearly presents the sense of an urban dimension
to, and experience of, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Issues of urban
government are discussed in relation to the distribution of power and authority
among urban elites and as a result of an increasingly interventionist state. Cowan
shows how most urban societies continued to be dominated by a small group
of elites and how the urban experience was commonly circumscribed by wealth,
gender, occupation, and life-cycle experience. Religion remained a powerful
shaping force throughout the period and the impact of the urban Reformation
and Counter-Reformation created powers of unity and disunity. The expansion
of lay piety and the impact of religious minority groups form part of this
introductory analysis. Concerns about urban poverty produced two key develop-
ments: first, the institutionalization of the poor and secondly, as a consequence
of this, a distancing of the problem of poverty within urban communities. The
extent to which these changes created a more volatile urban dimension is the
subject of the penultimate chapter. Broader themes of change and reaction are
constantly modified in terms of regional differences, religious experiences, and
economic development. Nevertheless, one interesting and debatable issue is the
? Economic History Society 1999
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