Trade and Market in the Early Empires: Economies in History and Theory (Conrad M. Arensberg, Harry W. Pearson, Polányi Károly)

Trade and Market in the Early Empires: Economies in History and Theory
Author	Conrad M. Arensberg, Harry W. Pearson, Polányi Károly
Publisher	Henry Regnery
First published	1957 Chicago
Type	Book
Libgen	http://library.lol/main/E33A6A627B5D9B3545243C297C3A5366

Preface

THE senior editors hope to be forgiven for a somewhat lengthy preface. Close cooperation ni genuine freedom alowed the present book to take shape as work ni progress. Manifold factors, each on its own level, influenced the interdisciplinary plan, structure and form. There were, in the first place, the initiators and their former students who together largely wrote the book, one of the latter, Professor Harry W. Pearson of Adelphi College, acting also as co-editor; the institu- tions, internal and external ot the University, which supported over a decade the various ventures ni their overlapping phases; the personal scholarly aims of the editors which they endeavored to bring to fruition on converging lines. The undersigned wil therefore speak here in three voices: each for himself, and together for both.

In Spring 1947 Karl Polanyi was appointed Visiting Professor of Economics at Columbia University. Until his retirement ni 1953 he taught General Economic History ni the Graduate Faculty, redefining the subject in the yearly announcement as "the place occupied by economic life in society." In 1948, the Council for Research in the Social Sciences at Columbia University (C. R. S. Sc.) endowed a re- search project on the origins of economic institutions, under his direc- tion. Having retired, at the age of sixty-seven, he was given the honorary appointment of Adjunct Professor of Economics. Jointly with Professor Conrad M. Arensberg he then applied to the Ford Foundation, Be- havioral Sciences Division, for agrant ni support of an Interdisciplinary Project on the economic aspects of institutional growth, to be ad- ministered by Columbia University. In accepting the gift, Columbia University pointed to the continuity of effort which linked the C. R. S. Sc. project with the new grant. But while the charter of hte C. R. S. Sc. barred students engaged in project work from making use of results towards the attainment of an academic degree, no such restric- tions applied to the Interdisciplinary Project; rather it was intended as a center of research benefiting the study purposes both of the senior Polarses

proponents and of their associates. Polanyi has been serving ful- time since 1953 on the Interdisciplinary Project, which in 1956 was continued by the Ford Foundation for another two years. Harry W. Pearson was appointed Executive Secretary. A university Seminar, at faculty level, on the institutionalization of the economic process set up ta Columbia University discussed the same general topic from 1953 to 1955.

One by one a number of his 1947 students had joined Polanyi in his inquiries. Theoretical stimulation came from Harry W. Pearson and Rosemary Arnold (Barnard), both also giving valuable literary help; empirical applications were contributed by Charles S. Silberman (Col- umbia University) and Walter C. Neale (Yale University); George Woodard (Goddard College) uncovered Old Testament data relevant ot the Mesopotamian field; Daniel B. Fusfeld (Michigan State Univer- sity) provided a methodological link with economic anthropology; Roxane Eberlein created an invaluable card index for the total research effort; Laura P. Striker, Ph. D. (History), a guest student, volunteered assistance over several years with the German translations of cuneiform texts. Among later students Terence K. Hopkins (Columbia Univer- sity) brought to bear a much needed sociological approach to the con- cept of a substantive economy; Professor Murray C. Polakoff (Uni- versity of Texas) contributed in the same direction; Abe Rotstein (Sir George Williams College, Montreal) who assisted Polanyi's work in many ways, also wrote the Introductory Note to the present book.

By 1953 definite progress had been made. The distinction between trade and market institutions was proving a potent instrument in recti- fying serious misreadings of economic data in early societies. Building on the works of earlier scholars, we had largely solved the problem of money uses ni primitive and archaic societies. In regard to prices, the existence of the complex institution of "equivalencies" was revealed. The consequences for our understanding of the manner in which the economic process was instituted in Mesopotamia and classical Greece began to take shape.

At this point Arensberg, whose parallel endeavors at an institutional approach to the problems of sociology and anthropology were laid down in publications reaching back over a period of years, joined forces with Polanyi. Professor A. L. Oppenheim of the Oriental Institute, Chicago agreed to act as consultant in Assyriology. The undersigned then initiated hte study of anthropology, economic history, and Asyri- ology from which this book sprang.

In Arensberg's case, such joint study gave a welcome opportunity ot show that anthropology could serve economic history as more than a storehouse of odd data. The approach by which he thinks anthropolo- gists in close collaboration with himself have reached some new under- standing of the regularities to be found both in ethnographic and sub- stantive economic data si an operational method recently referred to as

A few paragraphs may well be devoted to this linking of social n a e n r o p , y a m mt e

arrangements and culture traits on the one hand, institutions on the other. It consists of the systematic use of three operations upon the immediate observations and the generalization of the resultant records -in the form of answers to the question: Who did what ot whom, in what order, how often, where? The operations are (1) the specification of the persons acting on one another, (2) the discrimination of the order of the action (initiative and response), (3) the comparison of the events so described in time, as frequencies or rates of recurrence. Eco- nomic institutions then take on the appearance of goods-handling and goods-receiving, while ethnographic data may be expected to reveal who passed on goods to whom, in what order, how often, with what response among those listed under "whom." This should, for instance, enable us to link ethnographical data with such a purely empirical classification of parts of the goods-handling and goods-receiving process as are indicated by the terms reciprocative, redistributive, and market- ing, as Polanyi has suggested.

The reciprocative sequence among fixed partners AB/BA or AB/BC/CA C indicated similar social arrangements and culture traits whether the institutions formed otherwise part of prestige, kinship, community, religious, or other activities of the peoples who live by reciprocative human action in similar sequence.

In a redistributive world we find only few, fi any, simple or complex chains of action and their reversals, or circles of action back upon them- selves. Action is instead centripetal movement of many upon one central figure followed by an initiative of that central figure upon the same many. Formally, BA/CA/DA/EA/FA are followed by an event A/BCDEF in unison or repartition. Central authority or focus in human organization has been invented, and it is now a frequent form in which human action occurs. The economics of redistribution, again, has common elements with the other institutions of the epochs in

which central authority, the elaboration of "set events," si developing. But the identity of A, the centralizing figure, is still a fixed feature. Hsi identity si not reversible: Temple-god or high priest, of king, or emperor, or even, in republican cases, citizen office-holder in rotation of office still fixed for a day or a year, si a fixed point, round which the others are also bound, liege, and fixed. of the rket. Here we asked We asked the same type of question of the ma

it, in detail, and again our questioning, which resulted in what we think to be common denominator social arrangements and culture traits, led us ot a slightly different pattern of observations than those our econo- mists made. We asked, abstractly and analytically, what social action does the free market entail, and also where in the ethnographic record,

transaction or market, formally, he is one of a similar "crowd" and dances in unison to the tune called by another who may in his turn have "cornered the market" from them all. Thus the action, judged by

our operations, is random as to persons, at the free initiative of any one, formally, and the position of central "authority" in the market goes now to this competitor or cornerer—, now to that. The personal identity of the center, unlike that in redistributions, is fluctuant, moving, reversible, and random, too, a function not of other institu- tions but of the market itself.

Nowhere in the ethnographic record should we find another such fluid randomizing, so different a pattern of social arrangements to com- pare with those of reciprocity and redistribution. Here was a pattern reckoned from the wil of the actor, giving him only the role he should achieve, not that ascribed to him from outside, forming and reforming the positions of others about him as he himself changed behavior and motive. Now, formally,A/BCDEF took place no oftener than B/ACDEF or F/ABCDE, and somehow human beings had learned, presumably, to accept roles as the movement of the institution itself,

the market, dictated, together with a freedom to try to bend the others to their advantage. In the Western world, where this institution had come to emerge and to blossom into extreme elaboration in a Man-

chester-School England of the 19th century, was it historical accident alone that a "free enterprise," afree and equal democracy, an "open" class system, a free choice of religious and associational membership, and afree choice of mate in a small, ego-reckoned family structure, should al have historically coincided?

In our particular project we could not decide such large matters of history and sociology, but we could ask the second question already mentioned above, Where outside the recent Western world, in the ethnographic record, would we find anything resembling or parallel ot this? If it did exist elsewhere, did any parallel connections unite eco- nomic behavior and social arrangements and institutions?

To get an answer to the second question we might have turned to several places, perhaps to Japan, Mexico, Melanesia or ancient Greece. For al of them some reporters have claimed free or near-free markets. But we turned instead to Barbary, where the Berber hil tribes have markets that may wel be free and where mutatis mutandis other free,

can we find such forms of social action prior to modern times.

The economists of our project had difficulty with our question. To them free or moving prices were the earmark of the free market; and production for sale at such prices, fluctuating in its turn against market supply and demand, was the earmark of a market economy. But to the anthropologist that is not enough, since he must connect

the specific, developed details of a culture trait, particularly hte out- ward and spectacular features which win it human recognition and acclaim, with the inner features, its social arrangements, its past history, and its functions for men, society, and the maintenance of other insti- tutions than itself. But they finaly agreed with us upon the following tentative formulation: In the free market of supply and demand, a man can reverse roles, being supplier or demander as he can or wills. A man can go to this market or that as he sees his advantage; he is free of fixed and static obligation to one center or one partner, h e moves at will and at random, or as prices beckon. He can offer to al and any comers, dole or divide among them, "corner the market" so that they al pay his price and so dance to his tune. At another turn of prices, or ni a next

not to say anarchic, institutions mark avery ancient and interesting civilization of perhaps some common origins with our own but certainly outside it today. A chapter of this book records what seems to be another case of near-free markets there. Let the reader judge for him- self, as he will judge the joint efforts of institutional economist and anthropologist in the other treatments of problems in different or alternative economic behaviors, motives, and systems in this book, fi we have rightly or wrongly discovered the connections between culture trait, economic institution, and common denominator social arrange- ment in this case as in the others.

The present work reflects research carried on by the undersigned collectively, ni free cooperation, during the 1953-1955 period. The manuscript of a previous work of Polanyi-summing up his 1948 1952 results in a more personal vein-should, however, be mentioned here. It was prepared by him in collaboration with his students, Charles S. Silberman and Rosemary Arnold, then research assistants on the staff of the C. R. S. Sc. project; his wife Mrs. Ilona Polanyi acted as editorial assistant. On leave during the Winter Term 1949-1950, aided by the C. R. S. Sc., Polanyi made studies on Dahomey ni the British Museum. In chapters VIII and XI on this subject, by Rosemary Arnold, particular indebtedness to the C. R. S. Sc. has been acknowl- edged. Chapter VI consists of pasages assembled from previous texts for submission to the University Seminar in 1953; Chapter IX, as it stands, was written by her for the C. R. S. Sc. project. In her case, as in that of Charles S. Silberman, Polanyi welcomes the opportunity to acknowledge the vital contribution of his collaborators in his as yet un- published work.

We wish to acknowledge our debt to the institutions which made

our work possible. We can single out, in grateful memory, the officers of the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Ford' Foundation, of the Columbia University Council for Research in the Social Sciences and those of the University administration and of our respective depart- ments of Economics and Anthropology, together with the administra-

tion of the University Seminars, particularly Professors Frank Tannen- baum and Arthur R. Burns, al at Columbia University, who gave both material support for the complicated interdisciplinary work of our project and platforms for our many hours of discussion and conference. Vital encouragement came from Professors Robert M. MacIver, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton of the Sociology Department; steadfast support from Professors John M. Clark, Joseph Dorfman,

Carter Goodrich, David S. Landes, and William Vickrey of the Eco- nomics Department, all at Columbia. Many others contributed ideas and ideals; moral, intellectual, and technical assistance, running the gamut from the dedicated fellow-scholar to the interested observer;

from the authority in his field to the challenging student. Amongst these were D.i M. I. Finley, Felow of Jesus Colege, Cambridge; the Rev. Professor R. J. Williams, University of Toronto; Professor Julius Lewy, Union Hebrew Seminary, Cincinnati; Professor Gregory Vlastos, Princeton University; Professor John Murra, Vassar College; Pro- fessor Albrecht Götze, Yale University; Professor Bert F. Hoselitz, University of Chicago, together with Rivkah Harris and R. F. G. Sweet of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; Professor Peter F. Drucker, New York University; Professors Isaac Mendelsohn and Martin Ostwald of Columbia University; Professors Morton Fried and Margaret Mead, together with Sidney Greenfield, Thomas Hazard, Dr. Marshall Sahlins, Donna Chrablow Taylor and Dr. Andrew Peter

Vayda, al of the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University; also Dis. Robert Hennion and Cohn-Haft, while at Columbia. Miss Lucy Lowes' able professional services ni the way of technical editing also deserve acknowledgement.

Thanks are also due to the Carnegie Institution of Washington for permission ot adapt the map from The Maya Chontal Indians of Acalan-Tixchel: AContribution to the History and Ethnography of the Yucatan Peninsula, by France V. Scholes and Ralph L. Roys. We are also indebted to Le Hunt for his expert assistance in adapting this map and for his beautiful execution of the endpaper maps.

We owe a debt of another kind to Professor Talcott Parsons of

Harvard University. If his work si the subject, in essence, of two of our chapters, ti si because that work si important and wil certainly live in future social science ni much of its contribution to our knowl- edge of institutions and social process. It was possible here to discuss Economy and Society, forthcoming almost at the same time as our own book, only because he sent us the manuscript graciously and fore- bearingly.

Introductory Note

MOSt of us have been accustomed to think that the hallmark of the economy is the market-an institution quite familiar to us. Similarly, our inquiries into general economic history have usually been con- cerned with market activities or their antecedents.

What si to be done, though, when it appears that some economies have operated on altogether different principles, showing a widespread use of money, and far-flung trading activities, yet no evidence of mar- kets or gain made on buying and selling? It is then that we must re- examine our notions of the economy.

The conceptual problem arises in marketless economies where there is no "economizing," i.e., no institutional framework to compel the individual to "rational" and "efficient" economic activity, or "opti- mum" allocation of his resources. Economizing action may be present in various aspects of behavior, e.g., in regard to one's time, energy, or one's theoretical assumptions, but the economy need contain no insti-

tutions of exchange to reflect these principles in the individual's daily life as they have done in our own day. In that case the economy would not be subject to economic analysis since this presumes economizing behavior with supporting institutional paraphernalia, e.g., price-making markets, all-purpose money and market trade.

Thus the main task of this book is conceptual: it argues that only a smal number of alternative patterns for organizing man's livelihood exist and it provides us with tools for the examination of nonmarket economies. These tools are applied in a series of empirical researches, although the underlying theory transcends them.

The aim is not to reject economic analysis, but to set its historical and institutional limitations, namely, to the economies where price- making markets have sway, and to transcend these limitations in a general theory of economic organization.

It is particularly as economists and as economic historians that we may have to revise our traditional assumptions. Some will be inclined to reject as of no interest economies which do not "economize," i.e., have no institutions for economizing action. They may regard the empirical and conceptual work advanced here as presenting no more than unimportant and irrational shards on the fringes of history. Others

may even maintain that nothing is advanced here that is not amenable

to treatment by economic analysis or some variation of the maximiza- tion theorem.

However, many unfortunate consequences follow from an approach that restricts our view of the economy to market activity. It is an impoverished economic history that narrows its concern to markets or market antecedents, for these may be only fragmentary aspects of the economy. The economy would then falsely seem to be in unilineal evolution to our own day, whereas in fact other economies need not be miniatures or early specimens of our own, but may be sharply at variance with it, both as to individual motives and organization.

. Technological progress is cumulative and unbounded, but economic organization is not. There are only a few general ways in which the

economy may be organized. It si this limitation of the possible patterns of economic organization and their effective combinations which gives to the thoughts and data offered here some topicality. In the receding rule of the market ni the modern world, shapes reminiscent of the economic organization of earlier times make their appearance. Of course we stand firmly committed to the progress and freedoms which heprogressa

are the promise of modern society. But a purposeful use of the past may help us to meet our present overconcern with economic matters and to achieve a level of human integration, that comprises the

economy, without being absorbed in it.

It si this which makes economic history come alive and throw light on the changing roles of economies in history and society.

Birth of the Economy

The Secular Debate on Economic Primitivism

FOR MORE than sixty years a debate has been raging ni the field of economic history. Many features have faded out, some were irrelevant from the start. Yet it contained-and still contains-the elements of

one of the most significant divergencies in the human sciences. It would not be easy ot find a more suitable introduction than this controversy to the interpretive problems involved in the study of archaic economic institutions.

The theorem about which the storm of discussion ultimately centered was first propounded by Rodbertus in the middle 1860's. The actual controversy started some thirty years later between Karl Bücher and Eduard Meyer; it was at its height about the turn of the century. Subsequently Max Weber and Michael Rostovtzeff took their stand. Several others made important contributions.'

No more illuminating introduction to this conflict of views could be found than Friedrich Oertel's oft-quoted statement of the issues as he summed them up in 1925:

Are we ot conceive of the economy of antiquity as having reached ahigh Teh lof andelt centuries . hte cogarded sasa antial nationalsainter. national business, a receding agriculture, an advancing industry, large scale manufacturing managed on capitalistic lines and growing in scope, with fac- tories working for export and competing with one another for sales in the world market?

Or should we assume, on the contrary, that the stage of the closed "household economy" had not yet passed; that economic activity had not attained a national, even less an international scale; that no organized com-

merce involving long-distance trading was carried on and that, consequently, no large-scale industry producing for foreign markets existed? In brief, was the character of economic life still agrarian rather than industrial? Was c r a t e rod estrice uo the aidiot macatery ar asing hte wra na terials that were locally available to them??

Oertel termed the first the positive, the latter the negative theory. Johannes Hasebroek, more appropriately, called the first the modern- izing, the latter the primitivist view. But careful examination of the terms employed by Oertel ot describe the issues involved ni the dispute as well as the various attempts to characterize the opposing positions serves wel to indicate the lack of conceptual clarity which has dogged neptual clarity

the controversy from the beginning. Debates such as this are resolved either by the appearance of new evidence or by the conceptual clarifica- tion of the problem so that the previously existing evidence fals into new perspective. In this case, the facts, on what we will call the opera- tional level, can no longer be in dispute. It is, rather, hte interpretation of these facts at the institutional level which remains unsettled.

The Oikos Theorem: Karl Rodbertus

The origins of this controversy go back to Rodbertus' essay on Economic Life in Classical Antiquity, which appeared over the years 1864-1867. The second part of this essay dealt with the "History of Roman Tributes from the Time of Augustus."s Here Rodbertus con- trasted sharply modern and ancient taxation systems. His approach was highly suggestive. Modern taxation, he wrote, differentiates between personal and property taxes; these latter are either taxes on landed capital, again, is either industrial or com- property or taxes on capital;

apital, again, is

mercial, and the latter is invested either in goods or in money (i.e., either in industry or in finance). Al these types of property appear as distinct from one another; indeed they appertain to different social classes. Distinctions analogous to those regarding property are also

made in regard to incomes. We distinguish purely personal incomes, such as wages or salaries, which are due to the use of labor power, from income that derives from impersonal property, or title to ownership, such as rent; this latter may be either rent from land or profit; profit, again, is split up into interest and entrepreneurial profit.

"This state of affairs," Rodbertus concluded, "resulted in a modern expanding economy."* The various stages of production are here linked with one another through the process of buying and selling. In this fashion varying claims to a share in the national dividend are created which take the form of money incomes.

This remarkably modern view of the social function of money has not been sufficiently appreciated. Rodbertus realized that the transition from a "natural economy" to a "money economy" was not simply a technical matter, which resulted from a substitution of money pur- chase for barter. He insisted instead that a monetarized economy ni- volved a social structure entirely different from that which went with an economy in kind. It was this change in the social structure accom- panying the use of money rather than the technical fact of its use which ought to be emphasized, he thought. Had this point been expanded to include the varying social structures accompanying trading activity in the ancient world the controversy might have been resolved before it began.

Instead the "household" or "oikos" held the center of the stage. With Rodbertus the oikos was no more than alogical construct, akind of anticipation of a Weberian "Ideal type." He invented the term, "lord of the oikos" to designate the owner of al the various titles ot property and the corresponding incomes listed above. Al this was designed to illustrate how, instead of amultitude of differentiated taxes, the ancient Romans knew only one tax, the tributum paid by the lord of the oikos whose revenue was a compound of all those various kinds of incomes which had been fragmented by the modern "money economy."

For Rodbertus the oikos was typified by the vast Roman slave- worked domain, but historical confusion si apparent ni a tendency to speak of the oikos without reference to any definite period. The term oikos thus became merely a peg upon which to hang the concept of economy in kind under which money, markets, and exchange were at a discount, in spite of the existence of an elaborate organization of pro- duction.

Karl Bücher and Eduard Meyer

Here the matter might have rested had it not been for Karl Bücher's path-breaking work, Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft, first pub- lished in 1893. The great achievement of Bücher was to link the study of economic life in the ancient world with primitive economics. His aim was to establish a general theory of economic development from primitive to modern times. He did not equate classical antiquity with primitive society, but by emphasizing the relatively recent tribal origins of ancient Greek and Roman society, he suggested that ancient eco- nomic life might better be understood fi viewed from the perspective

of primitive rather than modern society.

Regarding our specific interest his thesis was that not before the emergence of the modern state do we find a Volkswirtschaft, i.e., a complex economic life on larger than a city scale. Up to the year 1000 AD. . the economy never passed beyond the stage of closed domestic

economy (geschlossene Hauswirtschaft) where production was solely for one's own needs, involving no exchange between the household units. The economic life of the Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans, he said, was typified by this oikos economy. (Here he referred to Rod- bertus.)7

Bücher later conceded that before the development of a large scale slave economy, there was a much larger amount of free wage labor, pro- fessional services, and exchange in general. However he still maintained his thesis ni the following form: Complex economic life of a territorial character on a large scale (Volkswirtschaft) si the result of adevelop- ment covering a period of thousands of years, and is no older than the modern state. Prior to this, mankind existed over long stretches of time without any system of exchange of goods and services that deserves a complex economic life on a national scale.8

the name of on the self-sufficient oikos as the central unit of ancient By settling

society and placing this construct in a speculative theory of economic development, Bücher forced himself into the position of having to deny the significance of trade and money in ancient society. Thus the unfortunate oikos theorem cast the die of the controversy which was to ensue, and provided an easy target for Eduard Meyer who vigorously challenged Bücher's position in 1895.9

Meyer summed up his opposing thesis in the dictum that, .". the later period of antiquity was in essence entirely modern."10 In support of this he adduced evidence on a number of points which seemed de- cisive: "The ancient world possessed an articulated economic life with

a highly developed system of transportation and an intensive exchange of commodities."11 "In the ancient Orient we meet from the earliest

recorded time with a highly developed manufacturing industry, a gen- eral system of commerce, and the use of precious metals as the means of exchange."12 Here he went on to say that since 2500 B.c. Babylonia produced numerous documents referring to private business transac- tions in regard to slaves, land and buildings, dividing of property at

death, etc. There we find a developed system of accountancy in terms of gold and silver, which spread al over the civilized world and served

as a basis for coinage. The central point which seemed to prove the eco- nomic modernity of the ancient world was that, "Trade and money were of fundamental importance in the economic life of the an-

Meyer's position is what Hasebroek has caled the "modernizing" attitude, what Oertel described as the "positive" approach, while Sa-l violi termed it the historians' view. A more precise designation for this position might be "the market-oriented" view. Our modern world is indeed characterized by an unprecedented development of productive power, an international trade network, and the use of money as a uni- versal means of exchange. By suggesting that the ancient world had begun on the same line Meyer was, of course, adopting a "moderniz- ing" attitude. It was also "positive" ni the sense that it attributed these elements to ancient civilization; and it did represent the nineteenth- century historians' traditional view. But these terms do not convey the central feature of Meyer's position. The pivotal institution of the mod- em economy is the market. It is under its aegis that production, trade and money are integrated into a self-contained economic system. And the crucial point in regard to the position of Meyer and the "modern- ists" si that in asserting the existence of large scale manufacturing

, trade and money, they also assumed their organization to follow the market pattern. But whether or not these elements of any specific economy are so organized is a point for investigation at least equally as important as the fact of their existence. The fact that the debate turned so much htereyt weakuled he poartnce fohte oris oscared htsi oint and clearly turned against them.

The long-distance carrying and exchange of goods and the use of money objects were indeed widely spread features of ancient economic life, and in 1932 Michael Rostovtzeff was able to state that the oikos position was then held by almost no one. I But this was a pyrrhic vic- tory for the market-oriented position. The oikos had been a spurious issue from the start. Once that thesis was thoroughly discredited the argument could move to the level on which it should have begun. On this level there si no disputing the "facts" regarding the physical move- ments of slaves, grain, wine, oil, pottery; their changing hands between distant peoples, nor can one deny some local exchanges between city and countryside. There si likewise no question of the use of money ob- jects. The question is, how were these elements of economic life insti- tutionalized to produce the continuous goods and person movements essential to a stable economy?

Max Weber and Michael Rostovtzeff

It was the genius of Max Weber which eventually permitted the debate ot reach this level. Accepting neither the "primitive" nor the "modern" approach to the problem, Weber admitted that there were some similarities between the economy of the European ancient world at the height of its development and that of the later medieval period, but he emphasized the unique characteristics of ancient culture which for him made all the difference. 15

The force which moved the Greek and Roman economies in their

special direction, according ot Weber, was the general military-politi- cal orientation of ancient culture. War ni ancient times was the hunt for men and economic advantages were won through the ceaseless wars and, ni peace, by political means. Even the cities, although super- ficially like those of the Middle Ages in economic outline, were essen- tialy diferent ni total outlook and organization.

Takeninitsentirety... thecitydemocracyofantiquityisapoliticalguild. Inbute, booty, the payments of confederate cities, were merely distributed

deruchy, hte distribution of conquered alnd among hte citizens, and the distribution of the spoils of war; and at the last the city paid out of the proceeds of its political activity theater admissions, allotments of grain, and payments for jury service and for participation in religious rites. 18

Weber thus opened the way to a new interpretation of the "facts,"

over which there was now little dispute. No victim of a preconceived

stage theory of economic development, his approach showed the pos- sibility of a relatively high level of economic organization existing in a

societal framework basically different from thatof the modern market

It can hardly be said, however, that Weber resolved the issues ni this secular debate, for while he sketched in the outlines of a new approach, he did not provide the conceptual tools with which to answer specific questions regarding trade organization, money uses, and methods of exchange. And although Johannes Hasebroek's detailed and masterful elaboration of Weber's thesis in 193117 secured an important victory for the so-called "primitivist" side, Michael Rostovtzeft's questioning opposition proved that al the issues had not thereby been resolved. Rostovtzeff conceded that the class warfare and revolutions which created the democracy of the Greek city states were of a different char- acter than those which established capitalism in the modern western world, and that the ideals of the new society retained the color of the chieftain's society which had preceded it. But ineffect this merely moved forward the time setting of the controversy. Rostovtzeff argued that the debate should focus on hte high point of ancient economic development, that is, the Hellenistic and early Roman period. And re- grangdi htsi rita, aRtore mi lie, ho" peroi nad cont fohet modern world is only quantitative, not qualitative."® To deny this, Rostovtzef declared, would be to deny that hte ancient world had achieved any economic development over four thousand years.

Like Oertel, Rostovtzef maintained that hte controversy was made up of this dilemma: did the ancient world ni its long existence go through a development similar to that of the modern world or was the whole ancient world based upon a primitive stage of economic life? He labeled the closed household theorem an ideal construction which

never existed, above all not in Greece where there was an active trade with the highly developed Oriental empires. And did the Ionian Greeks gain nothing from the cities of the Near East where they settled? "Surely something must have happened!"20

This statement of Rostovtzeff's view of the issues in the oikos con- troversy appeared in 1932, and thus represented the culmination of nearly forty years of debate since the publication of Bücher's bok ni 1893. Yet it is remarkable how little clarification of the issues had been achieved; opposing sides still clashed in a conceptual twilight.

The source of the confusion now appears obvious. Both sides, with the partial exception of Weber, were unable to conceive of an elabo- rate economy with trade, money, and market places being organized in any manner other than that of the market system. The "primitivists," who insisted that the ancient world was different from the modern,

sought their support in the oikos, which to them represented an earlier stage in the development of the self-same market system. The "mod- ernists" saw Greece and Rome resting on a foundation four thousand years ni the building, which included the high economic and cultural life of the ancient Near East. Meyer emphasized the high economic development of this area and Rostovtzeff the contact between it and Greek and Roman culture. To them it was inconceivable that such a long period, full of cultural achievement, would not produce an economy at least up to the level of the later medieval period. As Rostovtzeff declared, "Something must have happened!"

But what if those four thousand years of development had moved along different lines than those of the modern world? Then the per- spective from which Greece and Rome should be viewed would have to be shifted. Not capitalism, then, but a different organization of eco- nomic life would be the model from which to judge the high period of ancient economy. Bücher's primitivist perspective and Weber's mili- ntary-political approach had suggested this view of the question. Burt either Bücher nor Weber had provided adequate conceptual tools fo recognizing what had happened, i.e., the institutional foundations of this different sort of economic development.

The following chapters of this work are devoted to this task. Ex- ploring anew the position of trade, money, and market in the Mediter- ranean empires, a radically new perspective si gained from which to view the economic life of the people of the Old World. This perspec- tive gives a much broader range to the issues of the oikos debate. For now the elements of markets and commercial trade which appear in the Greek classical and Hellenistic periods are seen not as the heritage of over four thousand years of Mesopotamian development, but as por- tentous new inventions seeking a place in Greek culture.

Marketless Trading in Hammurabi's Time

the early form of economic life in that area. His theory of an "urban revolution," reflecting the results of the spectacular advance of the archaeology of prehistory, nevertheless, offers no answer to the question how production and trade were organized. It should be assumed, there- fore, that the obstacles to a deeper insight transcended any preferences fohistorion holocere or che mti oliny, Ense, hte guy eb mind has met in the field of the Babylonian economy is only the latest phase of that secular perplexity which for almost a century went under the name of oikos controversy, as presented ni the previous chapter. The issue was roughly, whether at the highest point of its development the society of classical Greece and Rome in its economic aspects was essentially modern or primitive.

Pseudo-economy and Inverted Perspective

In retrospect it is not too difficult to see why, even where there was broad agreement on the facts, interpretation remained elusive. Actu- ally, the question at issue was the extent to which the economy, in its various spheres, was organized through markets. Evidence of function. ing markets is not so readily available as might be supposed. Even under modern conditions it is often a delicate matter to ascertain whether at a definite time and place a supply-demand-price mechanism for adefinite good or service is in operation or not. For the distant past direct evidence may not be at hand. We are then forced back to rely- ing on such indirect evidence as those culture traits that commonly denote the presence of markets and market activities in a society. But this type of evidence si deceptive. Traits superficially recalling a busi- ness men's culture may occur independently of markets and even of the economy altogether. Famous instances of pseudo economies, such as the potlatch or the Kula trade, details of which sometimes are a-l most a mimicry of stock-jobbers' activities, abound with the Manus of the Great Admiralty Islands, the Tolowa-Tututni of California or the Kwakiutl of the North West Coast. Habits not intrinsically economic, such as the urge of gambling, competition in auctioneering, rigid ac- countancy, the lure of risk, pride in a public turnsover, which occur in modern business life, also play avital part ni the ocial fabric of primi- tive communities. Obvio sly, the p esence of such pseudo-economic traits is not proof of functioning markets. Moreover-yet another am- biguity-some genuine economic institutions that in their elaborate form we justly regard as having arisen only in modern times are found to have occurred under archaic conditions as well. However, while as to its structure the institution may be similar, its function may be very different. In its early, premarket form it acted as a substitute for mar- kets; in its market form ti is, on the contrary, supplementary to the existing market. Examples: In recent centuries business life produced complex credit structures and clearing systems, elaborate forms of brokerage, and special purpose moneys. Al of these must be regarded as new. Yet, in much less complex forms similar institutions had existed before, ni early societies. The explanation is simple. Where barter is widespread, credit, brokerage, clearing or money used as a standard help to carry on barter and thus make up for the absence of exchange- money and markets.

To use modern terms, it may be said that in these cases the lack of functioning markets calls for a substitute for markets. In the absence of money employed as a means of exchange there is often a large-scale public storage of staples with the concomitant practice of carrying debt accounts of individuals, and accompanying clearing practices. Though money si not used as a means of exchange, it may well be employed as a

standard as wel as a means of payment, different goods being used for the different purposes. Brokerage and auction are then the usual de- vices of arranging for exchange. With the development of markets such practices, of course, become superfluous and tend to disappear, until much later they reappear again, only this time in a sophisticated form

and in the new role of assisting the functioning of highly developed markets. Typical of such a recurrence of institutional traits and opera- tional devices which made their reappearance in our days, is the field which we call banking. Historically the appearance of money-changers, these earliest bankers, preceded the general use of coined money. Even branch banking reached a high development ni Ptolemaic Egypt, where it served as a means of running an advanced planned economy in kind, without markets or money as a means of exchange. Actually, the clear- ing of obligations between traders' accounts appears to have been gen- eral fifteen hundred years prior to Ptolemaic Egypt, in the "early As- syrian" trade, ni the absence not only of price-making markets, but even of coined money.

To sum up: The elusive element in the oikos controversy was the role of the market on which in reality the issues centered even though with no sufficient awareness of this circumstance on the part of the disputants. Translated into these terms, Rodbertus stressed that in the absence of a market system taxation in the Late Roman Empire would naturally be based on a general property tax put on the practically self- sufficient households of the big slave-owning landowners. Bücher, again in these terms, recognized that modern economies were inte- grated through national markets, themselves largely creations of the state, a development that had never occurred before. Finally, Weber's position on capitalism in antiquity as well as that of Rostovtzeff boiled down to the factual question to what extent, large or small, was the economic process ni ancient Rome at other times and in its other aspects instituted through markets. But in asserting the presence of markets we must carefully avoid a dangerous pitfall. Economic acitivi- ties under advanced market conditions may resemble similar activities under premarket conditions while their function is quite different. The distinction between pre- and postmarket should help to avoid that "inverted perspective," as it might be called, which sometimes induced historians ot se strikingly "modern" phenomena in antiquity where in fact they were faced by typically primitive or archaic ones.

Problems of the Babylonian Economy

Paul Koschaker in 1942 was indeed much less confident of our

grasp of the Babylonian economy than Eduard Meyer had been ni 1895. The underlying reasons wil now become apparent.

Shortly after Bücher's and Meyer's clash of views, the find was made of the obsidian stele on which the Code of Hammurabi was dis- played. To all intents and purposes it contained a commercial code of law which was (at the time) dated about twenty-five centuries before our era. * The significance of the sheaves of clay tablets relating to busi- ness matters that had been previously unearthed now stood revealed. Civilization, so much seemed evident, had been born from man's com-

mercial instincts; and the cradle of our own world, that of a business- men's culture, had been uncovered in Babylonia; to argue the primi- tive character of the economic life of antiquity in the face of these facts was no more than a fad. A series of scholars whose critical faculties have been rarely surpassed in any field of learning testified to the col- lective findings. There was no lack of differences between them on de- tail, nor of the recognition of important lacunae-but as to the general character of the economy, the ethos of the participants, the attitudes and value scales on which they oriented their behavior, no doubt could prevail. We had here before us the very essence of a capitalistically minded business community, in which king and god alike engaged in profiteering, making the best of their chances in lending money at

usury and imbuing a whole civilization with the spirit of money-making over millennia. It si against this climate of opinion that the doubts here voiced in regard to the actual organization of the economic life of the ancient Near East should be viewed.

In terms of our interpretation of the oikos controversy the impasse can be succinctly formulated. Babylonian economic life had necessarily appeared as a complex of activities ultimately depending on the func- tioning of an underlying market system. Markets were the rock bottom on which rested with axiomatic assurance the determination of forms of trade, money uses, prices, commercial transactions, profit and loss accounts, insolvency, partnership, in short, the essentials of business life. tI folows that ni the absence of such markets these explanations of the economic institutions and their way of functioning must fall to

the ground.

We submit that this precisely si the case. Babylonia, as a matter of fact, possessed neither market places nor a functioning market system of any description.

This recognition, which supplies the main thesis of this chapter arises out of anumber of mutually supporting groups of facts:

(1) Herodotus, who visited Babylon some time between 470 and 460 B.c., asserted with the greatest possible emphasis that "the Persians do not frequent market places and in effect, do not possess in their country a single market place." (Her. I, 153.) This pasage was con- sistently ignored by economic historians of Mesopotamia.

(2) Even a superficial survey of the legal character of economic transactions from the Old Babylonian period down to Persian times he accepted view that in spite of the inter- showed, the soundness of t g change in the nature and character of vening

"Dark Ages" no strikin

these transactions had ever occurred.

Marketless Trading in Hammurabi's Time 17 hardly have disappeared os thoroughly sa ot eb beyond reviving during that upsurge of business activities which took place a thousand years later, and in the wake of which Herodotus was visiting Babylon.

(4) According to reliable archaeological evidence the walled towns of Palestine (with the single exception of Hellenistic Jerusalem) pos- sessed right down to their destruction no open spaces whatsoever.

(5) The chief market place of Babylon would offer a landmark not easily overlooked. Yet contemporary literary records of the names, sites and layout of temples and avenues of that city which were discovered in the library of Ashur-banipal indicated no open space of this kind. (6) Some half dozen different words occurring in various cuneiform documents and translated in different contexts as "market" turned out on closer inquiry either not to mean "market place" at al or at least to be doubtful.

(6) It appeared as a matter of common sense that market places, had they been present to any extent ni Hammurabi's time, would

(7) Eventually, partial confirmation was received in February, 1953, from A. L. Oppenheim, in these terms: "As to your specific questions: Archaeological evidence speaks against the existence of 'market places' within the cities of the Ancient Near East."*

An Early Assyrian Trading Post

A rough outline of accounts of an early Assyrian trading post that existed over a century ni the period of Hammurabi ni the center of Asia Minor shall provide us with a generalized version of how Asyri- ologists only a few decades ago conceived of the organization of trade in this admittedly specific case. Such a broad survey shall throw into relief the problems that must arise fi the traditional view-based on the assumption of markets si to be replaced by another resting on the same data yet barring that assumption. It wil hardly be possible to avoid some repetitiousness, when contrasting the composite scene as it emerges from our sources-the two main publications, that of Landsberger ni 1925, and Eisser-]. Lewy in 1935-with hte tentative picture we here suggest as an alternative. The first publication was ad- mittedl l g of

y conjectural-unavoidably so, ni view of the gaps ni the evi- dence; also it just y claimed the right to a free renderin the selected illustrative material, so as to round off the original texts where meticu- lous precision could have produced but inarticulate fragments. The second publication, a decade later, comprised the bulk of the then transliterated tablets, and was roughly in accordance with the first, from which it differed, apart from detail, mainly in literal accuracy and legal elaboration. Landsberger had offered a brilliant sequence of life- like scenes, suggestive of the drama of business; Eisser-]. Lewy supplied philological comment and juridical systematization. We wil keep this brief and inevitably elliptic sketch of their presentations to three points: personnel and incentives; the nature of the goods; the character of the activities. of Assyrian Near Kanish, on the river Halys, we have a settlement who make merchants, members of the so-called karum, businessmen

profit on buying and selling, partnership, loaning and investing. The records are ample; they cover some three generations and end abruptly. The merchants act as middlemen between the distant city of Assur, to which they themselves belong by race, religion and language, and be- tween the subjects of a native prince (or princes) of central Anatolia. Whatever its origin, the rationale of the trading post as actually or- ganized is the procurement of copper for the City. Profit is made on the sale-purchase of goods, on loans-short or l o n g - o n participations and as between the members of the firm, on a share in the profit. The fimr is afamily afair, though not exclusively so. Frequently ajourney- man or junior partner, in reward for his services as a traveler, is accorded an interest-free loan, in money or goods, which he is permitted to use for trading on his own account (be' ulatum). The main driving force in business is the big man in Ashshur (ummeanum), who provides the goods, lends the money, invests sums over a long term against interest or participation or both. However, some of the more successful gild merchants in Kanish may be doing likewise. Transportation is organ- ized through aspecial group of carriers, on acommercial basis. Besides these, the anonymous figure of the tamkarum is in evidence, whose function, interests and activities are not clear, but evidently important. The goods are, primarily, copper, as we said, which is handled as a monopoly by the karum as such. Second, consignment ware such as lead (tin?) and fine cloths from the capital. From Kanish, native cloth and other goods are exported. Silver bars move both ways. Third, "free" goods are mentioned, which are neither subject to "monopoly" nor to consignment. The main activity is sale-purchase, mostly in regard to goods on consignment, on which the merchant can claim a commis- sion. For the rest, his job is to find a customer for the goods and to make the best of the chances of the market. Prices and interest rates fluctuate almost in the stock-exchange manner, so he must keep an eye on them. Dealings amongst the merchants give rise to disputes, often brought to a head by arbitration. In other cases, severe penalties, moral as well as physical, seem to threaten the defaulter at the hand of the authorities. Al this would accord well with a system of market trading before coined money was invented and executive organs were set up capable of enforcing court decisions.

Other points appeared to fit in less well with these assumptions. Landsberger did not fail to remark that profits are hardly ever ex- plicitly mentioned, losses practically never, prices are not the center of interest, and dealings amongst merchants are not secured by surety or p l o d e , s a o n i n h e r h a n c a d e a n a e t d a s , mi p e i l d h e t h t e o t c o n - signed goods. Moreover, it was noted that rules were sometimes en- forceable under the threat of the death penalty.

So far, the bare outline of the traditional presentation.

Risk-free Trading

It is unavoidable, then, that we take another look at the Assyrian trade settlement and suggest methods of trading suitable in the general circumstances as we see them. Yet in the main we will be merely re- interpreting the above data.

Nonmarket trade-this si the crucial point-is in all essentials dif- ferent from market trade. This applies to personnel, goods, prices, but perhaps most emphatically to the nature of the trading activity itself. The traders of the karum of Kanish were not merchants in the sense of persons making a living out of the profit derived from buying and selling, i.e., price differentials in regard ot the transaction ni hand. They were traders by status, as a rule by virtue of descent or early apprentice- ship, in other cases maybe, by appointment. Unless the appointment was accompanied by a substantial land grant-as we may assume ni the case of the tamkarum, but not in that of the members of the gdli— their revenue derived from the turnover of goods on which a commis- sion was earned. This was the original source of al "profit," i.e., that pool of goods, including silver, in which eventually the internal mem-bers of the firm as wel as the external ones, i.e., creditors and partners shared.

The goods were trade goods-storable, interchangeable and stand- ardized, or, as Roman law has it, quae numero, pondere ac mensura consistunt. Apart from standard cloths, the chief staples were metals -probably silver, copper, lead and tin, all goods reckoned according ot their silver equivalent. Silver, besides functioning as standard, was also, up to a point, a means of payment. The role of gold was much more restricted in both these uses. ty of "Prices" took the form of equivalencies established by authori custom, statute or proclamation. *The necessaries of life were supposed to be subject to permanent equivalencies; actually they were subject to long-range changes by the same methods by which they had been established. This need not have affected the trader's revenue, which did not depend on price differentials. In principle there was always a "price." i.e., the equivalency at which the trader both bought and sold. But rules regarding the application of equivalencies were hardly the same for monopoly goods, consignment ware and "free" goods. The numerous qualifying adjectives which accompany the term equiva- lency refer to the various rules and their effects. The equivalency for copper, "a monopoly," was fixed by treaty over a long term. Copper mining, as organized by the natives, would involve assurances by their chiefs that at least apart of the equivalencies, presumably in goods coveted by the people, would be forthcoming in definite amounts. As to consignment ware, mainly fine cloths manufactured in Assur and imported lead (or tin?), "prices" were similarly fixed and the goods bought and sold at that "price." "Prices" for free goods are espe- cially important, for eventual departures towards market trading were likely to originate from here; in other words, the present mean- ing of "price" might have developed from equivalencies for "free" goods. The many different adjectives attaching to equivalencies in the Sumerian formulary (also found ni Ugarit) as wel as the peculiar termi- colgy saare documenst indicate that hte handling fo"equivalen- must have been subject to administrative rules of an intricate kind. In the twentieth century AD. ,. this should surprise no one. trade However, the chief difference between administrative or treaty c- on the one hand and market trade on the other lies in the trader's a tivities themselves. In contrast to market trade, those activities are here risk-free, both in regard to price expectation and debtor's insolvency. Price risk is excluded by the absence of price-making markets with their fuctuating prices, and the general organization of trade which does not depend for profit on price differentials, but rather on turnover. Hence that relative lack of concern with prices; absence of the mention of profits on the business in hand; and even more important, mention of losses. In effect, participation in business is participation in profits. This has far-reaching consequences for the forms of trade partnership, which cannot be understood at all unless the discounting of loss on prices, as ageneral rule, is kept in mind.

There is no risk of debtor's insolvency, and consequently hardly any mention of losses on bad debts. This fact is as incisive in regard to the organization of trade as the absence of risk on prices.

In contrast with modern society, the archaic state makes obligations towards the public hand stricti juris, while obligations toward the pri- vate need not always be so. He to whom public goods are entrusted must unfailingly be able to produce either the goods themselves or their equivalent. This fits in wel with the practice of in rem transactions (Zug um Zug, didontes kai labontes) and the exclusion of credit. Several known features of Karum-trading follow: (1) No sale except for cash. (2) The Kanish trader receives his consignment of goods against security ot the value of the goods. (3) Obligations against third parties must be registered with the competent authority, City, Karum or Palace (in the case of natives); hence, in principle, al obligations are guaranteed by the public hand. Under treaty trade this rule si widely attested. (4) The public hand assumes here no risks, since it would refuse to guarantee obligations beyond the security in hand.

In case of fraud or the infringement of the rules of law, the severest penalties are applied.

Taken together all this explains why apparently no default on debt occurs; why arbitration awards are self-executing; how it comes about that hte account-keeping authority can simply charge hte defaulter's account with the amount awarded to the other party; why membership of the Karum and a good standing with the City is a precondition of trading; why no pledges to ensure payment are met with; why the in- terest-free loan employed by the journeyman for trading on his own account, the be'ulatum, is never lost; why business knows only profit, not loss.

Under such circumstances of no-risk business along administrative lines, the term "transaction" hardly applies; we wil therefore desig- nate this type of activity as "dispositional."

The traders' activities were manifold: copper procurement desig- volved a mining of the ore; its collection and transportation; refine- ment; storage and payment. The trader's job was to stimulate native mining activity through advances and, perhaps, long-term investments, up to several years duration; to ensure delivery and deposit the copper with the gild office in Kanish. But his main job was to make pay- ment for the copper or whatever else he had bought. Some may have been paid for in refining the copper, some ni silver, tin or imported high-grade cloth. The rest of the copper and native cloth were ex- ported, the latter maybe, after having been finished on the spot. Al that which was bought with consignment goods went to Assur. Although the principles of "fixed price," "cash delivery," "legal surety," and "commission on turnover" obtained throughout, the trader's job was far from simple: to make the right contacts among the natives; correctly to judge their requirement of goods; make his finan- cial arrangements in time; conform strictly to rule and regulation; dis- pose with precision the goods entrusted ot him; se ot the quality of the wares, either way; procure funds with which to make advances to prospective suppliers, and for deposit with the government; as wel as many other matters. Mistakes or omissions meant delay; difficulty in raising loans; small procurement; unnecessary expense; domestic un- pleasantness; loss of authority in the family firm; trouble with col- leagues and authorities; a reduced turnover. Yet, in this marketless trade there was no los on prices, no speculation, no failure of debtors. It was exciting as an occupation, but risk-free as a business.

Transactions and Dispositions

This dispositional mode of dealing was the main characteristic of early Assyrian trade. The essential element in the trader's behavior was not a two-sided act resulting in a negotiated contract but a sequence of one-sided declarations of will, to which definite effects were at- tached under rules of law which governed the administrative organiza- tion of the treaty trade he was engaged in. It si easy to deduce from this the criteria of dispositional trading.

(1) Acquisition of goods from a distance-the criterion of all authentic trade-was the constitutive element. The procurement of

use- ful objects ran in apeaceful way, goods going in both directions. There was a large professional personnel employed in the acquisitional ac- tivities and hte actual physical carrying of hte wares. The traders de- rived a revenue from their activities, in which they had a direct finan- cial interest.

(2) Although acting within the frame of a governmenta

tion and a network of official and semi-offi l organiza- remained an in cial institutions, the trader dependent agent. He was in no one's employ, under the orders of no superior, free to expand and contract his business at will, or to discontinue it altogether. If unskilled, lazy or unwise, his earn- ings would drop. But he need not fear the summons of any employer

or higher authority-as long as he kept within the law. The principle of rule of law was paramount.

(3) Nevertheless, not even in principle could transactions or private deals be banned. The rationale of "rule of law" therefore was the in- stitutional separation of the trader's dispositions relating to public business from his private transactions. The trader needed capital to be provided ni the form of short or long term loans, or of partnerships; associates, as members of the firm; employees to travel for him and do the neighborhood carrying; he was free to buy and sel non-consigned ware; to loan money to firms and to participate in their profits. Yet at no time was there to be any doubt about the "public" as distinguished from the "private" character of the deal-whether the trader had acted in his public capacity in the course of the copper procurement involv- ing consignments of government ware or apart from this public busi- ness, that is, privately. In the former sphere, his steps were formalized and his acts were phrased as dispositions; in the latter sphere, they were informal and could be described as transactions. But of what kind the institutions were, which in the various fields of economic activity permitted such a separation to become effective, si still largely hidden from our view. Did the separantion run on the lines of the differengt kinds of goods in question, the qua tities involved, or rather accordin to the origin of the funds employed, or maybe combinationsadof these cri- teria? We do not yet know. e

(4) Documents were recorded by public scribes, m e out under the supervision of public officials, a copy of th documen presumably

t

filed ni the official archives, under readily identifiable headings. The state of afairs in regard to any item of business could then at al times be ascertained at headquarters. The documents themselves were set out with a brevity and precision which enabled the public trustee— the tamkarum-to take action at all times if enjoined by an interested party in legitimate possession of a copy of the relevant document.

The Tamkarum

The key to the functions of the tamkarum lies in the methods and organization of trading. And vice versa: the key to the understanding of those methods lies in the office of hte tamkarum. His figure and function are sui generis. His primary duties are those of apublic trustee; he takes action under the law as soon as an authorized person produces (or rather has read out to him) the appropriate clay tablet, probably leaving a copy; according to the case and the situation, his duty is to advance fares or other small expenses; to accept pledges, as, e.g., of a slave that may have been handed to the gild merchant on the default d tor; to be instrumental in having goods from the City of his native eb hant and (although this does not clearly purchased by the gild merc

appnesar) ot deliver on the trader's behalf goods ot the City; ot facilitate tra portation

r by accepting responsibility for money and goods en- trusted to ca riers, and also for the safety of the goods bought in. the City for the account of the gild trader (in these latter cases a document was made out, addressed to the tamkarum, which the creditor could transfer to another gild merchant if he happened to be in need of cash); to have goods auctioned at the trader's request, crediting him with the sum thus recovered, whether it happened to be "more or less" than the equivalency. Other minor services were in the nature of legal advice and legal intervention with the karum especially fi differences with the natives arose. Also, in case of sudden death of an important gild trader the sequestration of goods and monies as wel as liquidation of the firm was done through his immediate intervention. The tam- ofpostimd e fi d karum derived no revenue from the business ni hand, although he may have charged small service fees to the traders according to som xe scale. His living was ensured through the landed property with which he was invested at his appointment. be outlined only conjecturally, If the figure of the tamkarum can

that of the ummeanum must frankly be described as obscure. The sug- gestion made here is no more than a tentative construction that might

fit the pattern of risk-free marketless trading, organized ni hte public interest, primarily on behalf of governmental war material procure- ment. The financing of such imports would be a public service. While the trade aspects of the matter may be left to the karum and the tam- karum, respectively, who between them would take care of its efficient performance, the financial side would be seen to by the ummeanum. There is, first, the handling of the accounts of the gild traders, includ- ing transfers from debtor's to creditor's accounts; secondly, direct in- vestments into this branch of foreign trade so as to increase supply and make it more regular. The ummeanum-that much should be taken for granted-was a public figure similar to the tamkarum. His investments and partnerships are what we might call treasury advances; these are usually made in round sums of gold ounces (employing units of two ounces) which may indicate the prestige character of the transaction, since gold was treasure. Whether the "big men" of the land were given a chance to invest into this privileged business and thus benefit fromt the manufactures of dependent labor (particularly female) we canno

f su

be re. Much speaks for such an extension of palace business to the avored few. Cleomenes of Naukratis compensated the big landholders of Egypt for his introducing of the corn export monopoly by allowing them a p ofita share in the governmental syndicate. The King of

r ble n

D

ahomey treated his e vironment with a similar liberality in matters of the royal slave trade, of which he remained, of course, the chief beneficiary.*

When al is said, this type of organization of trade and business was probably unique ni history. To what extent it may have served sa a model for the port of trade** of late Ugarit, and eventually Sidon, Tyre and Carthage can as yet only be conjectured. So much already appears certain: contrary to traditional notions, Babylonian trade and business activities were not originally market activities.

The next chapter offers a bird's-eye view of M y fications. The absence of n one regard brings unexpected simpli- nomic history which in more tha esopotamian eco- marketplaces from this picture provided b an expert may be taken as supporting at

does the new ie our presentation. Admittedly, in no detail assumptions that underl maanyvital point tshe tentative prospectus support the conjecture that were drawn upon ni this chapter to give life and plausibility to the views presented here.

If our interpretation is borne out by the facts, the question arises, How, when and where did market trade, fluctuating prices, profit and loss accounts, commercial methods of business, commercial classes an al the paraphernalia of a market organized economy originate? The history of market trade may be found to have shifted by a thousand years downwards and several degrees of longitude westwards, to the Ionia and Greece of the first millenium B.c.

A Bird's-Eye View of Mesopotamian Economic History

FI ample documentary evidence alone sufficed to serve as a basis for the writing of the economic history of a dead and distant civiliza- tion, the very number of cuneiform texts dealing with al aspects of the economic life of Mesopotamia should certainly enable the historian to accomplish this task. Fewifany periods of history prior to the Howering of the European Middle Ages are as well documented with regard to private business activities and the dealings of the administra- tive offices of temples and palaces as certain eras of the history of Baby- lonia and Assyria. Nowhere else-China and India perhaps excepted- can the rise and development of economic institutions be observed for far more than two millennia.

The number of clay tablets dealing with these maters increases by the thousands every year, and the number of published and unpub- lished documents approaches the hundred thousand mark with no end in sight. The practically imperishable nature of the writing material combines with the custom of recording administrative as well as pri- vate transactions ni writing to yield as bountiful a harvest as any eco- nomic historian might hope for. What, then, are the reasons for the failure of Assyriologists and economic historians alike to make the ut- most of this source of information? ich There is, for one, the very number of texts available, with whmi- only a few scholars are willing and able to deal adequately. More ers portant an obstacle, however, is the conceptual barrier which hamp full understanding of both the real nature of a recorded transaction and its many-sided institutional background. Steeped in the economic theories of the nineteenth century, which affect even the Assyriologist most naive in matters of economic theory, we are bound to locate every economic situation within the traditional coordinates of money, mar- ket, price, etc., as these have been defined and have found acceptance within the last hundred years of our civilization. We constantly apply this frame of reference without even realizing that we distort the Mesopotamian picture in its most essential aspects, by basing our analysis on a set of assumptions which we take for granted are uni- versaly applicable.

But this barrier si by no means insuperable. The few students of the legal institutions and of the religion of Mesopotamia came to realize some time ago-even if they have not always been able to achieve this goal-that any attempt at understanding the complex and basically alien phenomena in an archaic civilization must be oriented along the lines ni which this civilization itself conceived of them. In dealing with a literate civilization, the most efficient means of reaching this under- standing is to study the semantics of selected key terms rather than to use modern categories of organization as the avenues of approach. This is admittedly extremely difficult when one has to handle a dead lan- guage whose ful utilization by the historian si restricted by the nature of the accidentally preserved text material.

The reaction against the thought patterns evolved in the nineteenth century in the fields of history of religion, linguistics, sociology, etc., have taught us to respect alien civilizations and sharpened our facul- ties for self-observation in those areas; but this, unfortunately, is not the case with regard to economics. There, epistemological discussions, traditional or otherwise, have created an atmosphere in which there is no understanding of any economic pattern beyond that which has grown out of the spectacular economic development of Western Europe since the eighteenth century. The resulting attitude of the eco- nomic historians, be their background that of historic materialism or of traditional liberalism, si characterized by a markedly inadequate treatment of the economies of so-called primitive peoples as wel as by

a complete disregard for the essentials of the economics of the ancient great civilizations.

A new approach to this problem has been opened up by the Inter- disciplinary Project at Columbia University, and has been tested in several areas with considerable success.

The basic advantage of this approach is that it provides us with a new set of concepts which can be used to describe large sections of

the complex and varied array of data which the Assyriologist culls from the economic texts. These concepts serve primarily descriptive pur- poses and succeed in revealing certain structurally relevant features of Mesopotamian economics. They provide adequate categories in which

to organize and present a number of important observations which would otherwise remain meaningless; the most important of these con- cepts si that of "redistribution." This si not meant to imply that any given period or area attested in cuneiform documents can be fully or even adequately characterized by this term; ni fact, the entire develop ment of Mesopotamian economy is marked by continuous shifts in emphasis which bring now one and now another form of economic integration to the foreground without the others completely disappear- ing at any time. The investigation of the exact relationship between the concept of "redistribution" and others, such as "reciprocity," conse- quently becomes the primary task of research, which has to extend, moreover, into the realm of social history, since such forms of economic integration are deeply imbedded in the social fabric of the country.

Of course the new approach will multiply the problems rather than offer easy solutions, but under its impact the line of investigation is bound to shift to new points of attack, and may even compel the As- syriologist to abandon the convenient excuse that lack of evidence hampers his chances to solve the problems. Under these circumstances the necessity of a re-evaluation and re-examination of the entire evi- dence bearing on matters economic becomes imperative. This process, moreover, should not only be applied to all text material directly con- cerned with the problem but also to historical, religious and literary documents. Obviously such a project is too far-reaching to be dealt with adequately by one individual, and too novel and difficult to promise easy success. For this reason the following pages represent solely an attempt to point out the possibilities of the new interpretation and are meant to illustrate the approach rather than to demonstrate its effec-

t i v e n e s s .

Three main factors will be singled out here as having contributed towards the shaping of the unique socio economic basis of Mesopo- tamian civilization as it emerges into the limelight of the literary period. Each of them recurs severally or in different combinations in other of the ancient Near East, but nowhere else appears the civil

izat

ions

specific constellation which arose in Southern Babylonia.

There is, first, cereal agriculture based on irrigation, able to produce rain and capable of extension in space r

eliab

le

ha

rv

e

sts

in

dep

en

d

ent

of

to support an ever-increasing population. The advantages of this type of agriculture-a crop that can easily be stored and exactly divided for the greatest amount in return for the effort re- distribution,

yi

eld

in

g

technological conditions-coincide qu

ired

un

der

the gi

ven

climat

ic

and

with the second factor: a unique settlement pattern. Thus a situation si created which differs unmistakably from Egypt, where under apparently similar circumstances the relatively primitive type of integration that observed. The decisive d iffe r- onomy can be

c

ha

ra

cte

r

ize

s

a

sto

ra

ge-ec

the nature of the urbanization which materialized ence seems to lie in

roducing acity concept sui generis. In ni

M

eso

po

tam

ia

q

uit

e

e

arly, p

com- y

b

e, acommunal bond had so

th

ese

citie

s,

ho

we

ver

sm

all

the

pletely replaced al loyalties of the inhabitants beyond those toward not even their traces can be found. This re- the imm

ed

iate

fam

ily

t

hat

between individuals finds expression in the way in which the lationship

ards its own citizens, other cities, and city administers itself and acts tow que feature of urbanization in author

ity. T

he

es

sen

t

ial

a

nd

uni

central

Southern Mesopotamia is the fact that a city could grow there into a center of cultural activity without the stimulus or the presence of social conditions inherent in political power.

The internal economic organization of these cities is still quite ible to posit that it did not differ essen- o

bscure,

bu

t

it

seems

a

dm

iss

unitie

s

w

hic

h we find al over the tial

ly

from

that

of

the

v

illa

ge

co

m

m

those

re

gio

ns

where agriculture relied on ancient Near East includingelds in a commons near the city where the rain. Within acompass of fi essential craftsmen, such harvest ripened for the farmers and the few ving, necessitating villages could offer their populations an adequate li

but few contacts with other cities and only marginal money uses. It is essential to note that each of these towns consisted of the town proper (u ru), the suburb (uru. bar. ra) and the port k( aI). The absence

ABird's-Eye View of Mesopotamian Economic History 31 of a market place is exactly as revealing of the internal economic structure of the city as si the presence of a special extramural district called the port for intercity economic relations. Here enters the third and most decisive factor: in a number of cities of this type there existed a second and separate economic system centered in a s

or later-due to a secondary development-in the palace anctuary,

of a king. This factor clea

rly represents

a redistrib

utive system of varied com-

plexity and magnitude.

Into that center were channelled for storage or conversion into m

anu

fac

tu

red

obje

cts

th

e

pro

du

ct

s of

of personnel working for and within the labors of a complex hierarchy the organization. The center used the stored wealth as a source of social and economic power, for prestige purposes sa wel as-by means of special chan

nels

of redis

tributio n- for the su

ppor

t of

a se

cond

hie

rarchy

of

personnel,

scribes to warriors and merchants. Thus deriving infrom priests and come in agricul- tural products and labor from its own l

and and using it for the mainte- nance of a plethora of officials, as well as for such ma

in

ly social pu

rposes as the

decora

tion

of

sanctu

ar

ies

an

dp

al

ace

s, such an organization was bou

nd to grow in size and power and to extend its holdings. The two interw

oven

p

rod

uc

tio

n

and

distri

b

ution

cycles were administered

from th

e ce

nt

er by a

bu

reaucr

atic

sta

ff usi

ng

highly

com

keeping and accounting which have plex systems of book- left us many documents still ot be fuly evaluated. The

ir

nu

mber

has c

re

ated the imp

ression that this organization represented the entire economic set-up of the city-states. However, the continuous existence of an urban tradition which had grown out of

Sum

eria

n

fol

ks

ocie

ty

and

mainta

ined its vigor up Seleucid period, demonstrates that coexistence of the two s to the marks the entire course of Mesopotamian social, and h ystems history. Due to lack of information, the relatio ence economic, on the one hand, and temple or palace on tnship between the city, he other cannot yet be described, but ther

e are

in

dication

s

tha

ti

t varied gre

atly from c

i t y ot city

b

ec

ause

of

sp

eci

al

co

nd

ition

s

or

accide

ntal

d

evelopments which may remain

unkno

wn f

orever

.

the The symbiosis between acity organized, at least originally, along so lines of a village community, and the temple or palace, in point of cial structure and economic potentialities, so different, provided a satisfactory and fruitful arrangement. It fostered the accumulation of staples ni the royal or divine household, compelling it to evolve bureau- cratic methods to deal with those accumulations by stock-taking, budg-eting, and assigning income and expenditures on a large scale. An elaborate system of equivalences was developed to manage in an effi- cient way the array of different foodstuffs, materials for manufacturing, payments in kind to the personnel, etc. These techniques-especially the use of equivalences-influenced all contacts of the redistributive system with the outside world and developed into an important means of exercising the political power which is inherent in such an economic situation. In the control of the prices of staples, of the rate of interest and of weighing standards, exercised or at least attempted by temple or palace, an essential aspect of the mentioned symbiosis is revealed. More difficult to understand is the readiness of the city to acquiesce in such a symbiosis and at the same time to keep a communal spirit alive through all the vicissitudes of recurrent wars and invasions and even, in the course of the development, to exercise considerable political in- fluence on both palace and sanctuary. At times, this spirit blossomed into a conscious civic pride that si unparalleled in other urban societies of the ancient Near East and created spurts of commercial activity based primarily on individual initiative which likewise have few analo- gies. Above al, it assured the longevity of the cities, which maintained themselves over periods of foreign domination and the steady decline of the importance of the temples. Many of these cities eventually became no more than empty shells in which a handfull of inhabitants kept a millennial tradition alive, though others still continued as prosperous

A Bird's-Eye View of Mesopotamian Economic History 3

etc., created industrial activities utilizing the abundant staples stored in the palaces and temples. The implications of this aspect of Meso- potamian economics are still far from clear; the king's trade was either based on some kind of reciprocity between rulers or on treaties fixing the nature of the goods, their price, etc. Equally undefined remains the status of the persons manipulating the exchange of goods, when and under what circumstances private citizens could or did replace royal officials, and many related problems.

The interaction between the two independent variables, palace and city, determined the entire course of the economic-and political— history of Babylonia. The palace enlarged its basis of operation through various intermediate stages, changing from tax income to tribute. The ensuing increase in economic power influenced the preferred behavior pattern of the ruling group and resulted in a change of inter-city re- lations. The original city-state concept gave way ot that of a territorial state composed of numerous village communities and new settlements, protected by royal fortresses, al feeding staples into the redistributive organization of the palace. Conflicts for hegemony between rulers caused new cities to become capitals decorated with imposing palaces and temples, and resulted in a political structure based upon a feudal- ism imposed from above. T h e preservation of a territorial state under these circumstances required a sustained military effort in the form of a standing army made up of a segment of the population taken out of their economic and social context. Since the palace organization was by function and political aspiration beyond the orbit of the community which formed the city, it was easily open to outside influence and

centers famed throughout the world.

Within the symbiosis, however, the balance of power was far from stable, shifting from king ot city and back in reflection of political changes, which affected the entire region, or of the relative efficiency of entire region,

the individual rulers. In spite of these changes, an atmosphere of social peace characterizes Mesopotamian history (and literature) in contrast with that of Egypt.

The

region's lack of suitable timber and stones for building pur- pos

es and for ornamentation, as well as of metals, served as a stimulus transcending the scope of the redistributive for an economic activityles sought those materials for prestige reasons, system. Palaces and temp

and this led ot trade with foreign countries which was restricted to carried on exclusively on an official level by royal luxury goodshe need to roduce goods or export purposes, goods which emissaries.

Tandp f

d bes easily trpansported oand were likely to find a ready market in count

coul rie which roduced r trafficked ni the coveted metals, stones,

liable to look for its personnel among people of diferent ethnic or cultural backgrounds. These in turn were likely to seize power and to make use of their warlike compatriots to maintain themselves at the center of the redistributive system. Repeated foreign invasions caused feudalistic fragmentation which tended to replace any central govern- ent,caandt theth inevitable antagonism betw .

een the old cities and their mit

cultural and c vic traditions and he new rulers led to the creation of n

ew pi als at were in the nature of military camps

The developmoent ijust outlined as typical yb no means materialized in all its stages in any of the states which vied with each other in S

outhern Mesop tam a ever since the rise of the empire of Sargon of Akkad. i l

A

cesses of number of atypical developments caused by the signal suc- ndividual ru ers or as a consequence of foreign invasion con-tributed to blur the pattern without, however, succeeding in destroy- ing an impressive array of recurring sequences of historical events which underly the reconstruction offered above.

The emergence of some of the larger cities of Babylonia with re- newed vigor and economic strength towards the first half of the first millennium .c., after a prolonged period during which royal power had declined, presents the most tantalizing mystery in Babylonian economic history. The few centuries separating the short-lived post- Kassite dynasties from the conquest by the Persians, who found Baby- lonia to be their richest satrapy, must have witnessed an economic upsurge which, ni view of the economic conditions and possibilities of the entire region, could only be the direct consequence of interna- tional trade, manipulated in this instance either by the cities acting through some form of commercial organization or-less likely-by in- dividuals or the palace itself. The fact that trading with the East be- gins at about this period after a pause of nearly half a millennium sup- ports this explanation. One should not contest such an interpretation on the ground of total lack of any pertinent documentary evidence. Although texts recording private business transactions and the afairs of the few large sanctuaries are quite frequent in this period, one has to assume that it was not customary in the Neo-Babylonian time to use written records to any large extent in the realm of foreign trade. Ap- parently we wil have to differentiate two practices in the large-scale commercial activity of the ancient Near East. One, such as that of the Assyrian trade settlements in Asia Minor and the copper importers from overseas into Old-Babylonian Ur, was patently under the influ- ence of the bureaucratic techniques of the Sumerian temple adminis- trations, with their complex bookkeeping and multilateral accounting. The other seems to have preferred oral agreements supplemented by a variety of operational devices, upon which Near Eastern merchants, from the Phoenicians on to the Nabataeans, primarily relied. To the second practice must have adhered those inhabitants of Babylon to whom Esarhaddon granted, as a demonstration of their return to power, the right ot trade with al the regions of the world, after his father Sennacherib had destroyed their city and sold them into slavery. This reveals, accidentally, two rather important bits of information: the inhabitants of Babylon were engaged ni long-distance trading which had become the source of their riches and their power, and the Assyrian kings normaly tolerated such activity and, most likely, profited therefrom. Their interest ni this type of carrying trade si furthermore documented in a passage of ahistorical inscription of Sargon II (grand- father of the mentioned Esarhaddon). In this recently published text a tatement is made which reflects with remarkable clarity the essential ole trade occupied ni the finances of the Assyrian empire. Sargon lists mong his military achievements the fact that he was the first king to have compeled Egypt-which he apparently attacked during his Pales- tinian campaign-to establish trade relations with Assyria. That the Egyptian frontier is here characterized as being "sealed" illustrates the fundamentally different attitudes of the two adversaries towards trade. The autarchy of the Egyptian monolithic storage economy clashed with the Mesopotamian interest in international trade which was the direct expression of the unique fusion between the two economic sys- tems which we observed in Babylonia.

This leads us to an important problem in Assyriology: the under- standing and evaluation of the nature of the Assyrian form of Meso- potamian civilization.

In the wide arc of territory which surrounds Southern Mesopo- tamia to the north and west, agriculture had ot rely exclusively on rain- fal. This assured, as a rule, the livelihood of smaler communities sa they were scattered through the piedmont regions and the valleys of the Lagros and throughout Upper Mesopotamia, including the coastal re- gions of the Mediterranean Sea, etc. Cities in this arc required a special stimulus to grow, such as a sanctuary, a seat of royal power, or trade routes, which were quite rare. The villages contained a number of families which supported themselves by cultivating adjacent fields and gardens, paying taxes collectively either ot a ruler residing in a fortified palace or to an absentee owner connected by birth or feudal status with some sort of central power. The village units themselves, or the income derived from them, were negotiable within certain restrictions which varied according to time and region. They thus served as the economic basis of a feudal organization attached to ephemeral carriers of political power. By its contribution in taxes, the entire set-up readily supported superimposed power groups which, as a rule, showed little stability, extended rapidly under the leadership of an individual, were taken over smoothly by invading foreign groups, and colapsed easily when- ever the faculty of the central organization to collect taxes vanished. The village community remained remarkably stable, and the obligation to pay taxes collectively counteracted individual defections, although Birth of the Economy craftsmen often seem to have been attracted to the king's court thus

helping towards the type of industrialization for which al kings of that region strove in order to strengthen their economic basis.

From Assur, a city which seems to represent the northernmost ex- ponent of the Babylonian type of city organization, native as wel as foreign dynasties built up a series of short-lived empires of the socio- economic structure just described, but they were supplied in ever- increasing measure from the spoils gathered in apparently institutional- ized annual war expeditions and the income from ventures of internal colonization and international long-distance trade. The projects of internal colonization sprang from the royal initiative; Assyrian kings constantly founded new cities and peopled them with prisoners of war. These were ruled by royal officials and paid taxes to the king. Al this and a road system built for policing, as wel as for the collecting of taxes and tributes, served to support the king's household and his army. It should be pointed out in this context that Assyrian political power was based essentially on a policy of forced urbanization imposed upon those regions which were outside the relatively small area of genuine and spontaneous urbanization in the South which forms the "heart-land" of Babylonian civilization. A certain amount of forced

37 By singling out certain basic patterns of economic integration we have in this somewhat reckless oversimplification of nearly three mil- lennia of economic history by no means intended to discount the in- terwoven and ubiquitous ideological influences at work nor the fact that local and ephemeral conditions constantly exercised pressure to dislocate these patterns. Still, there is a definite tendency within the evolution of the social and economic institutions of Mesopotamia to return to a relatively smal number of typical configurations of politi-

cal and economic situations, whatever disturbing factors may have moved across the historical scene. This strange faculty ot reverse the course of development accounts to a large extent for some of the unique

f a n i a n o f t i c h t o g u t l i n e d n i h t s i " b i r d s ' e y e v e wi " f o M e s o p o - A. L. Oppenheim

urbanization was also applied by some of the more energetic and mili- tarily successful figures among the Babylonian kings, but a conscious and ruthless execution of the political concept of forced urbanization ofhte political

can be said to have created the Assyrian empire. And the very same policy was later on applied by all the conquerors who laid their hands on the same regions of the Near East from the Persians to the Sas-

sanians.

Assyrian internal politics seem to have been extremely complex. The old and charter-protected cities thrived due to exemption from taxation and military levy; they may wel have had their share in com- mercial activity, but this cannot be documented for the later period. Different interests dictated the activities of the redistribution system centered in the palace, which needed the booty and the human raw material coming from the endless campaigns to support and to extend the royal household, while the feudal organization, with its secondary and tertiary redistribution systems spread its influence from manors and vilage communities to the officials of the court. Al these powers vied for political influence to increase their strength, and this makes As-' syrian history a difficult, while most fascinating field of investigation.

By singling out certain basic patterns of economic integration we have in this somewhat reckless oversimplification of nearly three mil- lennia of economic history by no means intended to discount the in- terwoven and ubiquitous ideological influences at work nor the fact that local and ephemeral conditions constantly exercised pressure to dislocate these patterns. Still, there is a definite tendency within the evolution of the social and economic institutions of Mesopotamia to return to a relatively smal number of typical configurations of politi-

cal and economic situations, whatever disturbing factors may have moved across the historical scene. This strange faculty ot reverse the course of development accounts to a large extent for some of the unique

"No Man's Coast": Ports of Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean

n the ancient Near East, particularly ni Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, we have before us two separate territorial entities inhabited by different peoples: coast and continent. The narrowness of the coastal strip makes their co-existence almost paradoxical. Yet amere handful of Greeks were able to establish themselves ni what proved ot be some of the most strategic and economically important areas of the Mediter- ranean and the Black Sea. They proceeded to enjoy an independent existence spanning hundreds of years, despite the presence of great empires in their backyards. Indeed, ever since the middle of the third millennium trading cities were established peacefully on the Syrian coast. They flourished and remained unmolested by the military powers of the hinterland over many centuries. *

The reasons for these coastal settlements remaining relatively un- disturbed are complex. In certain areas, they were military, in others o mpler.Iort edspats

economic. Apart from fortified spots, especially walled off peninsulas or rocky islands, the coast was an indefensible and eminently unsafe area. Thus the military dangers of a coastal location may have pro- duced the "no man's coast" that invited the Greek colonizations, while mainly economic factors, as we will see, accounted for the spectacular independence of the Phoenician cities.

Significanto

Significantly, we hardly ever hear of inland states offering any sus- tained resistance to coastal settlements. The Greeks are not the only instance. In southern Palestine the Philistines, participators in an un- successful invasion of Egypt, subsequently made good their settlement on the coast within the very confines of the Egyptian empire. Nor did the Israelites make any attempt to disestablish the Philistines when under David and Solomon they gained considerable military power over the hinterland.

Higher up on the coast, Sidon and Tyre present a similarly undis- turbed development of even longer duration, with Al Mina and Ugarit as their predecessors further north. That they remained safe from their continental neighbors cannot in this case be attributed solely to military considerations. These wealthy cities happened to fit into an economic context fundamental to the international organization of trade, com- prising that of the continental powers themselves; hence their relative safety.

fI this state of affairs is ot us astonishing, ti si because ti violates our accustomed notion of the behavior of empires. Illustrations of their rapacity on land and sea form the very links of modern history: witness the rivalry between England, Spain and Holland to control the Chan- nel; the Russian drive for warm water ports from Peter the Great's fumbling campaigns against Sweden for dominance of the Baltic shore to Nicholas II's excursion into Manchuria. Modern history reflects a constant awareness on the part of the powers that without a strong navy and the possession of strategic coastal areas full status as a nation cannot be achieved.

In the ancient Near East, particularly ni Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, we have before us two separate territorial entities inhabited by different peoples: coast and continent. The narrowness of the coastal strip makes their co-existence almost paradoxical. Yet amere handful of Greeks were able to establish themselves ni what proved ot be some of the most strategic and economically important areas of the Mediter- ranean and the Black Sea. They proceeded to enjoy an independent existence spanning hundreds of years, despite the presence of great empires in their backyards. Indeed, ever since the middle of the third millennium trading cities were established peacefully on the Syrian coast. They flourished and remained unmolested by the military powers of the hinterland over many centuries. *

The reasons for these coastal settlements remaining relatively un- disturbed are complex. In certain areas, they were military, in others o mpler.Iort edspats

economic. Apart from fortified spots, especially walled off peninsulas or rocky islands, the coast was an indefensible and eminently unsafe area. Thus the military dangers of a coastal location may have pro- duced the "no man's coast" that invited the Greek colonizations, while * The thesis developed in this chapter was suggested by Professor Karl Polanyi in Memo. No 1, Interdisciplinary Project, Columbia University, 1954 (mimeo- graphed) under the title "Archaic Thalassophopia."

38

Ports of Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean

39

It would seem that in defiance of this allegedly universal law an opposite principle was at work in the ancient world. Indeed, wel into the first millennium B.c. it seems to have lived under a law of its own, namely, a continentalizing attitude on the part of the inland powers ranging from an outright avoidance of the coast, which was the rule, to acautious co-existence and, in some cases, remote control.*

T

o refrain from occupying coastal areas appears to have been the policy followed by the Mesopotamian empires and Egypt, as wel as by TapThi

hte

Meso ota Hatti) empire of Asia Minor. We wil first discuss Hi

tti

t

e (or

e(o

mia and Egypt; supplementing this by some new evidence on Hatti. There follows a survey of the Phoenician coast, drawing upon our more recent knowledge of Al Mina and Ugarit. Finally, an attempt wil be made to show how shunning of the coast gives way, about hte second quarter of the first millennium B.c., to a symbiosis between the empires and the trading cities of the coast.

Mesopotamia and Egypt

The broad fact which ni itself should establish aprima facie case of a kind of archaic thalassophobia was the persistency with which the city state areas of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni, etc., refused to shift their centers of gravity towards the coast. The same applies to Egypt. The location of the majority of these areas was riverain, yet none seemed to make any effort ot gain acces ot the sea. The vicissi- tudes of history brought about a variety of power configurations in the area between the Lakes Van and Urmia in the north, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea ni the south, the Mediterranean in the west; never- theless at no time was a sustained effort made that would serve as proof of a seaward tendency on the part of the continental powers. This si the immutable framework of Mesopotamian history against which the shifting events should be judged which sometimes seem to point in the opposite direction.

Several inscriptions are extant which record ambitious far-western conquests of Mesopotamian rulers. There si the inscription about Sargon I of Akkad which speaks of Yarmuti and Ibla having been subdued. Similar, but more authentic data refer to almost identical expeditions by his successor, Naram-Sin. In different contexts Gudea of Lagash and later Dungi of the third dynasty of Ur mention their West- ern exploits; and an inscription of Shamshi-Adad II of Assyria runs: "My great names and my stele I set up in the land of Laban on the shore of the Great Sea."1 Tukulti Urta made claim to the Bahrein

Island and Melukha in the South?

What broadly was the nature of these claims to the coast? And do they justify a belief that the third and second millennium Mesopotam- ian empires intended to acquire, hold, and keep these coastal areas? Did they institute military garrisons, appoint governors or others officers, set up a religious hierarchy, administer foreign trade, or exact regular tribute payments? As far as our records go, there is but little evidence for either.

The inscriptions of Gudea of Lagash? help us ot spell out the nature

of some of his coastal adventures:

From Amanus the mountain of cedar trees whose length was 60 cubits. cedar trees whose length was 50 cubits, ukarinu trees whose length was 25 cubits, he made into logs and brought down fromthemountaitorfmhtd the mountain.

dust from M o u n t Kahkhu he brought down.

mountain of Melukha he brought down. . . . With living ewes he brought living lambs; their shepherds he made to serve.

The details point to expeditionary procurements, often indistinguish- able from raids, to secure material for temple building, such as huge stones or logs of rare timber, or to pan gold in mountain streams. It is a highly ambiguous form of trading. The goods that may be carried to gain the goodwill of the local inhabitants, need not be the ultima ratio of these armed caravans. The organization would rather be that of forays to obtain booty or slaves, maybe to exact ransom payments from weak settlements, but mainly to facilitate expeditionary trade. A raid si made on a herd of cattle or sheep, fi they happen to be about. Mule drivers are taken along with their mules, the ewes with their lambs, and the shepherds to tend the flocks. Occasionally, a town is destroyed fi its people ofer resistance to this kind of indiscriminate quarrying, cutting of timber and general procurement. It is a mixed undertaking. There seems to be here nothing that would force us to conclude that other ventures emanating from Mesopotamia and Assyria were essentialy different from such expeditionary raids and forays of supply. Such evidence as Shamshi-Adad I's statement of setting up a stele holds nothing to indicate that he ruled rather than visited, administered rather than intimidated. Tukulti-Urta mentions places widely separated from the heartland of Assyria. To incorporate them in his empire, he would have had to be the ruler of Babylon and also of the Sea-Lands. There has not been found any evidence pointing in that direction.

It would appear then, that the early Mesopotamian empires never established permanent control of the coast nor intended to do so. Hardly any of the conditions listed above and indicating control were, to our knowledge, fulfilled.

Ni Three regions enter into Egyptian coastal policy: the Delta of the le; the Phoenician and Philistine cities; the Red Sea and the Mediter- ranean, as the scenes of the maritime activities of the Egyptians.