Original scientific paper
Spina, chariot horses and Athenian pottery
Michael Vickers
orcid.org/0000-0001-5812-0003
; Ashmolean Museum, UK, Oxford OX1 2PH
Abstract
This article examines the evidence for the trade in
Athenian pottery from the point of view of the archetypal
Athenian aristocrat, namely the owner of a team
of chariot-horses. Plato’s dictum ‘In every city there
are two cities: the rich and the poor’ (Rp. 422e) has
been consistently overlooked by those who take the
figure of a drachma a day as the standard by which
consumption might be measured. The owner of chariot
horses will have been in another income bracket
altogether, moving in circles where a drachma might
be a trifling sum and where items such as gem stones,
peacocks, houses, slaves, inheritances, dowries, were
priced in minae (units of 100 drachmas). Prices of
horses were expressed in minae, although some thoroughbreds were valued in talents (larger units of 60 minae).
Some of the finest chariot horses were imported
from the Veneto in the northern Adriatic, and the rich
finds of Attic pottery in the necropolis at Spina have
been associated with this trade. There is, however, a
large gulf between the prices attested for Attic painted
pottery in antiquity and the prices we hear of for race
horses. Indeed, such figures as have been cited in the
literature suggest, for example, that if all the Attic
pots ever produced were exported through the Piraeus
in 399 BC (a year for which Athens’ trade figures can
be estimated), they would have formed less than 40%
of the value of the goods traded. Spread over two centuries
or more, the value of pottery in terms of Athens’
trade will have been wholly insignificant. Finley’s observation
that ‘silver was the most important Athenian
resource’ is followed up. Next to no coins have been
found at Spina, but it is argued that commodities such
as grain or race-horses will have been paid for with
the ancient equivalent of large denomination bank
notes. Much extant plate (and indeed plate now lost,
but mentioned in temple inventories) is made up in
multiples of one or another coinage. The silver on the
ships sent out to bring back bulky cargoes will have
not have taken much room; the space will have been
filled with the kind of pottery found in such quantities
at Spina: pottery made in imitation of Attic silverware
of a kind that is now being found in increasing
quantities, especially in Thrace. An added bonus of
seeing the ancient world through the eyes of an Athenian
aristocrat is that recent arguments that there were
aristocratic pot-painters at Athens are wholly untenable.
Finley’s observation that Beazleyism is a case of
the emperor having no clothes can be seen to possess
a certain merit.
Keywords
Chariot racing; race horses; Athenian trade; Indian Ocean trade; Athenian painted pottery; Adriatic trade; Athenian aristocracy; Athenian silverware; Thrace; prices of pottery; prices of horses; Venetic steeds; minae; aristocratic potters; Alcmaeonids; Sir John Beazley; Beazleyism
Hrčak ID:
193070
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2017.
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