Des amphores, du grain et des hommes

This book aims to develop a new vision of the exchanges between the Greek cities of the western Black Sea coast and the Greek world from the Classical to the Hellenistic periods. In historiography, these cities, from Nikonion to Apollonia Pontica, are often considered peripheral to an already remote region of the ecumene, the northern Black Sea. Yet controlling them was crucial to the great powers of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, as well as to the populations and kingdoms of the hinterland. The various players determined how the rural territories surrounding the cities were exploited and their output traded, alternately resorting to threats or offers of protection. Although archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources leave little trace of the merchants and certain products traded, such as grain and slaves, the use of amphoric and ceramic material makes it possible to reconstruct the structures that organised trade, as well as its changing patterns. In this way, we can identify the trade networks forged over several centuries between these cities, as well as with the rest of the Pontic and Mediterranean worlds. While traditional historiography saw a general decline in the region during the 3rd century, the chronological finesse of the analyses made possible by the increasingly reliable dating of amphora stamps reveals a more complex picture both spatially and chronologically. This book shows that the economic characteristics of these West Pontic cities were fairly similar, and that they developed at different rates, as a result of various political, economic and environmental factors. The Western Black Sea is a region which, economically, is far from occupying the peripheral position within the Greek world that historiography tends to ascribe to it.