The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States brings together sixteen essays by leading scholars of the ancient Greek economy specialising in history, economics, archaeology and numismatics. Marshalling a wide array of evidence, these essays investigate and analyse the role of market-exchange in the economy of the ancient Greek world, demonstrating the central importance of markets for production and exchange of goods and services during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Contributors draw on evidence from literary texts and inscriptions, household archaeology, amphora studies and numismatics. Together, the essays provide an original and compelling approach to the issue of explaining economic growth in the ancient Greek world.

The authors have collected the evidence for decrees through which the states of the ancient Greek world were governed, and use the evidence to study the decision-making procedures and the extent to which the citizens were actively involved. The book consists of a catalogue of the evidence for over 1200 city states, introduced by a discussion of the Athenian evidence, and with a conclusion in which the language of the decrees and the working of the political machinery in various cities is analysed.

David M. Lewis (1928-1994) was one of the foremost historians of the ancient world, and was uniquely expert in both Greek and Near Eastern history. His name appears on the spine of numerous important books, but much of his most original and influential work was published in article form. The papers selected for this 1997 volume illustrate the range and quality of his work on Greek and Near Eastern history and his particular expertise in dealing with inscriptions, ostraka, and coins. Professor Lewis began considering the choice of papers for inclusion before his death and they have been prepared for publication by Professor P. J. Rhodes. A complete bibliography of the author's published works concludes the volume.

The orthodox view of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean holds that Greece and Rome were its only 'genuine slave societies', that is, societies in which slave labour contributed significantly to the economy and underpinned the wealth of elites. Other societies, traditionally labelled 'societies with slaves', are thought to have made little use of slave labour and therefore have been largely ignored in recent scholarship. This volume presents a radically different view of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, showing that elite exploitation of slave labour in Greece and the Near East shared some fundamental similarities, although the degree of elite dependence on slaves varied from region to region. Whilst slavery was indeed particularly highly developed in Greece and Rome, it was also economically entrenched in Carthage, and played a not insignificant role in the affairs of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. The differing degrees to which Eastern Mediterranean elites exploited slave labour represents the outcome of a complex interplay between cultural, economic, political, geographical, and demographic factors. Proceeding on a regional basis, this book tracks the ways in which local conditions shaped a wide variety of Greek and Near Eastern slave systems, and how the legal architecture of slavery in individual regions was altered and adapted to accommodate these needs. The result is a nuanced exploration of the economic underpinnings of Greek elite culture that sets its reliance on slavery within a broader historical context and sheds light on the complex circumstances from which it emerged.

David M. Lewis was one of the foremost historians of the ancient world, and was uniquely expert in both Greek and Near Eastern history. The papers selected for this volume (four of them previously unpublished) illustrate the range and quality of his work on Greek and Near Eastern history and his particular expertise in dealing with inscriptions, ostraka and coins. His interests were wide, and there is material here for students of ancient Greek religion and literature, as well as historians, epigraphists and orientalists.

The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States brings together sixteen essays by leading scholars of the ancient Greek economy specialising in history, economics, archaeology and numismatics. Marshalling a wide array of evidence, these essays investigate and analyse the role of market-exchange in the economy of the ancient Greek world, demonstrating the central importance of markets for production and exchange of goods and services during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Contributors draw on evidence from literary texts and inscriptions, household archaeology, amphora studies and numismatics. Together, the essays provide an original and compelling approach to the issue of explaining economic growth in the ancient Greek world.