The Piraeus was the great trading hub of the eastern Mediterranean. It was here that vessels came from all the big cities involved in the trade of the region - from Carthage to the towns of the Crimean peninsula. Athens was an import and export centre.


A whole host of social groups was involved in the business of Athenian trading. There was the huckster (small tradesman selling goods from a stall in the marketplace); the porter; the boatman; the naukleros (ship-owner marketing his own produce); and the merchant travelling on somebody else's ship.
There were also many rich Athenians, whether landowners or owners of workshops staffed by slaves, who invested in lucrative trade voyages without ever getting mixed up in commerce.

As for the part played by metics and foreigners in trade, it was important but not crucial. True, the majority of merchants and naukleroi were metics, foreigners, or slaves. But the people who put up the money for the voyages were citizens.

There were some Athenians who used banking mechanisms in the course of trading. Banking operations were widespread in Athens, trade being based on loans and movement of capital. Most of the well-known bankers were not citizens; and a limited number were even slaves.

The Dekelian War might have affected olive-oil production and silver-mining - two of Áthens' key exports - but it was not fatal to Athenian trade. Indeed, the need for imports of grain and various other staple goods now grew.

To make a generalization, the nature of trading operations changed during the Decelian War. Exports shrank, imports grew. The total sea trade of the whole Athenian empire in 413 B.C. was 18,000 talents or more, of which the Piraeus will have accounted for at least a quarter - 4,500 talents. But the total value of imports or exports to and from the Piraeus was 1,800 talents in 402/1 B.C., or still less in 401/0. Eighteen hundred talents is still not a sum to be sneezed at; and we can hardly claim that the Athenian economy had gone bust, but only that it had taken a severe tumble.

There were those citizens who contrived to make a fortune during the Peloponnesian War. One such was Andokides, from the deme Kydathenaia. Having lost all he possessed in 415 B.C., he started importing grain and timber to Athens and grain and copper to Samos (then an active Athenian naval base). He thus quickly built up a second fortune.

| introduction | landowning-farming | trade | mines | Classical Period
| state welfare | liturgies | private property |

Note: Click on the icons for enlargements and explanations.
Underlined links lead to related texts; those not underlined ones are an explanatory glossary.