Ancient Greek Economy

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.

'All in all the arguments are very persuasive - more so possibly than the authors are prepared to admit. At a recent reception I was firmly told that the Greeks had no concept of economic theory because Aristotle would have said so if they had. I wish that that I had read this exciting compilation before that discussion.' Classics For All

Edward M. Harris is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at Durham University. He is the author of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 2006) and The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens (2013), and has published many essays on ancient Greek law and economy. David M. Lewis holds a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of several articles on slavery in Greek society and economy, and has published in journals such as Classical Quarterly and Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte. Mark Woolmer is Assistant Principal of Collingwood College and a teaching fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. He is the author of Ancient Phoenicia: An Introduction and editor of the Companion to Ancient Phoenicia (forthcoming).