Grain from Cyrene

Bresson, Alain

doi:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199587926.003.0004

Cited by 39 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Following the Athenian model, cereals were obtained from the Black Sea area (see, e.g., Moreno 2007;Bresson 2016), while olive products were traded on both a local and interregional scale. Beyond the evidence of grain imports from the Black Sea region, we can also find further indications of grain being moved to mainland Greece from other areas of the Mediterranean under various circumstances (Bresson 2011;Bonnier 2016). Local cultivation of grain in the southern Greek mainland would naturally have occurred as part of local subsistence strategies but cash cropping and market production seem to have developed in these regions as well, as is indicated by our estimates.…”

Section: Pre-roman Market Integration: Olives and Cerealsmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…Environmental fragmentation could therefore have stimulated market integration and market-oriented production strategies even in a non-imperial setting. Both literary sources and inscriptions provide us with examples of grain transfers occurring over significant distances to major urban centers, such as Athens, already in the Classical period (Pounds 1973;Krotscheck 2006;Möller 2007;Moreno 2007;Bresson 2011Bresson , 2016. Bresson also argued for the increasing integration of markets facilitated by city-state/polis economies in the 5th, 4th, and 3rd centuries BCE, affecting the fluctuations of grain prices and occasional specialization of crop production (Bresson 2016).…”

Section: Market Economies and Market Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece: Evidence from Pollen Data

Izdebski

Słoczyński

Bonnier

et al. 2020

The Economic Journal

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In this paper we use pollen data from six sites in southern Greece to study long-term vegetation change in this region from 1000 BCE to 600 CE. Based on insights from environmental history, we interpret our estimated trends in the regional presence of cereal, olive, and vine pollen as proxies for structural changes in agricultural production. We present evidence that there was a market economy in ancient Greece and a major trade expansion several centuries before the Roman conquest. Our results are consistent with auxiliary data on settlement dynamics, shipwrecks, and ancient oil and wine presses.

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Section: Pre-roman Market Integration: Olives and Cerealsmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Market Economies and Market Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece: Evidence from Pollen Data

Izdebski

Słoczyński

Bonnier

et al. 2020

The Economic Journal

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“…The use of horses in Cyrenaica to cover the oxen's job on farms during the Ottoman and then at the beginning of the Italian periods, and possibly before that during the medieval, can be explained also by the economic value of oxen: the breeding of oxen in Cyrenaica was an export trade during the nineteenth century, resulting in the need to use horses for farm work. In 1850 the French consul reported that the total annual cattle exports to Egypt and Malta sometimes reached up to 40,000 (Bresson 2011, 89, 90; Wright 1982, 22). Furthermore, in 1894, Bertrand, the French consul in Benghazi, stressed the good quality of Cyrenaican beef (Laronde 1987, 331).…”

Section: The Quality Of Cyrenaican Horse-breeding Skills In the Early...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Horses of Cyrenaica: breeding and charioteers in the Greek and Roman periods (literary, epigraphical and visual data)

Abdelhamed

2023

Libyan Stud

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Our knowledge about Cyrenaican horses during the Greek and Roman periods is mainly derived from ancient literary sources. They tell us that horses were bred with distinctive skills in this region and report interesting stories highlighting the participation of Cyrenaican horses in athletic games. The literary data suggests Cyrene is a horse-breeding centre and this paper examines whether these assertions represent a reality, or simply a convention. This study investigates and analyses other locally related archaeological data, including epigraphy documents published by the digital corpora of IGCyr and IRCyr. Although most of the inscriptions in these corpora are published, little attention has been given to horses. The adapted approach here aims to build up a picture about horses using local evidence, with a focus on the linguistic indications of equestrian practice at Cyrenaica and the use of horse-related terms in nomenclature. Interestingly, the regional textual and archaeological data provide us with a similar picture to that presented by the literary references regarding horse breeding in Cyrenaica, charioteer training and their contribution to overseas Greek and Roman sport.

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“…He also, though somewhat questionably, suggests a possible slight shortage in legume production as a result of gaining the high income represented by SEG 9.42 (Figure 5). However, if one bears in mind the prices of pulses per medimnos as represented by SEG 9.43, the probable interpretation of this noticeable income would be their medimnoi (μέδιμνοι), where the modern value of the medimnos of wheat or barley has been discussed in the literature and their average weight approximated at 27.40 kg (Bresson 2011, 66–95; Stroud 1998, 54, 55). Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that a medimnos of pulses would also have been equivalent to c. 27.40 kg.…”

Section: An Estimation Of Legume Production In Cyrene Based On Their mentioning

confidence: 99%

Legume production at Cyrene in the Hellenistic period: epigraphic evidence

Abdelhamed

2018

Libyan Stud

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Legumes seem to have been cultivated and to have formed an essential part of the human diet during the Greek and Roman periods. This paper examines the cultivation of pulses in Cyrenaica during the Hellenistic era. It considers the regional production capacity for legumes to meet local needs and argues the involvement of different kinds of pulses in interregional commerce alongside cereals and other dry grains. This study has been implemented via investigating Hellenistic epigraphic evidence from Cyrene. It has traced the cost of pulses mentioned in inscriptions of the fourth and third/second centuries BC and compared them with that of wheat and barley. Pulses and cereal costs indicated by Diocletian's ‘Edict on Maximum Prices of AD 301’ have also been investigated to assess the general trend of their prices over time. The examination demonstrates that varieties of pulses were produced in Cyrenaica during the Hellenistic era and were likely as significant as wheat and barley. It also indicates that they were probably traded from the region alongside other dry commodities.

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Grain from Cyrene

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece: Evidence from Pollen Data

Landscape Change and Trade in Ancient Greece: Evidence from Pollen Data

Horses of Cyrenaica: breeding and charioteers in the Greek and Roman periods (literary, epigraphical and visual data)

Legume production at Cyrene in the Hellenistic period: epigraphic evidence

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