Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces

Abstract

This chapter begins by considering how a narrative account of ancient northern Aegean economies might be approached. The Greco-Persian wars, which brought foreign armies into the region in the final two decades of the sixth and first two decades of the fifth century bc represent the key catalyst of social and political change. These events triggered the emergence of two large territorial kingdoms — those of Macedon and of Odrysian Thrace — which in practice represent land-based defensive units that mirror the maritime Delian League, spear-headed by the Athenians, in the Aegean region. The agents of change were the social units within the north Aegean landmass and the adjacent islands — urban and quasi-urban foci, a large number of smaller, rural establishments, as well as the ruling dynasties and their entourages. The impact of these various agents can be gauged in part by looking at the circulation of metals in the north Aegean region. Coin production increased dramatically during the reigns of Philip II and particularly under Alexander III, but minted coins can only have constituted a fraction (perhaps twenty per cent), of circulating metals, which were necessarily a sub-set of commodities in general.