On The Economic And Social Functions Of The Athens Olive In The Classical Era

Because of dry weather,barren soil,and population growth in classical world,Athens' s grain needs to be imported in large quantities from abroad,SO,Which goods could the balance grain imports? H.Parkins and C.Smiths points out that Athens relies mainly on exporting specialty resources to balance grain imports In their work--Trade,Trader and Ancient cities.However,the Attica region seems to have never exported wine,and modern scholars generally believe that Attica grape cultivation has never been dominant.For status,vineyards account for only a small part of the cultivated land.Garnsey even thought that the wines produced in Athens could not meet their needs and had to be imported from the Black Sea region.Olive oil therefore became the only agricultural product that could be exported in large quantities.To study the export of olives and to find out whether the olive and its related products were exported in large quantities in classical times.Is a breakthrough in the study of the economic properties of ancient Greece,if olives and their related products are used more for export than for domestic sales,or if a huge amount can balance or partially balance the import demand of Athens.The Greek economy is recognized as having an obvious commercial character,and conversely,it can be used as an argument in support of PrimitivistThis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter introduces the cultivation and processing of olive.In addition to the introduction of the process,it also introduced the land cultivation situation at that time,mainly barley,wheat and olive tree hybrid.The second chapter first introduces the overseas market that Athens faced in the classical era and its shipping ability,and draws the conclusion: in the classical era,olive cultivation has spread all over the Mediterranean coast,so the overseas demand of olive is not strong.In terms of shipping capacity,Athens has the hard condition of exporting olive,but the cost is too high,restricting the export of olive.Among the main routes in Athens,only the Bospus Kingdom has a high demand for olives.Archaeological evidence suggests that only a few hundred fragments of pottery have been excavated along the Mediterranean coast,so large that they can't support the massive overseas trade of the Athenian olives.Olives produce fruit once every two years so that people couldn't forecast it's return,So olive planting is a long-term and risky investment.And the construction and late maintenance of ships requires a great deal of money,which can only be borne by those who have a certain amount of money.Therefore,if there is a large amount of olive oil export in Athens in the classical period,it means that there is a large number of large real estate in the agricultural production of Athens,so the land condition of Athens should be studied.In the second section of this chapter,The author discusses the land situation of Athens in detail and draws the conclusion that there is no large-scale land annexation in Athens,so there is no realistic condition for large-scale export.So,we could recognized such a kind of possibility: there are huge profits from olive cultivation,even if a citizen has only a small portion of land that can be profited from trade.Then the author calculated the profits from planting olives through speeches by Lysias and Demosthenes and the estimated production of olives by L.Foxhall,The author also estimated the profit limit by the combination of price and plot planting method at that time and concluded that the profit was only slightly higher than the farmland rent at that time.Given the cost of shipping,people tend to sell domestically rather than export.In addition,the author also compares the agricultural techniques of the Roman period with the Greek period.Explain the reasonableness of L.Foxhall data.In the third section of this chapter,the author explains how the sacredness of olive could influence olive trade.In the last chapter,the author explains the origin and concept of olive sanctity and the restrictions on export caused by touching taboos and food taboos.In the second section of this chapter,the author introduces the role of olives and their related products in the religious life of Athenians,and expounds the diversion of religious life to the export of olive.Finally,it is concluded that in the classical era,the olive produced in Athens was more used for domestic sales than for export profit,and the importance of olive in Athenian life was more reflected in the cultural aspect than in the economic level.