A Greek View of Byzantium

POLYBIUS, A Greek Historian Describes Byzantium’s Contribution to Regional Trade (ca. 170–118 B.C.E.)

Alexander’s conquests paved the way for a dramatic expansion of trade throughout the Mediterranean. Vast amounts of new wealth flowed westward, creating increased demand for imported goods and providing funds for the construction of new roads and harbors. In the passage below, the Greek historian Polybius (200–118 B.C.E.) describes the important role the city Byzantium played in the Greek economy. Situated on a narrow peninsula from which it dominated the waters that connected the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, Byzantium, later re-founded and renamed Constantinople, served as a link between East and West. As you read the passage, consider what it tells us about the Hellenistic economy. How were the cities of the Hellenistic world dependent on each other for their prosperity?

As far as the sea is concerned, the Byzantines occupy a position that is more secure and more advantageous than that of any other city in our part of the world, but as regards the land that position is in both respects most unfavourable. Their situation by sea at the entrance to the Black Sea enables them to prevent any trader from sailing into or out of the Black Sea against their will. Since the Black Sea has an abundance of products which are of use to the rest of the world, the Byzantines have control over all of these. For those commodities which are indispensable to life, cattle and slaves, are supplied to us by the countries around the Black Sea, as is generally agreed, in greater quantity, and of better quality than by any others; and as far as luxuries are concerned, they supply us with honey, wax and salt-fish in abundance. In return they receive from our part of the world the surplus olive oil and every kind of wine. With corn there is interchange; they give us some on occasion and sometimes import it from us. Now the Greeks would have been deprived of all these resources or would have found trading in them quite unprofitable if the Byzantines had shown hostility and combined with the Celts, or still more with the Thracians, or had given up the place altogether. Because of the narrowness of the straits and the large number of barbarians living along its shores, the Black Sea would by common consent have become closed to navigation. The Byzantines probably draw themselves the greatest practical benefits from the peculiar situation of their town. Any surplus products they have are easily exported, while they can import easily and profitably anything they lack, without incurring any hardship or danger; but, as I have said, others derive many great advantages thanks to them. Hence as common benefactors of all, as it were, they deserve to gain not only gratitude but concerted support from the Greeks in the dangers they face from the barbarians.

POLYBIUS IV. 38. 1–10

From M. M. Austin, ed., The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 169–170.