Jews and Greeks in ancient Cyrene

1. Physiography

Cyrenaica resembles most of the countries of the Mediterranean littoral in its division into a limestone belt and a tertiary plateau which intervenes between the mountains and the maritime plain.[473] But it differs from other mediterranean lands in that the red soils produced by the Miocene limestone, are to be found solely on the coastal terraces to north of the mountain plateau, or in depressions scattered along the plateau itself, while the alluvial valleys formed by the seaward runoff are very restricted in extent. On the southern plateau-slope the limestone is replaced bywhite-soil steppe, which finally fades into the Saharah. The red soils created by the insoluble limestone residues are in Cyrenaica not so leached by the rains as to lose their alkaline content, hence they are the most fertile soils of the region; they are also situated in areas where the rainfall is sufficient for cultivation, that is, north of the plateau and on it, at the most suitable altitudes for corn-growing, i.e. at 300-750 m above sea level. The red soils of the Jebel and its northern terraces have indeed been described as containing all the elements required for agriculture, possessing as they do a high percentage of phosphoric pentoxide.[474] On the other hand the qualities of these soils are offset by their restricted area and by the limited water supply at their disposal.

The country’s precipitation, concentrated between the months of October and May, varies in quantity from 10 to 1000 mm. according to locality, the highest rainfall being in the vicinity of Cyrene, a fact justifying the Libyan observation concerning that district (as reported by Herodotus) that “here the sky leaks” (ὁ οὐρανὸς τέτραται).[475] But average rainfall varies greatly from year to year, and a drought is expected every fourth year. The seasonal incidence, nevertheless, is of maximum utility to the cultivator, since it comes at a time when cool weather restricts evaporation. On the other hand the country suffers from a rainless summer of five months; and unlike several Mediterranean lands, the permeable miocene rocks of Cyrenaica do not overlie impermeable strata over which quantities of subterranean water can accumulate to break out as springs from the escarpments, or to be tapped by means of artesian wells. This function is discharged by marl strata of limited extent distributed over the plateau in comparatively few localities, such as Cyrene, al-Gubba and Messa, and the plains of Barka and Silene (al-Abbiar). The winter concentration of rainfall enables the accumulation to runoff in cisterns or by means of dams, but its quantity is not such as to make possible the irrigation of wide areas. According to one estimate made in recent years.[476] the entire spring-water of the Plateau is sufficient to irrigate no more than 4,000 hectares fully or 10,000 has. partially.

The cultivable areas themselves are also restricted in area. The Italian colonists in 1932 claimed that there were in Cyrenaica over 150,000 has. of cultivable land, and another 100,000 has. fit for “less intensive exploitation and pasture”.[477] In 1931 the Italian colonizing institutions had acquired 120,150 has., of which 82,225 has. had been confiscated from Sanussi “zaviet” (lodges). The same year, the soil of the latter amounted to 200,000 has., much of it the best land in the country.[478] According to these figures it can be calculated that there are in Cyrenaica not less than 220,000 has. of cultivable land (cf. here, p. 128). Newer estimates do not differ appreciably; a report of 1960 estimated the cultivable area at 200.000 has., and the area of pasture at 5 million has.[479] Another expert[480] put the area of Cyrenaica fit for permanent agriculture at 145.000 has., the tracts suitable for seasonal shifting agriculture at 500.000 has., and the area of pasture at 37 million has. It should not be forgotten, however, that the areas of fertile soil in Cyrenaica have decreased to a certain extent since ancient times due to soil erosion. Some experts have found no evidence of this phenomenon,[481] but anyone who travels in the territory can prove to himself that this phenomenon has in fact diminished soil-areas, as for example between Teucheira and Bengazi or in the Safsaf district. In the neighbourhood of Teucheira ancient farmsteads remain in places where the soil has been eroded to bedrock. The Roman bridge east of Ptolemais is twice as long as the present width of the gorge, as the stream bed has moved westward and stratified erosion silt can be seen exposed against the eastern arch of the bridge. East of Ras-al-Hillal the entrance to an ancient tomb-chamber cut in the rocky flank of the gorge, has been blocked by the erosion soil which fills the wadi. The process of erosion had apparently begun by the 4th century A.D., since Synesius[482] writes from Phykus (Ras-al-Hammam) that residence there was dangerous due to the stagnant water and its noisome vapours, a phenomenon attributable to the formation of swamps near the coast due to the blocking of the watercourses by erosion soil swept down from the Plateau.[483] The reality of the erosion factor in the past was confirmed by an agricultural survey of Libya made in 1960.[484]

The destruction of the forests must also be numbered among the factors that have diminished fertile soils, and an example is the Teucheira region, today surrounded by a barren rocky terrain, yet wooded as late as the 14th century.[485] Gregory indeed stated[486] that the diminution of wooded areas in Cyrenaica was apt to decrease the volume of existent springs. Although there is no decisive published evidence for a change in the country’s climate since ancient times,[487] the greater extent of wooded land in the Greek and Roman periods no doubt aided the more effective concentration and use of precipitation.

The restriction and decay of the country’s woodlands occurred inevitably with the growth of population, since the woods are concentrated in the limited region in which rain suffices for permanent settlement, that is, on the Plateau. Today remains of real woodlands survive north of Lamluda and Safsaf, south of Messa, in the vicinity of Wadi al-Kuf, Slonta, Mameli and Barka, and south of Teucheira on the north edge of the al-Abbiar district. Pliny[488] stated that Cyrenaica was rich in trees for a distance of 15,000 paces from the coast. Both he and Theophrastus[489] speak of the thuon tree (θύον), \vhose wood was esteemed for furniture-making, and was exported in the Roman period.[490] Theophrastus writes of the country’s cypress trees.[491] The Cyrenean Cathartic Law of Apollo, which reaches us in a 4th-century version, contains a clause (no. 2) permitting the felling of the trees of the sacred groves by license of the temple authorities.[492] Remains of ancient olive groves survive on the plateau, and very numerous are the ancient olive-presses which point to the presence of olive-plantations over considerable areas in Greek and Roman times.[493] Today the dew precipitation of the Plateau is sufficient to support summer pasturage, composed mainly of bushes and maquis for cattle and goats.

Cyrenaica’s decisive characteristic is, as stated, the division of its non-desertic area into two zones, differing from one another in climate and soil: the plateau, whose characteristic features are red soil, woodland, springs and sufficient winter rainfall; and the steppe where white soils prevail, wells replace springs, low scrub replaces woodland, and herbage is confined to winter owing to the decrease of precipitation southward. These contrasts constitute the difference between permanent tillage and nomadism based on the rearing of pastoral sheep and camels. Today the camels and sheep predominate on the steppe, while cattle and goats rule the plateau. The camel does not have to go north in the summer as his need of water is restricted, and in any case camels were not present in Cyrenaica before the late 2nd century A.D.[494] Sheep, by contrast, need to drink in April and May and must migrate northward, as the southern wells dry up at the end of the rainy months. On the other hand the flocks go south with the opening of the rainy season (December), when the steppe is once again covered with grass. The tribes which have ascended the plateau in the summer, plough and sow the southern plateau in October and November, the coastal region a little later, and the Plateau itself in December. The harvest begins on the Barka Plan and in the southern plateau in April; on the Plateau from May to August; accordingly the tribes return from the south in the spring in order to harvest their grain. In accordance with the climatic conditions of the Plateau the population there is permanently settled, moving only such distances as are necessary to find fresh pasture for their cattle and goats, which are their chief livestock. In this region land is held in individual possession, whereas on the steppe, only the wells are regarded as private property. Hence a rhythmic seasonal transhumance characterizes the life of the country, necessitated by its climatic requirements (water supply, pasture, sowing), and this transhumance takes the form of the movement of nomads from the steppe to the plateau and back. Such a process can proceed without friction between the southern nomads and the permanent settlers of the plateau, just so long as the latter are not densely settled and vacant areas remain amongst them to furnish annual summer grazing and corn-land for the southerners. But if the plateau population grows and begins to expand southward and itself becomes interested in the winter grazing of the steppe, friction and even conflict will develop between the inhabitants of the two areas.

It would therefore be logical to suppose that this annual trans-humance, which was till recently a regular phenomenon in Cyrenaica, also existed among the Libyans in the Greek and Roman period. Both Egyptian and classical sources testify that they included a nomadic and a settled element living side by side, and that the Libyans also practised agriculture. The sources show that they possessed horses, cattle, asses, goats and sheep,[495] while Herodotus and Strabo call them “nomads” (νομάδες),[496] Annual migrations are mentioned in connection with the Nasamones, the Macae, and the Garamantes, and a permanent condition of nomadism among the population of the interior was observed and recorded by Roman writers. The steppe land flockowners of Cyrene faced, then as now, the necessity of a seasonal migration to the plateau in order to water their stock.[497]

2. The Areas of Settlement

The areas of primary settlement and the order of the colonization of the various parts of Cyrenaica can be determined with some certainty by an examination of the country’s climate and physiography. The first settlement area of the men of Thera, according to Herodotus’ narrative, stands out prominently on Professor Panta-nelli’s map,[498] which divides the territory according to regions distinguished respectively by springs, by wells, and by storage cisterns. Prominent is the Martuba region, which includes the shoreline from Ras al-Tin to Bomba, as a well-defined isolated district of wells and cisterns at the east end of the Plateau, and is probably identical with the region of Aziris,[499] the settlement area of the Theran pioneers after they had crossed to the mainland.[500] This bloc is separated from the area of springs to westward by a broad belt containing only cisterns, but no wells or springs.

The location of the areas of springs, wells and cisterns, explains better than any other factor the distribution of ancient settlement in Cyrenaica.[501] This distribution is determined by the interaction of rainfall and the geological structure. The area of high precipitation in Cyrene and its vicinity itself stands out as the region of primary settlement after the transitional period of experiment and exploration. In this region, owing to the restriction of springs to localities in which the geological strata constitute water tables suitable for the accumulation of subsoil water, the more habitable areas constitute well-defined blocs, the largest of which is bounded on the north by the coast between Derna and Apollonia, and by the second escarpment from Cyrene westward to ‛Ein Targuna; from here its southern limit passes north of Slonta to al-Fayyidieh and then returns eastward to the coast along Wadi Derna. This bloc contains the ancient settlements of Cyrene, Messa, Zawia Beida, Safsaf, Labrakh, Tert, Lamluda, al-Gubba, ‛Ein Mara, Negharnes, and many more. There are in addition other smaller settlement-blocs centered on springs at al-Jarib, Tecnis (separated from the former by the broken waterless area containing Wadi al-Kuf) and Barka, although in the Barka Plain water is available chiefly from wells.

The region of wells is defined by the Barka Plain, and by the coastal belt at the foot of the el-Ahmar mountain between Ptolemais and Bengazi. This belt continues southward as the coast region from Bengazi to Rejima and Ghemines, narrowing towards Ajedabia. Isolated areas of wells also exist in the Plain of Silene (al-Abbiar) and the blocs centering on Tecnis, Mirwah, Jaulan and al-Mekhili — all, except the last, on the southern slopes of the Plateau on the line where the red soils meet the white. Al-Mekhili is a sort of ‘island’ in the steppe.These areas, in which wells are normal and springs rare, were among the regions of secondary settlement, and in all probability their first colonization was restricted to trading stations (e.g. Ptolemais), although points with plentiful wells adapted to oasis-cultivation were early occupied; such are found in the coastal sector between Teucheira and Bengazi, and at Bengazi itself, in whose vicinity is the River Lethe.

But a third important factor influenced the choice of settlement, namely, the distribution of the red-soil areas, whose chemical qualities and resistivity to drought make them especially suitable for the growing of cereals. The southern limit of these areas coincides approximately with the line dividing the area of 150 mm. rainfall to the north, and the area with a lower precipitation in the south, i.e. with the southern fringes of the Plateau. This line commences at the coast between Ghemines and Bengazi, takes in the plain of al-Abbiar on the south, and passing south of al-Gerdes, Mirwah and Jaulan, reaches the eastern shore of Cyrenaica in the neighbourhood of Bomba. The red soil must by its nature coincide in area with the extent of the karst areas of the Plateau, although they are not continuous within it. The most concentrated and extensive areas are situated on the Lusaita north of Cyrene, east of the city; in the quadrilateral of Safsaf — al-Gubba — ‛Ein Mara — al-Fayyidiyeh; in the area west of Derna, and on the plains of Barka and al-Abbiar. The initial points of settlement were the regions in which high rainfall, springs and red soil were combined, and only in the second phase were settlers attracted to the red-soil areas of Barka and al-Abbiar, despite their comparative lack of plentiful springs, and the quality of those soils induced the settlers to depend solely on wells in order to exploit their agricultural potentialities.

Rockcut cisterns are not restricted to any one area of the country. As a secondary source of water they are to be found even in the plentifully watered plateau areas, and in the regions of Martuba, the Barka Plain, and the coastal plain between Teucheira, Bengazi, Ghemines and Ajedabia, where they supplemented the wells as sources of supply. In areas without wells or springs they are the only source, provided the nature of the soil permits them to be dug and the rainfall suffices to fill them. Areas like these are to be found in the mountainous region between the Barka Plain and al-Jarib, and in the coastal plain between Teucheira, Ptolemais and al-Haniyah. The widest region deriving its water solely from cisterns is the southern slope of the Jebel al-Ahdar, south of the line al-Rejima, al-Abbiar, Gerdes, Mirwah, Jaulan and Derna. Its southern limit, leaving the Syrtic shore north of Ghemines, passes eastward to the region of a-Sirwal and al-Mekhili, swings northward towards Jaulan and returns through al-Hawat to reach the coast near Wadi Temimi. It should be noted that this zone coincides approximately with the area of rainfall whose yearly average is 150-200 mm.; its northern limit coinciding with the ancient route, the Tarik al-’Aziza, is also the final limit of Greek and Roman settlement, since the plateau ends and the steppe commences along this line. Some military stations, however, existed beyond it — such were al-Mesus and Saunu.[502] The southern area of cisterns itself, apparently held no more than poor Libyan settlements.

The settlement-zones deriving their water entirely from the storage of runoff or rain-water, doubtless served in the third phase of colonization, after the primary and secondary areas had been taken and settled to maximum density, but the digging of cisterns continued well into the Roman period. The areas of primary settlement deriving their water-supply from springs continued to absorb settlers in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., and as early as the middle of the 6th, with the foundation of Barka, began the colonization of the more fertile areas supplied by wells; Euesperitae existed in the first quarter of the century. In discussing the character of the country’s ancient agriculture we may regard it as reasonable to suppose that overcrowding and a shortage of vacant land was being felt on the plateau in the 4th century B.C., when the attempt had already begun to settle the arid areas in exclusive dependence on the storage of runoff. We shall indeed find evidence in the course of discussion that the temple estates of Cyrene extended over the southern slope of the Jebel in the hellenistic period.

3. Greek Agriculture in Cyrenaica

The pioneers of Thera and the other Grecian settlers reached Libya equipped with a good knowledge of agriculture,[503] but some time certainly passed before they achieved the full development and exploitation of the country’s natural resources, and it may be assumed that in the first phase they imitated the agriculture of the Libyans. Italian experts have remarked[504] that the natural course of agricultural development in Cyrenaica is from livestock breeding through the cultivation of cereals to the growing of fruit and other specialized crops.

Cyrene achieved renown in the ancient world for her fertility. We find among the epithets applied to her the expressions “fruit-bearing” (καρπόφορος);[505] “not without her share of all fruitful plants” (οὑ παγκάρπων φυτῶν νήποινος);[506] “deep-soiled” (βαθύγειος),[507] and “bearer of fair fruits” (καλλίκαρπος).[508] Herodotus writes of the district round Cyrene[509] that “it has abundant fruits”, and Strabo speaks of it as a fertile area;[510] both he and Pliny state that its climate favours agriculture.[511] But there is no doubt that Cyrene’s principal reputation was initially derived from her livestock, — her flocks, cattle and horses. Thus her name was associated with the terms “flock-feeding” (μηλοτρόφος),[512] and “of many sheep” (πολύμηλος).[513] Arrian speaks of her abundance of sheep and cattle.[514] Her cattle are mentioned by Herodotus[515] and Hermippus,[516] and Cyrene is variously described as “mother of horses”, “owner of fair horses” (κάλλιππος, εὐίππος),[517] “horse-pursuing” (διώξιππος),[518] “best of horserearers” (ἀρίστη ἱπποτρόφος),[519] “mother of renowned steeds” (clarorum mater equorum),[520] and “mistress of horse-pasture” (ἱππόβατος).[521] Horse-breeding in the Plain of Barka is explicitly referred to by Arrian,[522] and the poetry of Pindar in the 5th century celebrates in lyric language the victories of Cyrene in the races held at Olympia, Corinth, and Delphi. The city’s pastures are also praised: she is “mistress of broad meadows” (εὐρυλείμμων).[523] With one exception indeed, these expressions do not precede the 5th century B.C., but it may be assumed that the livestock branch was already well-developed when the people of Thera arrived in Cyrene, for the Libyan tribes owned numerous cattle and goats in the 12th century B.C. during their wars with Egypt,[524] and also possessed horses.[525] Homer already speaks of “Libya of the numerous flocks”,[526] whence it may be supposed that the rearing of sheep, cattle and horses was important in the Cyrenean economy from the first. When Barka was founded in the middle of the 6th century the figure of a bull appeared on her coins, and the kylix of Arkesilaos II is evidence of the royal trade in wool. Although we hear nothing of horserearing before Pindar, Herodotus tells us that the Cyreneans learned the use of the quadriga from the Libyan Asbystae,[527] showing that the branch was then an ancient one.[528] The monopoly of the silphium trade was associated with Battus I,[529] and the plant is represented on the city’s first coins in the 6th century.[530] The silphium plant grew, according to Herodotus[531] and Theophrastus,[532] throughout Libya, but more especially in the west in the vicinity of Berenice and the Syrtic Gulf,[533] and it is clear that it belonged essentially to Libyan life, for Theophrastus informs us[534] that only the Libyans knew how to treat it. Hence Jones was probably right in his belief[535] that this produce was paid by the Libyans to the Battiads as tribute. It is known that the silphium had to be protected from the flocks which coveted the plant,[536] and a synthesis of the details makes it clear that the growing of silphium and the rearing of sheep were carried on in large measure on the fringes of the plateau among the native tribes living about the Greek settlements, so that their direct association with these branches, and the feudal patriarchal relationship apt to develop between the Libyans and the royal house in these circumstances, induce the supposition that the areas concerned became in course of time the property of the dynasty.

Arable farming, on the other hand, began to develop as an export-branch, it would seem, in a later period. Pindar in the 5th century knew Cyrene as “grain-bearing” (πυροφόρος),[537] and Herodotus reports that the soil of Euesperitae produced a hundred-fold.[538] Under Darius (521-485 B.C.) the country together with Egypt and Libya paid the Persian king a tribute of 120,000 artabae of wheat,[539] although Cyrene’s share in this payment cannot be determined. Only in the 4th century do we encounter the testimony of Theophrastus that Cyrenean wheat was being sent to Athens.[540] At the end of that century a well-known inscription reveals that Cyrenaica was growing wheat on a considerable scale, sufficient to supply a number of Greek cities and islands in a time of shortage. This event will be discussed below (see p. 97). Theophrastus reproduces technical details on the development of Libyan wheat, which was a quick grower, needed a “strong” soil and possessed a stout stalk.[541] Pliny states of this wheat that it needed no cultivation during the growing period.[542]

We know little of the plantation economy of Cyrene. Vineyard products appear first in the Demiurgi stele of the 5th century, together with olives and figs.[543] Pseudo-Scylax (mid-4th century[544]) and Diodorus (3rd century)[545] record the country’s vineyards, but apparently their produce was not of the best; Marmarica at any rate, gained a reputation for inferior wine; over forty vineyards or groups of vines are nevertheless recorded in the Martuba district at the end of the 2nd century A.D.[546] In the first century B.C. Strabo wrote that wine was being smuggled into the country from the region of Carthage.[547] Theophrastus, Scylax and Diodorus speak of the olives of Cyrene, and the large number of presses scattered over the plateau, especially on the eastern Jebel, witness that oil-production flourished at least in the Roman and Byzantine periods. In the ist century B.C. Barkaios son of Theochrestos bequeathed to the gymnasium of Cyrene an olive grove and its oil produce.[548] The numerous cisterns in the enclosure on the southeast edge of the city, it has been suggested, were for the storage of olive oil; were this correct, they would testify to the scale of production at the beginning of the Roman period, but the theory is disputable. Cyrenaica was also well-known for its growing of vegetables, table-herbs and perfume-plants, and some of these will be noted in the course of the discussion on Cyrenean agriculture.

Herodotus’ remark on the reforms of Demonax, to the effect that “(Demonax) made over to the people all remaining affairs previously the kings’, excepting their private domains and priestly functions”,[549] suggests that in the 6th century the royal estates had become very extensive, and it may be supposed that the nobility also possessed estates of some size. The “large private tower”[550] of Aglomachos, where the enemies of Arkesilaos III found refuge, was doubtless a fortified farmhouse and the centre of a large agricultural estate on the far fringes of the territory. The establishment of the mixed settlement of Barka by Arkesilaos’s brothers in cooperation with the Libyans, and the renowned horse-rearing of that town, point to the close connection between the live-stock branch and the Cyrenean nobility, paralleled in several other Greek states.[551] It may be assumed that in Cyrene too the aristocratic estates took the form of large units engaging in the rearing of horses, cattle and sheep and exploiting the labour of the natives in semi-feudal conditions. On the other hand both Battus II and Arkesilaos III brought new settlers to Libya under the slogan of new land-allotments” (ἀναδασμός γης), hence Cyrene also possessed a class of smallholding peasants, in part descended from the first settlers and in part colonists of the 6th century. This class subsequently included mercenaries settled in the Euesperitan region by Arkesilaos IV in the 5th century. As already suggested, the introduction of coinage in the 6th century may at first have impoverished the smallholder, and it is probable that we should see in contemporary royal policy the aim of intensifying agriculture by breaking up the aristocratic estates and settling smallholders on them, while the Delphic denunciation of Arkesilaos III may have been directed against royal centralization of authority and the development of economic étatism. The last Battiads seem to have devoted themselves to increasing the population of smallholders and also to extending the royal branches of silphium production and stock-farming.

4. Cyrenean Agriculture in the Fourth Century; The Demiurgi Steles

The known Demiurgi steles begin in the middle of the 5th century B.C. The two examples that survive from that time are unfortunately much mutilated, any record of the crops grown contemporarily being lost. But to judge by the uniformity of the records during the 4th century, it may be permissible to assume that they included similar items in the preceding century. The official character of these documents is made clear from the formulation and order of the opening lines: after the appeal to the gods (Θεοί, Θεός, Θεὸς Τύχα), comes a record of the year under the name of the eponymous priest of Apollo. Then the Demiurgi, the three officials responsible for the matters concerned, are named, and finally appears a list of agricultural produce and the price of each product with the total income of the year, followed by the items of expenditure from the recorded revenue and the balance in hand. It is therefore clear that we are dealing with an estate or estates administered by the Demiurgi for the polis of Cyrene. The produce of these lands was sold, all or in part, and the proceeds were devoted to the requirements of the cults. The place where most of these steles were found shows that the administrative office of the Demiurgi was in the Agora, perhaps in the Temple of Apollo (previously thought to have been the Temple of Demeter) or near it, although the fund supported several other cults, among them those of Artemis and Athene.[552]

It is not difficult to discover the source of the lands concerned. The king was the high priest of Apollo and also disposed of royal domains (τεμένεα). On the deposition of the Battiad dynasty these lands doubtless passed to the city and to the management of the priests of Apollo who took the place of the kings, or of other magistrates of the polis. As we have seen, the relations of the Battiads with the Libyans and the confiscation of the property of their numerous enemies had led to the growth of their estates. It is clear from the Cathartic Laws of Apollo, which reach us in a fourth-century copy, that the god’s domains also included sacred groves, from which timber was cut and sold for secular purposes.[553] The temple property is likely enough to have grown still larger as a result of bequests on the part of worshippers such as Barkaios son of Theochrestos, who bequeathed an olive plantation to the revenues of Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Heracles in the first century B.C.[554] The name of one temple estate has come down to us, in the Ἀρτάμιτος Κώμη recorded by Ptolemy[555] in the western or southern Jebel in the middle of the 2nd century of the current era. The expression “from the revenues of Apollo” (ἐκ τῶν τοῦ Ἀπολλώνος προσόδων) appears in the middle of the 4th century B.C. in the Stele of the Founders,[556] and part of these revenues was doubtless derived from the sacred lands. In the same period the administrators included accountants (ἐπιστάντες ἐπί τὸς ἀπολόγος),[557] and in the same instance the revenues bear the expenses involved in the setting up of the “Stele of the Founders”. The officials receiving salaries from the fund in the 4th century included the ἐπίσκοποι[558] who, according to an analogy from Rhodes[559] were in charge of funds and sacred fields;[560] both the ἐπιστάντες and the επίσκοποι may be regarded as working under the supervision of the Demiurgi.

It may reasonably be supposed then, that the produce recorded in the inscriptions is that of the temple lands, its prices being fixed by the Demiurgi. An analogy may be found in the law of Samos[561] which lays down that “they (the officials concerned) will sell the wheat levied as a tax of twenty percent, from the Anaoi, valuing it at five drachmas and two obols, not less than was previously fixed by the people.” The government of Cyrene spends the proceeds of these sales on the celebration of given civic festivals and on sacrifices. The steles, however, do not inform us what percentage of the produce was levied or sold, hence the size of the estate or estates whence it came cannot be determined with any confidence. The total annual income from the produce in a normal year was 30,000 drachmas,[562] and while certainty is impossible, it is not improbable that the revenue was derived from no more than a percentage of the total produce, for most Greek temples leased their land to tenants by contract for a fixed percentage of the crops.[563] Unfortunately, our knowledge of rents in ancient Greece is scanty. The 20 percent, corn tax as levied by the Samos temples has been mentioned. Eleusis took 8 percent, tax on annual produce;[564] the estate of Phainippos yielded an interest of 9.5 percent, per year;[565] Delos imposed a ten percent, tax on wheat crops in the 2nd century B.C.;[566] in Elis rents of 10 percent, were paid;[567] at Heracleia — of 8 percent.[568] Michell[569] thinks that rents of 8-10 percent, were usual in Greece in the 4th century. But it should not be forgotten that the farms of Apollo at Delos, for example, were leased by auction, hence the rents varied according to circumstances.[570]

Let us now endeavour to analyse the type of cultivation reflected in the Demiurgi steles in the 4th century B.C. The crops recorded are: barley, wheat, legumes (όσπρια), cummin, hay (sown and natural), grapes (table and wine), figs, raisins, olives and olive oil. Barley today is sown in Cyrenaica on areas far exceeding those sown to wheat, and the country is generally regarded as more suitable to the former than to the latter.[571] The yield of barley in present-day Greece is approximately double that of wheat, and the same applies to Crete. Of the ten demes recorded in the well-known Eleusinian inscription of 329/8 B.C.[572] only three devote less than sixty percent, of their areas to barley-growing, and thirteen sow barley on over seventy percent, of them. The percentage of land down to wheat may have been larger in Cyrene, to judge by the “Cereal Stele” of the years 330-325 B.C., which will be discussed below. Generally barley brought lower prices (1-2 drachmas, in the 4th century)[573] than wheat (2-3 drachmas). The Italian experts were agreed that wheat predominates on the Plateau, while barley does better on its southern slopes and in the wadis bordering on the steppe.[574] This view concurs with the ancient sources. Strabo[575] states that the silphium region, despite its dry and sandy nature, was suitable to the growing of grains adapted to resisting dry conditions; he also writes[576] that ὄρυζα was grown in the central grain-zone owing to its dryness. As ὄρυζα means rice, this word is obviously the result of a corruption of the text, and should be amended as Bonacelli has suggested,[577] to ὄλυρα, meaning emmer (Triticum dicoccum). According to Piani,[578] barley was grown in larger quantities than wheat in Cyrenaica, as it ripens more quickly and needs less rain. Bonacelli, indeed,[579] shows that the drought resistance and early ripening of barley in February and at the beginning of March, are better adapted to the hard conditions of the critical growing season in Cyrenaica.

In 1934/5 the Italian farms had 13,173 hectares under wheat, and 2,574 hectares under barley. The same year the Arabs had sown 7,809 to wheat, and 58,496 hectares to barley.[580] It is therefore clear that wheat was sown chiefly on the plateau and in the Barka Plain, where the Italian colonies were concentrated, while the natives remained preponderantly growers of barley. On the other hand in 1939 Cyrenaica grew more wheat than barley, the general yield being 234,915 quintals of wheat and 170,946 quintals of barley,[581] that is, 293,643 and 284,910 kilograms respectively. This change arose doubtless from an increase in wheat production in the expanding Italian settlement area, and it is probable that the barley-yield tends to increase in dry seasons, which are to be expected every fourth year. Piani indeed notes[582] that the unstable character of the rainfall even on the Jebel makes difficult the maintenance of fixed rotations and requires the reduction of arable areas in certain years. Accordingly it is impossible to form an estimate of the relationship between barley and wheat; nevertheless a summarization of the phenomena enables us to state, that if the two crops might be nearly equal in good years — although the balance tends permanently in favour of barley — the sowing of barley exceeds that of wheat in drought years, while barley and emmer were probably the chief grains of the small peasant interested in subsistence rather than export, as well as the peculiar crops of the Libyan, and more especially of the nomad.

The general lines of the Cyrenean farm of the 4th century B.C. may be reconstructed on the basis of the crops recorded on the contemporary steles, and on the authority of our general knowledge of the Greek agriculture of the time. Of the crops recorded and listed above, the grains were mainly winter crops, the normal practice being to alternate the sowing of grain with fallow in successive years.[583] In the Mediterranean region as a whole and in middle eastern lands in particular, where summer rain is rare or entirely absent, extensive irrigation not feasible and modern rotations and manuring not practised, it is essential to fallow the land in winter in order to conserve moisture for summer growth; soil which has borne a winter crop must therefore remain unsown during the following summer. Summer-grains, indeed, were not frequent among the Greeks except in one or two areas. They were rare even among the Romans, being limited to regions of especially fertile soil or to areas of permanent summer rainfall. In these conditions, the only solution was to divide the arable equally between crop and fallow. The sown half received wheat and barley in one season, this being clear not only from the Demiurgi steles, but also from the 4th-century Sunium inscription in Attica, which says:[584] “(the lessee must sow) half with wheat and barley, and the fallow half with legumes (ὄσπριοις); the rest of the (fallow) land he shall not sow”. The same arrangement appears in a lease from Dyaleis,[585] which divides the plot into corn (σῖτος) and legumes (ὄσπρια). A similar plan is probable in Ptolemaic Egypt, where a clause in a contract dictates[586] that “after the appointed time I shall hand over the plot leased, half under wheat, a quarter under various seeds, and the remaining quarter under fodder for cattle.”[587] Here the fodder (χόρτος) is sown on the winter fallow; the όσπρια occupying the second half of the fallow, included such crops as beans, peas, lentils, clover, lucerne and vetch, and served as fodder, or, after ploughing in, as green manure.

The advantage of the long summer-season, when no grains were sown, lay in the leisure it afforded to the Greek farmer to plough his fallow, to work it deep, and to tend his vines and fruit-trees which ripened only at the end of the summer. Pliny, as we have seen, remarked that corn in Libya required none of the hoeing or weeding normally needed in the growing season in other countries,[588] and this saved labour and cheapened the produce. On the other hand a serious loss was involved in the necessary fallowing of half the arable which remained unsown throughout the summer, and obviously the farmer sought summer crops which could be sown on or next to the areas from which the winter grains had been harvested. Theophrastus draws up a list of such crops:[589] summer wheat ripening in three months, and a variety of late-sown barley which matured after earlier varieties; also lentils, pulse, peas, vetch, chickpeas (Lathyrus sativus), beans, millet and lupin. We know too little to say how far the Cyrenean farmer of the 4th century grew summer-crops without irrigation. We read of two summer crops in ancient Cyrenaica, to wit, cummin[590] and saffron. Cummin was sown in the same season as pulse[591] and appears to have been a commercial plant used, like silphium, as a source of condiments and drugs. Apicius writes of Libyan cummin in his cookery book,[592] hence it was exported. Saffron figures among Cyrenean products in the 4th century, and in Ptolemaic Egypt was sown as a summer crop on unirrigated land;[593] it may accordingly be listed among the summer plants of the Cyrenean farmer. As to the όσπρια of the Demiurgi steles, this class seems to have connoted both winter vegetables and summer legumes, the latter being required as green fodder after the corn had been cut.[594] The growing of summer legumes is not impracticable on the Plateau, which enjoys a high dew precipitation in the hot season, explicitly referred to by Theophrastus, who says:[595] “In Egypt, Babylonia and Bactria, where the country enjoys little rain, the dew nourishes everything; this it does also about Cyrene and Euesperitae.” Real “dry farming” is possible only on the highest part of the Plateau,[596] in the region which receives over 400 mm. of precipitation annually, but here summer-sown pulse, lentils and chickpeas do well,[597] thanks to the water-retentive qualities of the red soil in the dry season.[598] The area of summer legumes, therefore, is limited to the red soils that extend between the line Tocra-al-Abbiar on the west and al-Gubba on the east; their northern limit is the escarpment of the middle terrace (the Lusaita), and their southern limit the line from Gerdes/Marawa to Slonta. But to succeed after a grain crop on the Plateau, legumes would have to be swift-growing late varieties, as the Plateau cereals were usually cut in August. It is more probable, then, that they were sown on the fallow, and this has been the actual practice down to the present in Cyprus,[599] as part of a cropping plan which has altered little since antiquity. Due to the lateness of the plateau harvest, the sowing of summer grains is improbable, nor does sowing succeed in Cyrenaica after the December rains, which are essential to the ripening of the crop.[600] On the other hand corn is cut in the southern Jebel and in the Barka Plain as early as April, hence it is possible to envisage the utilization of the very long summer for a second sowing. But it is improbable that the moisture in Cyrenaica was adequate for sowing such crops except in an unusually rainy season. Exceptional was ὄρυζα = ὄλυρα emmer, which grew in the country’s central region in dry conditions. If a three-field division was practised in ancient times on the plateau, it probably involved the growing of early barley, since this crop ripened sooner than wheat and required less moisture,[601] and could be followed by another crop.

The decisive characteristic in the division of the country’s arable tracts into three climatic zones (the Jebel, the southern Jebel and the maritime plain including the Barka Plain), in each of which the harvest took place at a different time, enabled the farmer to prolong his growing season during most months of the year, if he owned land in all three zones. This fundamental fact made Cyrene an exporter of corn so long as grain-growing was in the hands of the big landowner. The peculiar character of the country’s climate was grasped by Herodotus, although he exaggerated the length of the harvest-season,[602] which lasts not eight but five months. It need not be doubted that there were then proprietors owning land in all three regions of the country. In the 4th century A.D. Synesius’ family held tracts near the coast (at Phykus) and also in the extreme south;[603] the name of the settlement of Ἀρίμμαντος Κώμη south-east of Cyrene,[604] can hardly be unconnected with the aristocratic family which appears in the poems of Callimachus[605] and also in inscriptions at Cyrene in the 4th and 1st centuries B.C.[606]

Access to the south slope of the Plateau was important to the farmer in search of winter grazing for his sheep, but when spring came the steppe dried up and the flock had to return north. This need both created and solved a problem; on the one hand, summer pasture had to be found in the north, where arable was restricted and valuable; on the other hand the seasonal transhumance made an important contribution to the fertility of the fields. In many areas of the Mediterranean lands summer pasture is confined to the hills, and the arable being restricted to the plain, does not benefit from the organic manure, a deficiency which caused a decline of agricultural production in the Mediterranean area in ancient times,[607] since in winter, when the livestock descended to the valleys, the fields had been sown and the grazing so restricted. The winter maintenance of cattle was further hampered in ancient times by ignorance of rootcrops, which restricted the quantity of manure accumulating in the byres and sheep pens. In Cyrenaica, the situation was different, since the livestock came north to the Plateau after the grain had been harvested on the Barka Plain, on the southern Plateau and in its northern district.

On the central Plateau grain was harvested between May and August and thus additional tracts were freed for grazing. Thus the livestock could invade the stubble at the end of cutting, also benefiting from the rough grazing about the arable. In such conditions it is unlikely that the Cyrenean farmer sowed his arable to summer grains, for half the area was needed for grazing. Sown hay was doubtless limited to the winter (since he seldom possessed sources for irrigation); what was left of it was needed for the livestock during the summer months, and new-mown hay had to be got in from the field before August, when grass seeds in Libya.

It was this important difference between Cyrene and the other regions of Greece, namely, the manuring of the summer fallow by the seasonal migration of livestock — as determined by the physiography of the country (the identity of arable lands with a plateau which is also the region of high rainfall), that determined the relatively high grain yields of Cyrene. Here the arable enjoyed a greater quantity of organic manure, and larger flocks and herds could be maintained throughout the year.

But this coordination of branches had its own dangers. Its success depended on a balance between stock and arable, and on the maintenance of security in the southern steppe, the grazing ground of the Libyan nomad tribes. An overdevelopment of herds and flocks on the one hand, or of arable and fodder crops on the other, was apt to lead to a sharp conflict between the pastora-list and the plateau farmer in the summer months, and this conflict might continue in the winter when the settled farmer wished to send his flock southward. This situation would become acuter in 3/ears of drought or low rainfall, when the nomads tend to concentrate in the neighbourhood of the springs and to sow wider areas.[608] The decline of security in the southern region would have made difficult the seasonal transhumance of flocks and thus have caused a fall in arable yields and the degeneration of the livestock. The loss of the early grains of the south would also have compelled the inhabitants of the plateau to resort to summer sowings of corn (especially if he was under pressure of taxation). To do this he faced the alternative of enlarging his plot in an already overcrowded area, or of adopting a three-course rotation not usually favoured by the climate, which meant the fragmentation and overworking of his plot.[609]

On the evidence discussed, then, the cropping plan of the Cyrenean farmer in the 4th century B.C. may be represented in approximately in the following table:

5. The Cereal Stele

Not a few problems concerning the agrarian ancl agricultural state of Cyrene in the last decades of the 4th century B.C. are raised by the contents of the well-known Cyrenean inscription which records the despatch of 805,000 medimini[610] of grain (σίτος) to a number of Greek cities and islands, and a few other towns, in the reign of Alexander the Great.[611] The recipient communities were apparently Macedonian allies, which had been hit by a scarcity of grain artificially created by the Egyptian monopoly. The inscription has been dated between 330 and 328 by Oliverio,[612] between 330 and 325 by Ferri,[613] and between 331 and 328 by Zebelev.[614] For the purposes of the present discussion the exact date and political background are not so important, but three questions require an answer and these are: What was the unit of volume used in the inscription? What does σίτος mean in relation to the consignment? and over how many years did the consignments extend?

Oliverio[615] assumes that the Attic medimnus is the unit of measurement used in the cereal inscription; de Sanctis[616] thought that the Aeginetan medimnus, the equivalent of 1.5 Attic medimni, was meant. But if we consider the wheat prices of the Demiurgi steles, we shall see at once that Oliverio was right, since Cyrenean grain was sold in the 4th century at prices below those of mainland Greece,[617] and if we assume the Aeginetan medimnus, Cyrenean prices fall by an additional third. On this point, Heichelheim[618] concurs with Oliverio.

Wilamowitz-Moellendorf interprets σῖτος as wheat.[619] The free inhabitants of Athens, which received not less than 10,000 medimni of the total consignments, habitually ate wheat, as did most of the Greek cities with the exception of Sparta,[620] which was not among the recipients. Barley in the 4th century had become the food of slaves and animals, except in times of extreme scarcity.[621] It is probable, therefore, that most of the consignments were wheat, though certainty is impossible.

As regards the time occupied by the consignments, it is clear that the items on the list have been recorded not in chronological order, but in the order of the amounts sent, beginning with the largest. It is further evident that each city did not receive more than two consignments; Chios received four, but each was sent to a different settlement of the island. Segré[622] remarked that there is no need to assume that all were sent simultaneously, as the list seems to be a summing up at the end of the undertaking.[623] He considered that they had been despatched throughout the period of scarcity (331-325). Yet if we suppose that the price was normal (and nothing to the contrary is mentioned), and that the consignments were spread over five years — why should the trouble have been taken to commemorate them? The argument that the exports were a special concession, as Greek cities normally prohibited the export of corn,[624] does not apply here, since such prohibitions did not hold good in states producing grain in large quantities, Cyrene being one of them. The stele then had no point unless it commemorated a special effort, that is, a maximum consignment in the shortest possible time during a period of special stress. Here therefore we must agree with Oliverio[625] and Zebelev[626] when they date the consignments between the years 331 and 328, and it is even more probable, since no city received grain more than twice, that the whole project occupied two years. If this conclusion is correct, the total export in one of the two years concerned could not have been less than 402,000 medimni, or 221,420,41 hectolitres on Oliverio’s calculation.

Can the area of cultivation necessary to produce this quantity be estimated? Any calculation must be rendered more doubtful by the possibility that part of the consignments came from stocks stored from the previous year. But in order to arrive at some notion of the area concerned we have no alternative but to assume as a hypothesis that all the grain came from one year’s harvest. The possibility of despatch from the granaries is at any rate less probable in the second year. Jardé[627] estimated the maximum yield in ancient Greece at 16.80 hectolitres per hectare, on a basis of a yield of seven to one. The Cyrenean yield was certainly higher — the Arabs estimate their yield in the plain of Bengazi as 35:1, that in the wadis of the southern plateau at 50/60:1; in Marmarica, at 8:1.[628] The yields would not have seemed to have changed much in Marmarica from ancient times; the Vatican Payrus of the late 2nd century A.D. cites for Marmarica barley yields of 7-12 to 1 and wheat yields of 4.5-10 to I.[629] Barley yields of 30 hectolitres the hectare and 180:1 have been cited from the wadis south of Bengazi.[630] Bertarelli[631] ascribes yields of 30/40 to 1 to some years, although the average, he admits, is 5/7. Scaetta[632] has estimated Arab crops on the plateau between 12.5 and 25 hectolitres the hectare, at 25/40 to 1. The Italian farms, however, seem to have obtained less impressive crops, their averages being 10 hectolitres the hectare.[633] There is no doubt that yields vary greatly from year to year with the variations of the annual rainfall, but taking into account the Greek average of Jardé, Cyrene’s ancient reputation for plentiful crops, and Scaetta’s figures for wheat on the Jebel, it may be permissible to put the ancient yield at 20 hi. the hectare in a good year. On this assumption, and adding the fallow area, we may evaluate the area reflected by the consignments of 331-328 at 21,124 hectares. The Cyreneans, however, would not have exported their total year’s crop, as they needed to keep enough for their own consumption and for seed in the coming autumn. If so, we are faced with the task of estimating the size of the population of 4th-century Cyrene.

This is rendered easier by one factor at least; the stele says explicitly: “To which (cities) the city gave wheat”, meaning, that we have to consider only Cyrene and her territory, excluding the other cities of the Pentapolis. It is said that 7,000 Cyreneans fell at the battle of Leukon in the middle of the 6th century.[634] The city recruited 10,000 foot, 600 horse and 100 chariots for Ophelias;[635] 8,000 infantry and 500 horse against Euergetes II.[636] These figures point to a citizen population of not less than 50,000 souls. The citizens with the franchise in the city at the end of the 4th century B.C. (not long after the grain consignments under discussion) numbered, as we have seen, 10,000, at a time when the city was apparently approaching its peak population; but this body was limited to men of a minimal annual income of 20 minae. As already noted, workmen were supporting themselves in fourth-century Athens on 180 drachmas a year, and even if this income was inadequate in the face of steadily rising prices,[637] prices in Cyrene had not then risen considerably and were generally lower than those of mainland Greece. If then we estimate the electorate of 10,000 as representing 30,000 souls (a very modest estimate), we can hardly add fewer than three times that number to account for free Greeks with incomes lower than the minimum census, metics, slaves and Libyans.[638] And in this connection it were well to recall that when Antipater in 312 restricted citizen-rights in Athens to 9,000 inhabitants, 12,000 Athenians remained without them.[639] There was also a considerable number of Greeks permanently resident at Cyrene who were not born in the city:[640] these constituted, according to Strabo,[641] a well-defined community in the ist century B.C. The proportion of metics at Athens in the 4th century has been estimated at 30-40 percent, of the Athenians;[642] this percentage is doubtless too high for Cyrene, and 25 percent, might be a more realistic guess. The number of slaves can hardly be estimated at less than one for each of the 10,000 with incomes of 20 minae per annum or more; this is obviously too low a figure. The number of Libyans, by contrast, is much harder to evaluate, since there were among them many nomads and most of the natives would have lived dispersed over the city territory, the boundaries of which cannot be determined with confidence. But evidence will presently appear suggesting that the Cyrenian territory embraced not less than 80 percent, of the country in the hellenistic period, excluding chiefly the coastal areas of Ptolemais, Teucheira and Berenice. Accordingly the Libyan population associated with Cyrene may be seen as identical with the Jebel al-Ahdar, which today contains the tribes of al-Dorsa, al-Braasah, al-Hassa, the Ailat Fayyid, and al-Abiad, numbering 77,250 souls in 1923.[643]

Gregory estimated the Libyan population at 50,000.[644] Hence we shall not be exaggerating if we number the Libyans of the territory of classical Cyrene in the neighbourhood of the same figure (50,000). We therefore arrive at the following cautious and hypothetical result:

Citizens and their families (under the democracy) 60,000

Metics (25 percent.) 15,000

Slaves 10,000

Libyans 50,000

Total 135,000

It is a reasonable assumption that the slaves and Libyans ate barley-bread, just as do the Arabs of Cyrenaica today, hence we must subtract their number from the number of wheat-consumers. If we suppose that the needs of adult males were 7.5 medimni of wheat per head per year, of women (one third), 4.5 medimni per head, of children (one third) 3.5 medimni per head,[645] then 413,437 medimni of wheat were needed annually for the population of Cyrene. Sufficient seed was further required for sowing 405,000 + 413,437 = 818,437 medimni. If the average yield is estimated at 20:1, there was need to grow an additional 40,402 medimni for seed. Thus the hypothetical yearly production totals some 858,839 medimni, or approximately 429,419 hi. With the addition of an equal area of fallow, then, we attain, on a yield of 20 hectolitres per hectare, an arable area of 42,942 hectares. But on the assumption that this area was devoted entirely to wheat, we must add an area for barley and its associated fallow. As the ratio of barley to wheat was apt to be 1:1 in good years, with a steady tendency for barley to preponderate, both on the analogy of modern Greece and in the light of presentday conditions in Cyrenaica, and because the years 331-328 were good years — we may conclude that the arable area totalled not less than 85,570 hectares.

If the quantity of barley needed to feed 60,000 Libyans and slaves is regarded as 5 hectolitres per head annually (according to Jard^’s consumption-figure),[646] and add the seed for the following year, it would have been necessary to produce 315,000 hectolitres, for which 31,500 hectares were needed including fallow, and if the country’s livestock is regarded as not less than it was under Turkish rule,[647] an additional 55,200 hectares (including fallow) had to be cultivated in order to produce its fodder, which amounted to 552,028 hectolitres. Accordingly the total area of arable, including fallow, extended over not less than 129,642 hectares.

What was the ratio of this area to the total cultivated land of the country at that time? At the beginning of the 4th century B.C. 85-90 percent, of Athenian citizens, whose composition was decidedly biased in the direction of trade and the crafts, still possessed plots of land.[648] In contemporary Cyrene, although the commercial element was not lacking, the proportion of landowners was hardly inferior to that of the same group among the citizens of Athens. The Italian colonial institutions allotted an area of 31 hectares of arable per settler, containing 6 hectares of irrigated land, or 30-70 hectares of unirrigated land,[649] but it should not be forgotten that these farms were worked by modern methods. If 8,500 (85 percent.) of Cyreneans with civic rights under the Ptolemaic constitution, held plots of only 30 hectares,[650] (a purely mathematical average), the total area owned would have amounted to 255,000 hectares. We have seen that the area fit for permanent cultivation in Cyrenaica amounted to 150,000-200,000 hectares;[651] Fisher’s estimate (1953) gives some 145,000 hectares for permanent cultivation and 500,000 hectares for shifting agriculture. But not all the cultivable lands of the country were available to the founder city: Barka, Berenice and Teucheira also needed soil to feed them.[652] We have no evidence at present of the agricultural areas of those cities, but there may be indirect evidence for the proportion of land held by Cyrene in the country in the 3rd century B.C. Segré[653] observed that of the 101 names of Cyrenean immigrants to Egypt in that century, recorded by Heichelheim,[654] 90 percent, came from the city of Cyrene, the remainder being from Apollonia, Barka, and Berenice. Moreover, 16 of the 17 names of people from Cyrenaica whose period is unknown, were from Cyrene, and from a total of 133 Greeks of Cyrenaica recorded in the hellenistic, 119 were from the founder city. This evidence caused Segre to conclude, that the territory of Cyrene in the 3rd century stretched from Katabathma (Solium) to Thinis (Θῖνις), the settlement to which Cyrenean citizens had been sent as colonists not long, it would seem, before the drafting of the Ptolemaic constitution, which mentions the place specifically.[655] Clearly the settlement was outside the recognized city-territory at the time of the founding of the new colony, but its whereabouts is unknown.[656] On the other hand the Ptolemaic constitution fixes the frontiers beyond which the sons of Cyrenean fathers and Libyan mothers could not obtain citizenship, at Katabathma and Automalax (perhaps bu-Shifah near al-Ajela).[657] According to this Cyrene would have controlled the greater part of the country from east to west. There is no doubt that her territory reached Ras al-Tin on the east in the 4th century.[658] De Sanctis however interpreted the frontiers as stated in the constitution as evidence for the existence of a city league (κοινόν) in Cyrenaica, but there is still no evidence for such in the period concerned. More convincing is Jones’ suggestion[659] that these limits were fixed to prevent Egyptians and Carthaginians obtaining Cyrenean citizenship. In either case, the evidence of names in the 3rd century must be interpreted to mean that Cyrenean territory was the largest of the city-territories of the country, and amounted to 80-90 percent, of its total area. If so:

Total cultivable area (permanent cultivation) 200,000 has

80 percent, of the above 160,000

Minimal cultivated area of Cyrene 335-31 129,642

Minimal cultivated area of 85 percent.

of citizens of Cyrene 285,000

(according to the Ptolemaic constitution)

These figures present us with several interesting conclusions, but before discussing them we should observe that these are extremely cautious. The above estimate of the population of Cyrene, if it is erroneous, errs on the side of an underestimate. A population of 30.000 free citizens implies many more than 60,000 souls, while 10.000 slaves is palpably far below the mark. If it was larger, the problem of a land shortage which emerges prominently from these figures, becomes even more acute. In any case the same problem is reflected by the predicament of the ten-thousand citizens of the Ptolemaic constitution — and the number is well-established.

In order to assess the rightness or wrongness of the argument, let us review several other possibilities:

1) that the citizen-body of ten thousand included not only the inhabitants of Cyrene, but also all those of all five cities who possessed the required income;

2) that the estimate of the percentage of the 10,000 citizens owning land (85 percent.) is exaggerated, and that a smaller percentage must be assumed;

3) that we have underestimated the fertility of the country’s soils, and should put their yields at a higher rate;

4) that the lands suitable for permanent cultivation extended over a wider area than that estimated by the Italians and by the authors of surveys carried out since the Second World War;

5) that a land-shortage prevailed among the citizens and other inhabitants of Cyrene in the second half of the 4th century B.C., due to population growth and perhaps to the concentration of considerable tracts in the hands of a restricted group of proprietors;

6) that the consignments of grain, under Alexander continued for a period longer than two years;

7) that part of the consignments of the Cereal Stele were derived from previous years’ crops stored in the granaries.

As to the first possibility, it finds no basis in the Ptolemaic constitution. The only clause which might suggest a city federation is that defining the area outside which the sons of mixed marriages might not obtain citizenship, but this cannot substantiate the existence of a federal organization, for the detailed arrangements of the constitution contain no regulation to ensure representation of the other cities of the country; there is here no trace of a κοινόν, and examination of the legal form of the Greek city federations of the period shows that their existence was based, not on the supremacy of one city but on equality of rights and on common institutions.[660]

The second possibility breaks down on the face of evidence furnished by the Ptolemaic constitution itself, which expresses a pronounced prejudice against craftsmen and merchants; its outlook is conservative in the spirit of Aristotle and his school, and obliges us to conclude that the ownership of land was the chief basis for guaranteeing the franchise in the regime of the ten thousand.[661] Even if this principle was not completely applied, the reality discernible in the spirit of this constitution obliges the assumption that the percentage of landed proprietors in the ten thousand was a high one.[662] Nevertheless, there is no absolute certainty that the percentage of landowners was not declining among the citizens of Cyrene, and we shall presently notice signs that this was the case.

The third possibility, that we have underestimated the grain yields of ancient times, is also unlikely. If the Italian farms could not raise their output beyond 10 hectolitres per hectare before the British occupation, we certainly cannot put the ancient Greek yields at more than 20 hectolitres in good years. This estimate can only be reduced if we enlarge the agricultural areas at the disposal of the Greek population, meaning that possibly the ancient areas of permanent cultivation have not been estimated at their true extent (Possibility 4). But we have seen that even the highest estimate, that of the Italians in 1931, amounted to no more than 220,000 has., and the survey of 1953, which assumed cultivable areas at 645,000 has., stated that 145,000 has. were fit for permanent tillage and the remainder only for shifting cultivation. The modern estimates could be enlarged by taking into account tracts today eroded of their soil-cover, but their area may well be offset by the wider previous area of woodlands which have been destroyed by indiscriminate felling and by the depredations of the goat. The seventh possibility, that part of the consignments of the Cereal Stele was derived from the crops of previous years, is the least disputable, and, indeed, highly probable. Yet it can only serve to reduce the 21,000 has. estimated to be additional to the minimum required to feed the existing Cyrenean population. It can do nothing to reduce the minimum cultivated area needed by some 85 percent, of the enfranchised 10,000 of the Ptolemaic constitution (225,000 has.).

This being the case, if we believe in the existence of, say, 8,500 landowners within the Cyrenean regime of the ten thousand, we shall be obliged to conclude that a considerable percentage of Cyrenean citizens were forced to be content with restricted plots (perhaps also divided and scattered), and with farms on inferior soil on the southern, eastern and western fringes of the Plateau. The conclusion also presents itself, that the Greek settlement area had reached its maximum expansion in this period, at the expense of the Libyan natives. In the course of this study we shall see that the Demiurgi Steles provide actual evidence of this possibility.

This situation does not, however, contradict the fifth possibility, that there was a dearth of land and that a considerable part of the Greek population of Cyrene could not find an independent livelihood. There are in fact some indications that such a situation existed at the end of the 4th century B.C. and at the beginning of the Ptolemaic period; the readiness of a large number of Cyreneans to follow Ophelias in search of new lands in Africa; the new settlement of Cyrenean citizens (who possessed incomes of 20 minae or more!) outside the city territories at Thinis; the growing emigration from Cyrene to Egypt in the 3rd century — and the possible mention of Cyreneans joining Ptolemy’s colonies, if this reference did really appear in the Ptolemaic constitution of Cyrene.[663] If there was insufficient land for elements among the possessors of 20 minae or more, the situation among the remaining disenfranchised inhabitants of Cyrene is likely to have been even worse in this respect. If this was the case, the sixth possibility, that the grain consignments lasted more than two years, might lower the extent of the cultivated area reflected, but would not alter the minimal area required for the population of Cyrene.

Another important factor may provide the key to an understanding of the situation, namely, the considerable difference between the prices of grain at Cyrene and its prices in the rest of the contemporary Greek world. A medimnus of wheat at Cyrene in the later 4th century cost 1,4/5-2,2/5 drachmas, and a medimnus of barley 1-1,2/5 drachmas; in mainland Greece the price of wheat was 3-5 drachmas the medimnus, that of barley 1.5-2.5 drachmas.[664] This difference would have induced the Cyrenean farmer to export his grain, especially his wheat, overseas. The well-to-do proprietor would have sought to expand his property in order to enlarge his profit in the export trade, and the owner of a small farm would have seen in the increased price obtainable for his grain abroad the only way to make ends meet. But the instability of the Cyrenean climate would have been apt to ruin the small man in a year of drought, if he had invested all his efforts in sowing wheat at the expense of other crops, and he possessed no reserve to support himself in a difficult year. In such a year he would have fallen into debt, and would have been forced to restrict his fallow so that his over-exploited land would in the end have passed to the wealthy estate-owner. The situation of the farmer who owned land in each of the three climatic zones of the country would have been easier, for the distribution of his land over these three regions could maintain production and export for four or five months of the year, from April to August.[665] If therefore we take into account the country’s physiography and natural conditions against the economic background of the time, we shall see that they were favourable to the owner of large estates, and were such as to bring about a concentration of lands in the hands of the wealthy, and the transformation of many of the small peasants into debtors and landless proletarians.

The timocratic regime of Cyrene in the time of Ptolemy Lagos reflects the city’s situation after the destructive war against Thimbron and the uprisings and class conflicts that took place on the appearance of the first hellenistic rulers. These struggles must have led to a fall in the population and to the ravaging of the country and in fact we may perceive in the land-shortage and pushing out of the smallholding peasant by the big proprietor, the social background of the oligarchic reaction which took place at Cyrene in the second half of the 4th century, and of the revolutionary storms which swept the state after the death of Alexander the Great.

6. Cyrenean Agriculture in the Hellenistic Period

The view has been put forward that the Ptolemies did not at first treat the land of Cyrenaica as “spear-won land”, and it is doubtful if broad acres of βασιλικὴ γῆ were immediately gathered into their hands in their earlier period. Although an agrarian problem of hardship and land shortage is reflected in the events of the latter forty years of the 4th century, these events also took toll of the Cyrenean population, and echoes are heard in the Ptolemaic constitution of estates abandoned or burnt,[666] while the settlement of Ptolemaic mercenaries on the land is mentioned.[667]

We further perhaps read (although the text is doubtful) of the withholding of the franchise from Cyrenean citizens who join Ptolemy’s colonies[668] ([αἱ] οἰκίαι Πτολεμαϊκαί). New settlement schemes initiated by the sovereigns existed in all the Ptolemaic dominions, part of the land being allotted to serving soldiers or veterans (κληροῦχοι, κάτοικοι).[669] Most of the information on such settlement schemes in the Ptolemaic empire, indeed, begins in the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his successors,[670] but such projects would have been needed in Cyrenaica to repopulate deserted tracts and to strengthen Ptolemy’s control of the territory, a function also fulfilled there, on Josephus’ evidence, by Jewish settlers.[671] The areas made available to these new elements, by political confiscation or the death of their owners, would have constituted the first nuclei of the royal lands (βασιλικὴ γη) which were to assume wide dimensions in the course of time.

Available material is not such as to enable us to date certain important changes in the tenurial situation whose influence is discernible in Cyrenaica at the end of the hellenistic period. In the year 155, Euergetes II regarded the entire country as legally his own, as we have seen, and by the end of Ptolemaic rule the royal domains had become very extensive, for they were converted by the Romans to ager publicus populi Romani on the death of his son Apion in 96 B.C. Part of these tracts can be identified from literary sources, by archaeological observation, or by means of Roman boundary-stones such as have been found at various points near Cyrene,[672] at ‛Ein Targuna,[673] and at Marazig:[674] an area northwest of Safsaf, divided by a centurial grid, corresponds to the description of Hyginus,[675] which reports the division of Apion’s estates (agri Apionis) by this method. Not far to the east of this area occurs the name Hirbet Maga,[676] which supports the evidence for the existence of royal property in that district. Another such tract is indicated, apparently near al-Gubba- where air photographs reveal fields divided by the chessboard method of centuriation.[677] Other tracts of state land, probably to be located near Ptolemais,[678] were divided up by Roman surveying methods; Kraeling interpreted a boundary-stone west of the city in the same way.[679] More complicated is the question, whether the boundary-stones found near the walls of Cyrene also relate to Ptolemaic royal lands.[680] The payment of silphium as tribute to Rome[681] after the “liberation” of the country’s cities in 96 B.C., before the country became a Roman province (74 B.C.), has been taken to show that the silphium areas of southern Cyrenaica also became ager publicus, and had therefore been crown land before that, whence it is to be deduced that the plant had passed into the hands of the Ptolemies as a royal monopoly, its areas being regarded juridically as βασιλικὴ γή. Badian[682] does not think the silphium sent to Rome was tribute, but a normal purchase, yet does seem to admit that the silphium fields were state land in 73.[683] It would be entirely reasonable to expect that the first Ptolemies should appropriate this lucrative area for their revenue. Hyginus writes that Apion’s domains were divided by the Roman surveyors into units called plinthides, each of 6,000 foot-side and an area of 1,250 iugera.[684] These units are six times as large as those usual in measured tracts of the Roman Empire, hence it may be supposed that the dimensions of the agri Apionis were very large indeed, occupying no inconsiderable part of the entire country.[685] A second-century B.C. inscription from Cyrene, recording an edict of Ptolemy Neoteros Euergetes II or Ptolemy X Soter II,[686] mentions ownerless lands escheated to the government (ἀδέσποτα), so providing one instance of how the landed property of the monarchs expanded during the period. Another fragmentary inscription, published by Fraser,[687] refers to farmlands allotted to cover the expenses of the royal cult at Cyrene. A further interesting phenomenon is the location of a bloc of royal land near Safsaf, in an area which had been part of the territory of Cyrene in the 4th century according to Pseudo-Scylax.[688] This infringement of the city’s boundaries meant the restriction or division of Cyrene’s immense city land, and perhaps we should connect this with the establishment of Apollonia as an independent city. The objective necessity of such a reform will easily be understood in view of the disproportion between the territory of Cyrene (as revealed in papyrological statistics) and the territories of the remaining cities of Cyrenaica. If Heichelheim’s conclusion was correct these changes were carried out before the middle of the 3rd century B.C.

The Jewish inscription from Berenice,[689] recording the despatch of Sextus Tittius to the country “on public affairs” (ἐπὶ δημοσίων πραγμάτων), has been interpreted to indicate the proximity of public land to the city (see below, p. 170).

The existence of royal land in the form of plots leased for rent (γἢ ἐν ἀφέσει) is shown by the settlement of cleruchs. We shall see later that Ngharnes, east of Cyrene, was settled by such, and Rostovtzeff[690] held that the royal edict of the 2nd century B.C. found at Cyrene (above), related to landholders of this category. The inscriptions of Teucheira, most of which belong to the 1st century B.C., contain much evidence for the immigration of new settlers to the country, among those who record their origin being settlers from Didyma, Thrace, Egypt, Judaea, Demetrias (Thessaly?), Aksine (Sicily), Nysa and Bithynia. To the same period of immigration belongs the establishment of the Jewish community shown by the Teucheira epitaphs (see Ch. IV). Reasons will later be seen for thinking that this community began as a group of military settlers colonized by the government, and the places of origin of part of the non-Jewish settlers (Thrace, Thessaly, Bithynia) favour the supposition, since they were among the undeveloped countries from which mercenaries were frequently recruited in this period.

We have evidence, albeit indirect, for the relations of the Ptolemies with the temple estates of Cyrene. The Demiurgi steles testify to the existence of these estates in the period concerned, and Apollo’s revenues (οἱ τοῦ Ἀπολλώνος πρόσοδοι) are known in the Roman period, hence it is certain that they remained a unit in the Ptolemaic period as well. Their perpetuation is further indicated by the settlement of Ἀρτάμιτις κώμη recorded in the 2nd century A.D.,[691] but it is an important fact that both Magas and Euergetes II officiated as priests of Apollo,[692] and the desire to control the temple estates and revenues, or at least to introduce reforms in their administration, accords excellently with the wide organizational activities of Magas and with the aggressive and covetous character of Euergetes II. The political importance of the priesthood of Apollo has already been noted.[693] The steles of the Demiurgi, who were in charge of the revenues, at least part of which came from the estates in question, cease in the 2nd century B.C., while the absence of any later records and the silence of the Roman period on the subject, suggest that an important change had taken place in their administration. An examination of the steles which belong to the hellenistic period also reveals various hints of technical changes, probably introduced under royal supervision; these will be discussed below. Actual royal control of the temple property is disclosed in the edict of the 2nd century B.C.[694] in which the king orders the priests to draw from the temple revenues (πρόσοδοι) for the expenses of the royal cult; the creation of the cult of Arsinoe II in Egypt enabled the later Ptolemies to draw considerable sums from the temple revenues and to use the balance left over as they saw fit[695] after the holding of the cult ceremonies.

There is no reason to believe, however, that private estates ceased to exist in the country under Ptolemaic rule; on general considerations the Ptolemies inclined to make grants of large areas (δωρεαί) to individuals, in order to encourage agricultural experimentation and improvement such as small owners could not afford to carry out.[696] The name of Arimmas has already been cited as evidence for the estates of a prominent Cyrenean family between the 4th and 1st centuries B.C. The citizen body established by Ptolemy was apparently based for the most part on the large and medium landowners, and in 16 B.C. Barkaios son of Theochrestos left lands to Apollo and other deities.[697] The fine funerary monuments of Messa and a-Zawani point to the existence of well-to-do landowners in the hellenistic period, and the cleruchs who set up similar monuments near their village at Ngharnes can have differed little from them.

In Chapter II we have traced the fortunes of the native Libyans, and concluded that a strict administrative and legal barrier grew up between them and the citizens living in the cities and their territories. The Libyans, indeed, were ruled by a distinct governor, and according to Strabo in the 1st century B.C. were classed among the inhabitants of Cyrene not possessed of citizen rights. The conclusion appears justified that those not resident on the Greek lands as tenants and labourers were mainly concentrated in the southern region, and it is to be supposed that they engaged in shifting and seasonal agriculture on lands regarded juridically as state land, i.e. βασιλικὴ γη. It is nevertheless hard to believe that these wandering elements, who moved northward in summer and southward in winter, performed the functions of “royal peasants” (βασιλικοὶ γεωργοί) on the contemporary Egyptian model, yet there is no doubt (to judge by Strabo) that they included permanent agricultural workers near the territorial boundaries of Cyrene and the other cities, and these doubtless belonged to the class of “royal cultivators” and worked under the conditions characteristic of their class.

The representation of a plough appears on two coin types of Cyrene in the Ptolemaic period, the first[698] of the years 322-308 (Ptolemy Lagos), and the second in the reign of Magas.[699] The identification on the first is not completely certain, but no doubt attaches to that of the second. It is not beyond possibility that this is more than an arbitrary adjunct, and rather reflects Magas’ drive to revive and improve the agriculture of his kingdom. The actual type of plough represented is interesting; it possesses a stout horizontal share beam, into whose upper face the stilt and plough-beam are inserted as two distinct parts. The stilt is almost vertical, and a horizontal grip projects from its rear side near the head. The plough-beam rises obliquely from the share-beam and turns parallel to it through a rightangle. The position of the horizontal share-beam shows that this is not an implement for deep ploughing, nor can it be determined if the share was of iron, but the plough today used by the Beduin in the Tripolitanian steppe[700] resembles it in every detail: it has the same horizontal share-beam, the same vertical stilt with horizontal grip; its share is made of iron. It is therefore evident that the coins represent a steppe-plough, and it would seem likely that the figure reflects an interest in the cultivation of the southern fringes of the plateau. This interpretation may well find confirmation in the appearance of a corn-ear as an adjunct on contemporary coins bearing the form of the silphium plant.[701]

The Demiurgi steles of this period reveal interesting innovations from which relevant information can be derived.[702] The first striking change is, that the prices of agricultural produce are now fixed twice yearly instead of once, this being clearly proved by the division of the face of each stele into two parallel columns, headed respectively by the words πράτη ἐξαμήνις and δευτέρα ἐξαμήνις viz. the first and second half of the year, each half repeating exactly (in so far as restoration is possible) the items of the other. It would be possible to suppose that this change was required by the more extreme fluctuations in prices which became frequent in the 3rd century B.C. The great influence of these fluctuations in Cyrene is made clear by the steles themselves, and Cyrenaica was affected by the same general rise in prices which prevailed over the rest of the Greek world. Cyrene, which till then had generally enjoyed relative economic stability and prices lower than those of mainland Greece, now became part of the wider Greek economy whose unity had been promoted and in a measure achieved by Alexander’s empire. Cyrene’s prices now begin to fluctuate, and do not differ in some cases from other prices in the eastern Mediterranean. Nevertheless, owing to the mutilated state of the steles, we know only two instances (cummin, no. 40; legumes no. 41) of price-changes — in these cases rises — from one price-fixing to the next. Was there therefore some other reason for a second fixing of prices in the latter half of the year?

The first solution that suggests itself is that an annual two-crop course had been adopted. This innovation would explain why wheat, barley, fruit and legumes are recorded on both halves of the steles. But the appearance of legumes and vegetables ready for sale at the end of summer could also be the result of an increase in irrigated areas. Before we accept this solution, it would be well to enquire, when the Cyrenean year began, and when it ended.

It would be natural to assume that the calendar accepted at Cyrene would be the Dorian, as at Sparta, Elis, Argos, Delphi and in other Dorian states.[703] Loios (Λῶιος), the tenth month of the Dorian year, is in fact mentioned in the testament of Euergetes II,[704] but other hellenistic documents at Cyrene use the Egyptian calendar (e.g. the Ptolemaic constitution and numerous epitaphs). The royal edicts in the middle of the 2nd century cite both the Dorian (Γορπαῖος) and the Egyptian month (§ ii, lines 27-28), while § ii, 1.13 dates by the month of Theudaisios (Θευδαισιός). This month derives from a calendar known also at Lato in Crete, at Cos, Mitylene and Rhodes; its year began in September. The Ptolemaic year likewise began in the autumn, in 300 B.C. in November, in 200 B.C. in October.[705] The Dorian year too opened at the autumn equinox.[706]

A first fixing of prices in October and a second in April would indeed have been appropriate to the agricultural reality of the country. In October all the plateau crops had been harvested, the latest being gathered in August and September. But the harvest in the southern plateau began in April, on the plateau itself in May. Thus the April price-fixing marked the first month of harvest in the plain and the southern plateau; the October price-fixing relates to the crops got in between May and October, mainly on the plateau. The April price-fixing corresponds, in short, to the beginning of the harvest season, and the September fixing to its end. The introduction of a fixing of prices twice a year does not itself prove the introduction of summer-cropping in the hellenistic period, or a use of the three-course system associated with it; but it does tell us that the temple estates which form the subject of the Demiurgi steles had now been extended to the southern fringes of the Jebel.

The steles of this period further contain another innovation which is bound up with the same question, namely, the more detailed listing of the legumes. Down to the 3rd century B.C. only όσπρια are mentioned. From the beginning of that century, pulse, beans, lentils and other legumes (ἀλλα όσπρια) appear.[707] It would seem that the legumes had become more numerous and of greater variety. This phenomenon is susceptible to two interpretations: it indicates either an extension of cultivated areas, or a restriction of “dead” fallow. There is no support for the assumption that the cultivated areas were capable of continuous expansion. The two 2nd-century steles which we possess show a steep decline in yearly income,[708] although this may have been the result of temporary climatic, social or economic causes. It is more probable on general grounds, and in the light of the contemporary evidence in Egypt and Greece, that the greater detail in which legumes are listed points to closer attention to rotations and that half the arable, instead of being divided into “dead” and “green” fallow, was now wholly devoted to green crops.[709] According to the lease-contracts of Sunium and Dyaleis in the 4th century B.C., not more than half the plot was sown to grain, but in Egyptian farms at the end of the 2nd century B.C., we find that half the plot is fallowed every third year, and a third in the intervening years.[710] However, the three-course system does not necessarily mean that summer-sown crops were grown. A possible interpretation is that a third of the arable received grain in the autumns of two successive years, a mere summer fallow intervening between the two crops, since summer sowings did not do well over most of Cyrenaica. Such were possible, as we have seen, on the Plateau, although there the harvest was as late as August, hence summer sowing was not essential unless additional ground was available. It should nevertheless be recalled that the earlier Ptolemies conducted experiments in quickly ripening summer crops of wheat,[711] and the sowing of such seems to have spread at the end of the 2nd century B.C.[712] The said evidence relates to Egypt, where grain growing was assisted by Nile-irrigation, but the wheat referred to came from Syria.[713]

Several other indications are to be found of the desire of the Ptolemies to improve the agriculture of the Cyrenean temple estates. One is the appearance of garlic among the plants recorded on the steles of the hellenistic period.[714] Attempts to improve this plant were made in the Fayyum in the 3rd century B.C., by introducing external varieties from the south and from Greece,[715] and garlic from Tlos was then being sown in Fayyum on stony ground.[716] This information suggests that the introduction of this crop on Cyrenean temple lands was the result of governmental initiative and designed to enable the exploitation of hitherto uncultivated tracts, in conformity with the desire to expand cultivated areas.[717]

The following data may now be assembled:

1) The agriculture reflected in the Demiurgi steles shows the extension of cultivation to the southern Jebel, an intensification of the growing of legumes, and experimentation with the utilization of uncultivated tracts.

2) In the 3rd century B.C. a change takes place from annual to semi-annual price-fixing. It is further known that King Magas held the post of high priest to Apollo.

3) An alteration of the system of numerals used on the Demiurgi steles took place at the end of the 3rd century.[718]

4) Euergetes II (161-116 B.C.) officiated as high priest of Apollo.

5) In 155 Euergetes included as a clause in his agreement with his brother Philometor, the obtaining of a yearly consignment of grain from Egypt.[719]

6) The edict of Euergetes II or Ptolemy X Soter II[720] evidences royal control of the revenues of Apollo at Cyrene.

It may be concluded from these data; a) that an intensification of the economy was being promoted by royal initiative; b) that there was increasing royal control over the temple-estates; c) that the kings took over their administration in the 2nd century; d) that the country’s agriculture reveals symptoms of decline, despite the above intensification, on the evidence of Clause 5, which informs us of the agreement to furnish Egyptian grain to Cyrene. How is the conjunction of these four items to be explained?

The evidence for the improvements made in Cyrenean agriculture, as a result of royal interference, fits well with our suggested interpretation of the plough figured on the coins of Magas, and perhaps on those of Ptolemy I. It may also be remarked that all these phenomena find analogies in contemporary Egypt, where the intensification and improvement of agricultural exploitation was carried out by the Ptolemies by statistic methods. But this state policy was increasingly infringed and weakened as time went on by concessions to private enterprise (the temples; land-grants to individuals; private ownership; hereditary cleruchic tenure; emphyteutic leases), and by the growing opposition of the masses, resulting in the abandonment of lands and economic decline. There is little doubt that the general factors which caused difficulties in the Egyptian economy from the end of the 3rd century onward, also affected Cyrenaica. The general contraction of the mainland Greek markets between 200-150 B.C.,[721] loss of the Syrian caravan-route after the conquest of Palestine by Antiochus III (c. 200 B.C.), the interruption to the Sudanese trade route caused by disorders in Upper Egypt (206-185 B.C.), the rise of Rhodes as a dominating commercial power in the Aegean, the loss of the Ptolemaic colonies in the same area (246/5 B.C.), and the interruptions to the western Mediterranean markets caused by the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) — not to mention the impairment of security in the Aegean by the spread of piracy[722] — would have affected Cyrenaica as much as they affected Egypt, both directly and by diminishing the revenues of the Ptolemies and so increasing the weight of internal taxation. On the other hand the price records that have reached us do not confirm the view that the 2nd-century inflation of the Ptolemaic currency affected Cyrenaica, although our evidence on the question is inadequate. As to the grain-trade, African wheat appeared on the market after the Second Punic War and began to compete in the eastern Mediterranean zone.[723] In the 2nd century, Pergamum, Bithynia and Pontus also developed as grain-growers.[724] All these factors combined to add to the pressure of taxation in Egypt and to intensify the struggle between bureaucracy and subject. The antinomy between etatism and the private economy grew sharper, clashes grew more frequent between the Greek rulers and the Egyptian peasantry, and as a result came the abandonment of lands, the impoverishment of the population, a decline of production and further economic disintegration.

A temporary turn for the better occurred in the economy of the Aegean area after 170 B.C., while between 155 and 145 Cyrenaica was separated from Egypt, remaining under Euergetes II, and this may have saved the country from the full burden of impositions to which it had been formerly, and was to be subsequently, subject. Yet precisely in 162 Cyrene is found in a state of revolt, and Euergetes’ arrangement to obtain consignments of wheat from Egypt was made in the year 155.

Do these factors find expression in the prices of the Demiurgi steles, and if they do, in what form? The recorded prices reveal several fluctuations during the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.: wheat varies between 8; 5; 2. 2/6 and 3. 1/6 dr.; barley between 16; 2; 2.4/6 and 1.4/6 dr.; pulse between 12; 5; 5 7.2/6 and 3 dr. The prices on nos. 31 and 34 (3rd century) and on 35 (end of the 3rd century?) are all unusually high (wheat — 8 dr.; hay 40 dr.; cummin and raisins, 20 dr.). The prices tend to fall after 170 B.C., to judge from nos. 38 and 42, in harmony with the general improvement in the contemporary Greek world. It may be that Euergetes II, who was both unscrupulous and able, took steps to amend the economic situation by taking over the management of the temple estates. In the 3rd century, at all events, Cyrenean wheat was being sold at prices like those current in mainland Greece. Between 270 and 170 wheat prices were at first lower than those of Greece (no. 40), then fell considerably (no. 31 — 2.2 dr.), approximating to those in Egypt (1-2 dr. the artaba = 1.1/4-2 1/2 dr. the medimmus). This phenomenon reflects the general decline of grain prices which took place after 270 B.C.;[725] Cyrenean prices seem to have been depressed by the steady rise of Egyptian production and by the competition of other countries overseas. Barley prices fluctuate less throughout the period and approximate closely to those of Greece, indicating that they were less prone to be influenced by temporary market conditions, meteorological variations, and the fluctuations of the international market. Notwithstanding, the price soars to 16 dr. at the end of the 3rd century or at the beginning of the 2nd (no. 35) in an exceptional year. As to olive oil, although our evidence is limited, it should be noted (nos. 38, 40), that the oil marketed stood at the same nominal price as in the 4th century B.C., implying that its real price had fallen by fifty percent. The Ptolemies had developed oil production in Egypt as a state monopoly by every means in their power, and imposed an excise of 50 percent, on the imported product, even when brought from their own overseas dominions;[726] the reason for the fall of the price of Cyrenean olive oil is therefore clear.[727]

As has been observed, Cyrenean wheat production seems to have been adversely affected by external competition in the 3rd and at the beginning of the 2nd century, and in 155 B.C. Euergetes was forced to demand wheat from Egypt. Cyrenean wheat rose in price after 170, yet the stability of the prices of barley and oil throughout the period shows that the position of Cyrenean agriculture had not been seriously impaired before the beginning of the 2nd century; it was apparently the wheat export that was the chief sufferer. Why then did Euergetes need wheat from abroad?

It has already been suggested that the upsetting of the balance between the livestock branch and arable farming in the Plateau and steppe areas was apt to bring about social conflict, insecurity, and a decline in the fertility of both branches. It may be accepted that the silphium-growing areas passed into the hands of the Ptolemies as royal property, a view that finds support from the information[728] that the product was being smuggled out of the country by the inhabitants of Charax (Χάραξ) on the shore of the Syrtic Gulf, which suggests a strict state supervision of its export. The silphium areas had shrunk as time went on, probably due to the expansion and intensification of agriculture in the territory. This restriction is deducible from the ancient sources, for while Herodotus[729] knew its area was identical with the greater part of the country, and Theophrastus reports that it flourished in the greater part of Libya,[730] — Strabo[731] places its region as a distance of 200 stades (25 miles) from the sea, Pliny,[732] south of the cultivated zone, Arrian[733] and Ptolemy,[734] on the fringes of the desert. Most interesting is the difference between the indications of Theophrastus and Strabo. The retreat of the plant to the edges of the desert, then, took place mainly between the late 4th and the 1st centuries B.C., i.e. in the period when Cyrenean agriculture was being intensified and the cultivated areas extended over the Plateau and southward. Bonacelli[735] noted that Theophrastus[736] described a plant (ἀβρότονον) which was fed on by the flocks in the silphium area; this he identified as Artemisia herba alba (wormwood). This plant’s northern limit of growth is the meeting point of the terra rossa with the reddish yellow soils of the southern plateau slopes, but this does not necessarily contradict Theophrastus’ statement[737] that silphium grew on the greater part of the country, since he writes in the same place that silphium “is absent from the mountain in spring and winter.” The silphium, in point of fact, flowered in winter,[738] when the flocks were grazing the steppe, and Arrian tells us that it needed fencing to protect it from the sheep;[739] moreover Theophrastus himself evidences that the sheep grazed the silphium zone in that season.[740] Accordingly we are forced to conclude from Theophrastus, that the plant flourished chiefly in the south of Cyrenaica in his day. Its limitation to the south and the expansion of the royal lands in this direction were found to restrict the winter pasture of the Libyan tribes, especially when the plant’s areas diminished and needed stricter protection. Capelle, following other scholars,[741] has indeed pointed out that the report of Strabo and Solinus[742] that the Berber nomads uprooted the plant out of hostility and owing to oppressive taxation, is not later than c. 200 B.C., being derived from Eratosthenes.

Other factors may have contributed to the contraction of pasture areas. It is reasonable to think that the Ptolemies conducted the horserearing branch as a royal monopoly. Real evidence for this conjecture with regard to Cyrenaica is not abundant: Rostovtzeff, who voices it three times,[743] finally confesses that “We may think that they (sc. the Ptolemies) had large horse-studs in Cyrenaica.

But this is no more than a guess”. Yet one document is such as to strengthen the belief, namely, a dedication by Stolos son of Theon to Ptolemy Soter II at Cyrene in the year 115 B.C.[744] Stolos, an associate of the sovereign and one of his “first friends” (τῶν πρώτων φίλων), is here termed “in charge of the horses” (ἐπὶ τῶν ήνιῶν), and this office is probably no mere title. Fraser[745] remarked that it is recorded only in the present case, and was bestowed on its bearer in Cyrenaica itself. The horse-breeding branch would have required the supervision of the appropriate grazing areas, chiefly in the Plain of Barka, and also the levying of contributions from the growers of sown fodder grass, especially if the branch was intensified and improved by the Lagids in the manner characteristically theirs. As the natural conditions for the large-scale breeding of horses within the Ptolemaic Empire were to be found preponderantly in Cyrenaica, the probability of such having been carried on there under the later Ptolemies, especially after the loss of Southern Syria in 200 B.C., is very great. The pasture-areas as a whole may also have constituted an object of taxation in this period; indirect evidence is to be found for this in Solinus’ information[746] that the Libyans destroyed the silphium owing to overtaxation, and the tax involved in these areas could only have been the hellenistic ἐννομίον.[747]

The representation of the plough that appears on the coins of Magas points also to the intensified and extended exploitation of the of the southern plateau for corn-growing in this epoch, and this evidence fits the reports of Solinus and Strabo concerning the Libyans’ destruction of the silphium. We have already seen that the temple estates of Cyrene extended to the same region under the Ptolemies. The sowing of garlic also indicates the extension of cultivation to stonier terrains, and the enlargement of the areas devoted to legumes and green fodders in the arable regions of the Plateau would have restricted still further the grazing available to cattle and sheep in the summer season, when the livestock concentrated on that area.[748] The growing of saffron, known to us as a summer crop in Cyrene and as a royal monopoly in Egypt,[749] would also have been an object of intensification under Ptolemaic rule.

The factors thus described, taken together, may well explain the Libyan ferment in the reign of Euergetes II and the general social unrest — presumably partly agrarian — expressed in the royal edict of that sovereign or of Soter II already referred to. The restriction of the pasture areas of the Libyan nomads was apt to cause collisions and to hinder the winter movement of the flocks from the plateau southward, also leading to a general fall in cereal yields by depriving the fields of their manure and so impairing the condition of the livestock. This situation had evidently begun even before 200, when the Libyans tore up the silphium, and might explain the rise of wheat-prices and wheat-shortages after 170. A consequence could have been the extension of wheat-growing areas on the Plateau, and the sowing of early barley to replace the southern crops; such action, however, would have restricted the pasture areas still more; the alternative was the overworking and exhaustion of the soil.

If we consider the above agrarian situation in the light of the general difficulties with which Egypt was struggling in the same period, or if we recall the influence of Massinissa’s kingdom on the west, as well as the revival of Egyptian nationalism on the east — we shall be approaching a comprehensive explanation of the decline of Cyrenaica at the end of the hellenistic age. In brief, the Ptolemaic policy of agricultural intensification had contradicted itself: it had exceeded the capacity of the country as defined by its peculiar conditions, and had generated a reaction. This reaction arose from overpopulation, and probably from a decline of fertility due to the upsetting of the balance between the livestock branch and arable farming. Cyrenean emigration to Egypt had indeed fallen off in the 2nd century,[750] but this is to be explained, not by an improved situation in Cyrenaica itself, but by the situation in Egypt, which had now ceased to absorb newcomers.

7. Trade and Handicrafts

The Cyrenean economy was based, like all the economies of the ancient world, primarily on agriculture. But how did the population supply its non-agricultural needs, composed chiefly of metal products, pottery and the like? To what extent were they furnished by imports, and how far could Cyrene produce them at home?

From the beginning of the colonization imported pottery evidences trade connections with Rhodes, the Cyclades, Ionian Greece, Crete, Chios and Attica, while stray finds suggest contacts with areas as far afield as Syria, Palestine and even Babylonia. Generally throughout the late 7th and 6th centuries the imports from the Cyclades and Rhodes pre-dominate, but Attic blackware becomes common from about 550, and blackware bowls are numerous during the 5th and 4th centuries. Attic fishplates appear between 320 and 290. During this period local, somewhat coarser wares prevail, but imports continue; “Megarian” and hellenistic Pergamene come in after the 4th century. As connections with the western Mediterranean become closer in the course of the last three centuries before the common era, Arretine, South Gaulish terra sigillata, and Roman (but also Asiatic), Pergamene are found, and in the 2nd century, Trajanic and Hadrianic terra sigillata from Greece, Italy and Alexandria enters the Cyrenean market.[751] Marble from Thasos arrived at Cyrene as early as in the 7th century.[752] The city’s first silver coinage (c. 560 B.C.) imitates the Athenian, and by adopting the monetary standard of Solon Cyrene was able to strengthen her commercial ties whith the Greek centres of the west and the Corinthian market. Her attachment to the eastern Aegean nevertheless persists, and its influence is again perceptible in the city coinage in about 525.[753] Oliverio[754] considered that Cyrene’s system of weights and measures, as reflected in the Demiurgi steles, was introduced in the 6th century, during the second wave of immigration initiated by Battus II: he based this conclusion on the similarity of the Cyrenean system to the systems of the Peloponnese, more especially to those of Argolis and Arcadia. But Oliverio also weighed the possibility that the Cyrenean system was introduced under Battus III, as part of the constitutional and economic reforms of Demonax of Mantineia,[755] which aimed at adapting to a new commercial role a state hitherto based on a predominantly agricultural economy. It should however be observed that the decimal system associated with the steles of the Demiurgi is not reflected in the city’s coinage before about 430.[756]

At the end of the 5th century the finds in the Temple of Artemis evidence increased imports from Egypt,[757] and Cyrenean coins are numerous in that country.[758] Their distribution is also considerable in other lands, more particularly in Crete, during the 5th century. The abundance of Cyrene’s coins and of other metal finds poses the problem, what was the source of the country’s metals?

Cyrenaica’s only mineral is salt, produced chiefly along her north-western shore in the salt-lagoons near Bengazi; in the south of the country rock salt exists[759] and salammoniac is found in the Oasis of Ammon, whence it was traded into Egypt[760] and perhaps to Cyrene. Despite the absence of other minerals in his kingdom, Arkesilaos III could send Cambyses 500 minae of silver,[761] and Cyrene could import marble and various other products. Iron was present in Crete and the Peloponnese, nor are Cyrene’s trade relations with those lands in doubt; the commonness of her coins in Crete may be explicable by the purchase of iron. The nearest source of copper was Cyprus, contacts with which may be indicated by the flight of Pheretime to the island. Cyrene’s close contacts with Lycia, as reflected by Lycian coinage in the years 450-430,[762] are likely to have been based on the import of her silver into Libya. Egypt doubtless was the primary source of Cyrene’s gold; the problem of whether the city got gold directly from central Africa has been examined, and relates to the same period, since her gold currency does not begin before the 5th century.

It is not easy to find an answer to the question, how Cyrene paid for her imports and what she produced at home. There has been little study of the local finds of coins derived from other Greek centres, hence we cannot utilize them to assess the scale of the country’s exports to them.

At the end of the 7th century nevertheless, Cyrenean potters were copying proto-Corinthian wares and also Attic blackware.[763] By the 5th century she was using her own pottery which was somewhat coarser than the imported wares. On the other hand the famous kylix of Arkesilaos II, manifesting a close acquaintance with Cyrene, was made in Laconia.[764] Finds of amber in the archaic Temple of Apollo hint at trade-contacts with Northern Europe and of exports in that direction; Cyrene sent grain to IIIyria in the reign of Alexander the Great,[765] and Flavius Josephus saw a Cyrenean ship in the Adriatic in the 1st century A.D.[766] Numerous 4th-century Cathaginian coins found in Cyrene point to trade in the Syrtic region. The quantity of local coinage struck from imported metals proves that the country’s exports were considerable, and it may be noted that Cyrene enjoyed an advantage over Attica and many other Greek mainland cities, in that she needed no corn from overseas, and disposed of sufficient timber.[767] For this reason, she could devote her exports to paying for Greek goods such as metals and other craft-products. If this was the case, a certain slowness in the development of her own local industries would be probable, and might explain why no Cyrenean school of exportable painted pottery or other craft product is known. Much glazed table-pottery reached the country both from the eastern and the western Mediterranean in the hellenistic and Roman periods; the imported terra sigillata found in the “Palace of Columns” at Ptolemais lasts to the end of the 2nd century at least.[768] On the other hand owners of pottery kilns are mentioned in the Ptolemaic constitution,[769] and Vatican Papyrus no. 11, of the late 2nd century A.D., informs us of brick kilns in two localities of the Martuba district in the east of the country.[770] At least one type of lamp manufactured locally is known.[771] and its probable centre of manufacture was found by Wright at Teucheira.[772]

In view of all this, it would appear that most of Cyrene’s exports consisted of agricultural produce: wheat, silphium, wool, hides,[773] perfumes,[774] the wood of the thuon,[775] olives, dates, honey, vegetables,[776] horses, donkeys and mules. How far these were supplemented by luxury goods arriving from Central Africa along the Saharah caravan routes, depends on a solution of the general problem which these routes present. Yet in the absence of information concerning the export of craft products (excepting, probably, sealstones),[777] we are bound to ask whether Cyrene could have attained the level of wealth attributed to her by Plato and others,[778] unless she had possessed a share of the export trade in such goods from Central Africa.