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² There is a long-standing debate among anthropologists concerning the formalist versus substantivist argument. For an introduction to the problem, see: Firth, R. (ed.), Themes in Economic Anthropology (New York 1967)Google Scholar; Sahlins, M., Stone Age Economics (New York 1974) xi–xivGoogle Scholar; Cook, S., ‘Structural Substantivism: A Critical Review of Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economies’, Comp. Studies in Society and History, 16 (1974) 355–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dupré, G. and Rey, P.-P., ‘Reflections on the Pertinence of a Theory of the History of Exchange’, reprinted in Wolpe, H. (ed.), The Articulation of Modes of Production (London 1980) 128–61.Google Scholar

³ Kraay, C., ‘The Archaic Owls of Athens: Classification and Chronology’, NC, 6th series, 15 (1956) 65–6Google Scholar; ‘The Asyut Hoard: some comments on Chronology’, NC, 7th series, 17 (1977) 198; Wallace, W. P., ‘The Early Coinages of Athens and Euboea’, NC, 7th series, 2 (1962) 23Google Scholar; Price, M. and Waggoner, N., Archaic Greek Coinage: The Asyut Hoard (London 1975) 122.Google Scholar By non-monetary I mean that there was no coinage. There seems to have been a type of value standard—cattle -but the basis of the standard did not form part of the exchange (Finley, M. I., The World of Odysseus (London 1977 ²) 67–8)Google Scholar; the two objects being exchanged have a use-value to each of the individuals. With the introduction of metallic coinage, an object with use-value is exchanged for one with only an exchange-value. This will alter the relationship behind the exchange. (K. Marx, Capital i reprinted in McLellan, D., Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford 1974) 443–5.)Google Scholar

⁴ Works 349–51.

⁵ 357–8.

⁶ Evans-Pritchard, E. E., The Nuer (Oxford 1940) 85Google Scholar; Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., The Andaman Islanders (Glencoe 1948) 43.Google Scholar These are intended only as parallels of how reciprocity is viewed in other rank/order societies.

⁷ Plut. Solon 2. 1, 3. 1.

⁸ Op. cit. 191 6; Tribesmen (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968) 82–3; against: MacCormack, G., ‘Reciprocity’, Man 11 (1976) 89–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for: Schwimmer, E., ‘Reciprocity and Structure: A Semiotic Analysis of Some Orokaiva Exchange Data’, Man 14 (1979) 271–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Woodhouse, W. G., Solon the Liberator (Oxford 1938) 47Google Scholar; Hammond, N. G. L., ‘Land Tenure in Athens and Solon's Seisachtheia’, JHS 81 (1961) 76–99.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Works 355.

¹¹ Finley, M. I., ‘The Alienability of Land in Ancient Greece: a point of view’ Eirene 7 (1968) 25 32.Google Scholar

¹² J. V. A. Fine, Horoi. Studies in Mortgage, Real Security, and Land Tenure in Ancient Athens (Hesperia Supp. 9, 1951); Finley, M. I., Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens, 500–200 B.C. The Horos Inscriptions (New Brunswick, N.J., 1951).Google Scholar

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¹⁴ Meiggs and Lewis, GHI 14; SEG III. 73, b/c.

¹⁵ Finley, Land and Credit 28–9.

¹⁶ Levy, H. L., ‘Inheritance and Dowry in classical Athens’, in Pitt-Rivers, J. A. (ed.), Mediterranean Countrymen (Westport, Conn. 1972 ²) 139Google Scholar; Walcot, P., Greek Peasants, Ancient and Modern (Manchester 1970) 14.Google Scholar

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²⁰ De R.R. 2. 4. 6. His advice is quite correct, as the ploughing of too wet soil will lead to water-logging and a collapse of the pore structure, or ‘jamming’; ploughing too dry soil will breakdown the soil aggregates and will be conducive to leaching when the rains do come.

²¹ Works 573 5.

²² Works 596–600.

²³ Works 462 4.

²⁴ Works 606 7.

²⁵ De R.R. 2. 10. 25; Nat. Hist. 18. 146.

²⁶ Works 607.

²⁷ Oikonomikos 16. 14–15.

²⁸ De R.R. 1. 44. 2–3; De R.R.2. 17. 4.

²⁹ Nat. Hist.18. 187.

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³³ Snodgrass, A. M., Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State. An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge 1977) 13Google Scholar; Archaic Greece (London 1980) 22–4.

³⁴ Bintlift, J. L., Natural Environment and Human Settlement in Prehistoric Greece (BAR Supp. 28, 1977), 259–61.Google Scholar

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³⁶ Camp, J. McK. II, ‘A Drought in the Late Eighth Century B.C.’, Hesperia 48 (1979) 397–411Google Scholar, has come to a very different conclusion. Using a number of wells that went out of use in the Agora as his starting-point he constructs an elaborate argument that Athens was struck by a devastating drought, famine, and plague. His argument fails to convince. For one thing, wells may go out of use for a number of reasons: social (the area in which they were located changed function) or geological (the underlying impermeable layer developed a fissure). Further more, the length of the drought he argues for would be one of the longest ever supposed. It would be very surprising, then, that it is never mentioned. In addition, the only reference to plague in this period is a very suspect passage in Plutarch (Moralia, 773 AB) which refers to Corinth. On the whole, Camp's argument has little to recommend it.

³⁷ Op. cit. n. 33, 13, 15.

³⁸ Boserup, op. cit. 41.

³⁹ Brookfield, H. C., ‘Intensification and Disintensification in Pacific Agriculture: A Theoretical Approach’, Pacific Viewpoint 13 (1972) 30–48Google Scholar; Whartonjr, C. R.., ‘Subsistence Agriculture: Concept and Scope’, in Wharton, (ed.), Subsistence Agriculture and Economic Development (Chicago 1965) 13Google Scholar; Datoo, Bashir A., ‘Relationship between Population Density and Agricultural Systems in the Uluguru Mountains Tanzania’, Journal of Tropical Geography 41 (1976) 1–112Google Scholar; Grigg, D. B., ‘Population Pressure and Agricultural Change’, in Board, C.et al., Progress in Geography, vol. 8 (London 1976).Google Scholar

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⁴³ To name a few: French, A., ‘The Economic Background to Solon's Economic Reforms’, CQ 50 (1956) 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Growth of the Athenian Economy (London 1964) 10; Ferrara, G., ‘Suun'interpretazione delle riforme di Solone’, PdP 15 (1960) 23Google Scholar; Ehrenberg, V., From Solon to Socrates (London 1973 ²) 60Google Scholar; Langdon, M., A Sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Hymettos (Hesperia Supp. 16 (1976)), 91Google Scholar; Murray, O., Early Greece (Glasgow 1980) 183.Google Scholar While not putting as much emphasis on it as the others, Murray does cite this sequence as a causal factor.

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⁵⁷ Dunbabin, T. J., Perachora II (Oxford 1962) 403–48Google Scholar; only objects which could be dated with some degree of certainty were tabulated.

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⁶⁷ Op. cit. (n. 35) 264–321.

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⁷⁰ Langdon, ibid. 91.

⁷¹ French, op. cit. (n. 43) 15–16.

⁷² Polanyi, K., Arensberg, C. M., and Pearson, H. W. (eds.), Trade and Market in the Early Empires (New York 1957)Google Scholar; Polanyi, K., Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi (Garden City 1968), ed. Dalton, G.Google Scholar; Finley, op. cit. (n. 53) 150–76.

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⁷⁴ Ibid. 124–6, 163, 170–4.

⁷⁵ Ibid. 124–5.

⁷⁶ Ibid. 162–4, ‘83–4, 189–91.

⁷⁷ Thomson, G., Studies in Greek Society vol i. The Prehistoric Aegean (London 1954) 591Google Scholar; ii. The First Philosophers (London 1955) 178–214. I use the term formalist here to describe the use of Marx's works on the advanced capitalist economies instead of his work on pre-capitalist economies because by doing so one is forced into creating classes and institutions that did not exist. Another term that could be used for this is ‘vulgar Marxism’. (See: E. Hobsbawm, ‘Karl Marx's Contribution to History’, reprinted in Blackburn, R. (ed.), Ideology in Social Science (Glasgow 1972) 265 83Google Scholar; Cartledge, P., ‘Towards the Spartan Revolution’, Arethusa 8 (1975) 66.Google Scholar For pre-capitalist economies: Marx, K., Pre-capitalist Economic Formations (London 1964)Google Scholar; Llobera, J. R., ‘Techno-economic Determinism and the Work of Karl Marx on Pre-capitalist Societies’, Man 14, 2 (1979) 249–71 with refs.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁸⁷ Kolaios: Hdt. 4. 151–2; Murray, op. cit. 212, 215; Snodgrass, op. cit. 138–9. Sostratos: Johnston, A. W., ‘The Rehabilitation of Sostratos’, PdP 27 (1972), 416–23Google Scholar; Harvey, F. D., ‘Sostratos of Aegina’, PdP 31 (1976), 206–14.Google ScholarMele, A., Il commercio greco arcaico: Prexis ed Emporie (Naples 1979) 93–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁸ Humphreys, S. C., ‘Homo Politicus and Homo Economicus’, reprinted in Anthropology and the Greeks (London 1978) 168Google Scholar; Bravo, B., ‘Une lettre sur plomb de Beresan: colonisation et modes de contact dans le Pont’, Dialogues dhistoire ancienne 1 (1974) 111–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Le commerce maritime et la noblesse dans la Gréce archaïque’, Dialogues d'histoire ancienne 3 (1977) 1–87; Mele, op. cit.; Snodgrass, op. cit. 136–9. Bravo argues that trade was in the hands of agents of the rich, whereas Mele argues that it was at first the élite themselves and later a class of professional merchants. As it was argued earlier, Mele's second hypothesis is unacceptable. It seems to me quite likely that in some cases it was the elite themselves who did the trading and in other cases, agents working for them. It need not be an either-or proposition.

⁸⁹ Finley, M. I., ‘Servitude pour dettes’, Revue historique de droit francais et éranger, 43 (1965) 159–84Google Scholar; Forrest, op. cit. 147–56; Hopper, R. J., ‘The Solonian Crisis’, in Badian, E. (ed.), Ancient Society and Institutions (Oxford 1965) 139–46Google Scholar; Andrewes, op. cit. 114–29; Cassola, F., ‘La proprietà del suolo in Attica fine a Pisistrato’, PdP 28 (1973) 75–87Google Scholar; Ehrenberg, op. cit. 56–76; Austin, M. M. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece (London 1977) 58–60, 70–2Google Scholar; Mossé, C., ‘Les dépendants paysans dans le monde grecque à l’époque archaïque et classique‘, in Terre et paysans dependants dans les sociétés antiquites (Lyon 1979) 85–97Google Scholar; M. Sakellariou, ‘Hektemoroi’, ibid. 98–108; Murray, op. cit. 181–6; Snodgrass, op. cit. 121–59.

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⁹³ Shanin, T., Peasants and Peasant Societies (Harmondsworth 1971) 15.Google Scholar These are peasants who are dependant on production from outside their own farm for their subsistence.

⁹⁴ Andrewes, op. cit. 116.

⁹⁵ Andrewes (op. cit. 117) tries to get around this problem by arguing that there was a redistribution of land in some manner: ‘There is no good reason for thinking that this did not happen.’ We are told, however, that Solon did not redistribute the land: Ath. Pol. 11. 2.

⁹⁶ Finley, op. cit. (n.89), 169; Andrewes, op. cit. 119; Forrest, op. cit. 147; Jeffery, L. H., Archaic Greece. The City-Slates c. 700–500 B.C. (London 1976) 182Google Scholar; Murray, op. cit. 184.

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⁹⁸ von Fritz, K., ‘The Meaning of Hektemoros’ AJP 61 (1940) 54–62Google Scholar; ‘Once More the Hektemoroi’, AJP 64 (1943) 24–44; Lewis, N., ‘Solon's Agrarian Legislation’, AJP 62 (1941) 144–57.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁰ Sahlins, Tribesmen 87.

¹⁰¹ Sahlins, Stone Age Economics 204–15; Finley, op. cit. (n.89) 161.

¹⁰² This point has been made a number of times: Finley, ibid. 168; Mossé, op. cit. 89, are two examples.

¹⁰³ West, op. cit. F 4.

¹⁰⁴ Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 2. 3.

¹⁰⁵ There is some debate over whether this was ‘demos’ land or not. It does not strike me as being that crucial a point; it is sufficient to accept that previously everyone had access to this land.