This chapter focuses on old Greece; the southern Balkans, the Aegean islands, and western Asia Minor. Greek-speakers had settled here many centuries earlier. The act of concentration in a new urban center created a new locus of demand for food and other essentials, and new markets. Agriculture remained the chief economic activity for most people in Greece. Outside of the northern kingdoms (Macedon, Epirus), this took place on land belonging to poleis. Many Hellenistic exchanges were mediated through money. States needed coined money to pay troops, war indemnities, and numerous other expenses. The Hellenistic world inherited from classical times a wide array of institutions that served central economic functions but subsequently also saw some changes. The chapter explores the changes to pre-existing institutions, and whether they reflect new economic conditions. Military technology is one area where the Hellenistic world saw major innovations, from siege warfare, to the use of elephants, to the construction of ever-larger ships.

This chapter deals with the internal economic history of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, the longest lived of the Hellenistic successor states. It addresses the question of the extent to which the Ptolemaic state effected economic development, and to what extent was development driven by demographic change. The foundation and growth of urban centers, the development of roads out to the Red Sea, and the reclamation of new land in the Fayyum, are enough to suggest that the early Ptolemaic period experienced aggregate economic growth, and the increased farming of wheat (at least in some areas) resulted in greater agricultural productivity. The chapter focuses on money and prices, the taxation system, the role of social status, and state revenue. Ptolemaic institutions were a mixture of old and new. The taxation policy above all gradually shifted emphasis away from traditional Egyptian social hierarchies toward the new realities of urban, Greek life.

The Achaemenid Persian empire lasted for slightly over two hundred years, and incorporated several languages and cultures, as well as diverse forms of economic subsistence. This chapter focuses on one major region of the empire, the Near East. The Persian period should be viewed as a continuation of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, although new developments can be detected that would have underpinned increased economic growth. Despite population movements, Anatolians into northern Syria, Philistines on the southern Levantine coast, population across northern Syria and northern Mesopotamia may have decreased due to a prolonged period of desiccation. The population movement in the Neo- Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods led to increased urbanization in the Assyrian home provinces and, later, in Babylonia, while urban centers decreased in central and southern Syria-Palestine. The chapter also discusses the impact of imperialism on institutions and organizations, specifically regarding the control and exploitation of agricultural land.