Going Against the Grain in Sicilian Greek Economics

Abstract

On his recent retirement from the chair of classical archaeology in Cambridge University, Anthony Snodgrass reflected on the state of the subject, wondering whether a paradigm shift has occurred. Snodgrass assesses various matters, including, for our purposes, how archaeological approaches to ancient literary sources have changed. His comments deserve quotation in full:…Classical archaeology is often stigmatized, by its many critics, as being ‘text-driven’ … [in] that the subject takes its orientation from, and adapts its whole narrative to, the lead given by the literary sources. Thus the archaeology of Roman Britain has been built around Tacitus' narrative of conquest; the study of Greek art around the text of the Elder Pliny; the archaeology of fifth-century Athens around the narratives supplied by Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon; that of Republican Rome similarly around those of Livy and Diodorus; that of Sicily again around Thucydides; and most notoriously, that of Aegean prehistory and protohistory around Homer…. But there is a deeper level still. Traditional Classical archaeology is stated…to have directed its energies at those aspects of the ancient world on which the written sources, taken as a whole, throw light. Thus, on urban but not on rural life; on public and civic, but not on domestic activity; on periods seen as historically important, but not on the obscurer ones; on the permanent physical manifestations of religion, but not on the temporary ones – sacrifice, patterns of dedication, ritual meals, pilgrimage; on the artefacts interred in burials, but not on burial itself; on the historically prominent states – in Greece, Athens and Sparta – but not on what has recently been called ‘the Third Greece’…

Plant remains from the early Iron Age in western Sicily: differences in subsistence strategies of Greek and Elymian sites

“…Numerous reports on the political and economical implications of these interdependencies have already been given by archaeologists and historians (amongst others, cited in Leighton 1999;De Angelis 2006). The relationships between these groups must have been complex and varied.…”

After Wheat: Revitalizing Sicilian Agriculture through Heritage Tourism

“…While Sicily's Bronze and Iron Age indigenous populations—the Elymians, Sicani, and Sicels—were cultivating barley, fava beans, and figs, agriculture at contemporaneous Greek sites like Selinunte was emphasizing durum wheat (also known as grano duro ), figs, and grapevines (Stika, Heiss, and Zach , S141–S144). Although wheat was by no means the only crop being produced by the Greeks (De Angelis ), an increasing emphasis on grain encouraged colonists to clear forests and burn vegetation to expand their fields.…”

The Spatial Diffusion of Beer from its Sumerian Origins to Today

“…On the other hand, Sophocles considered beer to be healthy, as long as it was consumed in moderation, along with bread, meat, and vegetables (Poelmans and Swinnen 2012). While it is clear that the Greeks grew barley and had extensive trade in grain, they overwhelmingly chose to drink wine and not to convert their barley to beer (De Angelis 2002, 2006Migeotte 2009). Despite their attitude toward beer, it was the Greeks who taught the Romans to brew beer.…”