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.
709
This division is termed by Schnebel (
711
Schnebel,
715
Schnebel,
717
In the stele