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.
745
747
C. Préaux,