Abstract This study shows how Classical Athens, the largest and historically most important of the Greek city‐states, depended for its survival on a supply of grain from overseas sources, especially (in the fifth century bc) the conquered territories of its Aegean empire, and (in the fourth century) the distant steppes of Scythia (modern Ukraine and southern Russia). This trade was central to Athenian politics, and is here found to have been organized and controlled by powerful elites, a conclusion that challenges prevailing interpretations of Athenian democracy. New light is also cast on the nature of Athenian imperialism; the relationship of the city of Athens and its countryside; the relevance to the Athenian economy of fourth‐century rhetorical and philosophical schools (particularly that of Isocrates) and other elite networks; and the history of the Bosporan Kingdom in the northern Black Sea. A wealth of ancient textual evidence (from history, oratory, and drama) is presented alongside archaeology, aerial photography, epigraphy, and iconography. Revolutionary new discoveries, like the Grain‐Tax Law of 374/3 bc, and the vast building complexes lining the Crimean coast of the Azov Sea, are discussed comprehensively with older evidence, like the golden treasures from Graeco‐Scythian graves. Decades of foreign scholarship and discovery (especially in Russian) are synthesized and made accessible to English readers. Moving from the edges of the Greek world, to the islands of the Aegean, to the prosperous demes of Attica and the courtrooms and popular assemblies of Athens, this book presents a sweeping reinterpretation of Athenian economy and society.
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