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and even those of their enemies. But it is across the cultural and linguistic divide to Egypt and the Near East where arguably the largest volumes of owls were flowing, a strong and steady flow lasting for generations. It is also in Egypt and the Near East, not in Sicily and the Aegean, where the owl was extensively imitated, a rather obvious indicator of the elevated demand for the coinage. We will never know the specifics of Xenophon’s insight into the owls’ profitability abroad, but he certainly cannot have been ignorant of the importance of the owl in Aegean-Near Eastern trade nor of that trade itself. Other scholars have, of course, made tentative links between Poroi 3.2 and owls found in the East; my purpose here is to explore these links by detailing the vigorous demand for owls in Aegean-Near Eastern trade that then created the right conditions for kalê emporia. Coin hoards offer key evidence for my argument, but the relationship between hoards and long distance trade in classical antiquity is far from clear. The persistence of non-monetized forms of exchange in the classical period, even at a considerable scale and distance, and the movement of large amounts of coinage through interstate mechanisms, like tribute and warfare, clouds the picture considerably. The list of possible, even probable mechanisms for the overseas transportation of coins and subsequently the creation of any one hoard can therefore be extensive, encompassing the full range of behaviours associated with markets, warfare, and even gift giving. Of these, those associated with warfare are perhaps the easiest to observe since the time frame, geography and number of individuals involved is reasonably delineated. Given the right context and hoard contents, one can make plausible arguments for associating a hoard with a specific military event or army. But because trade has no similar temporal, geographic, or demographic limits, a direct connection between a hoard and market-based activity can be far less secure and so open the hoard to more avenues of interpretation. Thus while hoards are unequivocally strong evidence for the international movement of coinage, they are highly problematic evidence for the specific mechanisms of that movement, especially for long distance trade.

Conclusions

At the time that Xenophon was composing his Poroi at the end of the second quarter of the fourth century BC, the patterns of Aegean-Near Eastern trade described here and the role of the owl in it were quite well established; indeed most of this was already well underway by the time he was born (c. 430), and would continue unimpeded for another generation or so after his death in 354. As he penned the Poroi , owls and their imitations were the exclusive currency in Arabia, nearly so in Egypt, and gave Phoenician issues serious rivalry in the Levant, especially in the southern areas where the Arabian caravan routes joined the Mediterranean Sea. Whatever the situation elsewhere in the Mediterranean, demand for owls within a large swath of the ancient Near East was high and unremitting, prime territory then for kalê emporia.

The arguments lodged against the accuracy of Xenophon’s statement of profitability centre primarily upon a presumed radical decline in the output of Athenian coinage in the first two quarters of the fourth century, and the use of owls as monetary instruments, especially the losses incurred through currency exchanges. The Athenians were certainly not producing owls at the same elevated levels in the early fourth century that they were in the later fifth, but Kroll has now shown that a respectable amount of production continued nevertheless. Owls were still available for export in Athens in the early fourth century, and regardless of the Athenians ability to supply enough coinage to meet outside demand, there is no indication that this demand had abated. If anything, Nikophon’s nomos of 375/438 demonstrates that demand continued at a level high enough to encourage (non-)state entities to join in their production, ultimately causing currency disruptions in the Athenian agora. As Meadows suggests, the Egyptian Delta at this time probably supported a number of private producers issuing good quality, anonymous imitations to supply the wider appetite for owls, no doubt at some profit to themselves".

Track: The Owls (Original Mix)
Artist: Yotto (Otto Yliperttula)
Label: Anjunadeep
Release Date: 1.7.2016