HomeFeatureMoney and the pursuit of wealth: Part Seven ...the birth of ‘tenderpreneureship’

Money and the pursuit of wealth: Part Seven …the birth of ‘tenderpreneureship’

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GREEK civilisation was different from that of Mesopotamia or Egypt. 

Located in south-eastern Europe, the Greek peninsula is dominated by mountainous and rocky terrain with no great rivers.  

While it receives more rainfall than either Mesopotamia or Egypt, its climate is semi-arid. 

The mountains of the Greek mainland made land travel difficult and expensive, but the peninsula’s long coastline meant that few Greeks were far from the sea.  

These geographical circumstances influenced Greek political and societal development. 

The mountains compartmentalise Greece, creating small, relatively isolated valleys.

For this reason, the Greeks in antiquity never forged themselves into a united political State but, like the earliest inhabitants of Mesopotamia, developed city-States or poleis

This was the political organisation of Greece from approximately 1500 BC until the Roman conquest of the Greek world in the 2nd Century BC. 

These ecological circumstances meant that, to be prosperous, the Greeks had to engage in trade and commerce, relying heavily on sea transport. 

In fact, to deal with economic and other problems in the peninsula, the Greeks, using knowledge of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas that they had gained through trade, often established colonies at desirable locales. 

By the end of the 6th Century BC, there were Greek cities along the shores of the Black Sea, the western coast of modern Turkey, eastern Sicily, all along the western and southern coasts of Italy and elsewhere in the western Mediterranean.

Syracuse, Naples and Marseilles were all originally Greek colonies. 

Although they became independent States, severing all but religious and cultural ties with their mother cities, they were most often situated in rich agricultural areas. 

As a result, a flourishing trade sprang up between the new city-State and its founding city.

In the beginning of their civilisation (c. 1500 BC), the Greek poleis were ruled by kings and later by aristocratic councils. 

By the end of the 6th Century BC, the Greeks had created governing systems based on the concept of the citizen. 

In the ancient Near East, most of the people were classified as subjects, individuals owing their service and often their lives to their rulers and receiving protection in return. 

These subjects, however, did not participate directly in the decision-making process of running their government; Greek citizens did. 

The Greeks came to organise their States around voting citizen assemblies. 

These assemblies were sovereign; they made the laws that governed society. 

While the qualifications for citizenship varied from one Greek polis (singular of poleis) to another, the major distinction revolved around the ownership of property. 

Some poleis were known as ‘oligarchies’, because they limited the franchise to male citizens meeting a particular property qualification. 

Oligarchies could have very small bodies of voters, if there was a high property qualification, or large numbers of voters, if the property requirements were kept to a bare minimum. 

Certain Greek States eliminated the property qualification altogether and created democracies. 

All male citizens above a certain age (usually 20) could attend the assembly, debate and vote. 

Neither oligarchies nor democracies had a government representative.  

If you fulfilled the qualifications to be a voting citizen, you did not elect others to vote your interests, you showed up and voted your own. 

Potentially, even an assembly meeting in a broad-based oligarchy could have as many as 9 000 citizens in attendance, while a democracy might have as many as 20 000 to 40 000. 

This direct participation in government was only one feature that set Greek culture and civilisation apart from that of the ancient Near East. 

While Greek governments certainly permitted more participation by the people than did any previous political system, but even in democracies, only male citizens reaped these benefits. 

Women were excluded from all direct political activity while many inhabitants of these city-States were slaves with very few rights of any kind. 

Moreover, there was no system that standardised the conferral of citizenship on aliens. 

In the case of a commercial State, such as that of the Athenians, where a sizable number of residents were not native, these individuals stood little chance of ever receiving full political rights. 

This was not the case, however, with respect to economic rights.  

Most commercial States, while often limiting the rights of non-citizens to own land, treated business activities very evenhandedly.

This emphasis on individual rights and responsibilities fully carried over into the economic sphere. 

Even though the government usually had large public holdings in lands, forests and mines, these were not worked by State corporations, but rather were contracted out to independent companies or individuals. 

There were no requirements that State contracts be given to citizens.

Many of these companies sold shares in their firms, for there were great fortunes to be made in such exploitation. 

During one three-year period, the silver mines of the Athenian State at Laurium produced, for its contractors, a profit of 300 talents (equal to approximately eight-and-a-half tonnes of silver). 

The State also leased public lands to individuals and even ‘farmed out’ taxes. 

In the latter practice, companies would bid for the right to collect particular taxes for the State, saving the State the necessity of creating a large government bureaucracy.

Another difference between the Greeks and their counterparts in the Near East was that temples and priestly colleges usually were part of the State governmental structure, and with only the exception of certain national religious shrines, they exercised very limited independence. 

Indeed, one of the major State expenditures was for the maintenance of the State religion. 

While in Mesopotamia and Egypt, religious institutions often operated as entities unto themselves, with little if any State interference, Greek religious bodies were almost always under the strict control of the State. 

As part of the government, the temples conducted their business operations in the same manner as the State. 

They leased their lands and contracted out major and minor projects. 

Surviving records illustrative of State practice are especially common with respect to the building of public structures, most often temples. 

The Erechtheum in Athens, built between 409-408 BC, used 71 separate private contractors just in the final stages of construction.

The building accounts of the Asklepian sanctuary at Epidauros from the 4th Century BC, which are the most complete of all such surviving records, show that separate contracts were awarded for parts of a section of the temple, and that even very small jobs were separately contracted to private individuals. 

There was very little subcontracting.

The largest contract involved the construction of the colonnade and entablature of the temple itself. 

This project involved a labour force of 50 men working for six months.

Even the quarrying of the stone was divided among several companies, while the polishing of the finished project was given to yet another. 

Every contract specified conditions, time frame and often the methods to be used. 

Individuals would then bid at public auctions.

Each contractor would have to supply guarantors who would be responsible for fines and the cost of completing the contract if the successful bidder defaulted. 

Without such backing, the bid would not be awarded. These guarantors were most often local individuals who took on the responsibility more from a sense of civic pride than from any hope of profit. 

The only State officials involved in the building process itself were the inspectors.

What is most striking about these accounts is the absence of involvement by large companies. 

This was true even though the auction for these contracts was advertised throughout the Greek world. 

What was recorded with respect to temple building was apparently true for other commercial activities as well. There seems to have been no big companies and few extravagantly wealthy businessmen in the ancient Greek world.

The largest industrial concern during this period, a shield factory, had only 120 workers.

This establishment was owned by Pasion, an Athenian banker noted for his great wealth, who, at his death, left an estate valued at 70 talents. 

Greeks worth 100 talents were the exception and, in these cases, their wealth most often derived from agriculture.

Dr Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant and a published author in her field.  

For views and comments, email: linamanucci@gmail.com

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