Is this a bazaar economy or what?
Comic market interactions preserved in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists

John F. Paulas (University of Chicago)

Scholars have long debated the extent to which modern economic and anthropological models may fruitfully be used to understand the ancient economy.  While an analysis of comic fragments preserved in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists may not end this debate, it can help demonstrate the usefulness of one particular economic/anthropological model: the bazaar.  The Deipnosophists preserves many comic fragments that show interactions in the market between buyers and sellers of fish (as well as other goods).  Book 6 is an especially good source of evidence of market interactions, because it contains a discussion of the behavior of fish sellers in Attica.  This discussion is composed primarily of quotations from fourth-century-B.C. literary material. 

To begin, I attempt to delineate some methodological guidelines for using comic fragments as economic evidence.  Then, to analyze the economic interactions depicted, I use a model developed in Geertz’s (1978) study of the bazaar economy in mid-twentieth century Sefrou, Morocco, and Conrad Schetter’s (2002) researches into the bazaar economy of Afghanistan.  Geertz emphasizes elements of a bazaar economy such as “intensive forms of information seeking,” “intensive and multidimensional bargaining,” and “clientelization.”  Schetter’s work adds to these elements “lack of regulation.”

I find some similarities and differences between the bazaar economies of North Africa and Afghanistan and the markets depicted in the comic fragments.  While these markets share some features of the bazaar economy (especially “intensive forms of information seeking” and “intensive and multidimensional bargaining”), others are lacking (notably “clientelization”), and still others are highly disputable (the issue of “regulation”).  I conclude that while we cannot simply classify the market under analysis as a bazaar economy identical to that of Morocco or Afghanistan, we can apply to the markets of late classical/early Hellenistic Attica many of the elements scholars attribute to the bazaar economy and thus gain insights into the economic behavior of individuals depicted in literary texts.

Works Cited

Geertz, C. 1978. “Bazaar Economy: Information and Search in Peasant Marketing.”            American Economic Review 68.2: 28-32.

Schetter, C. 2002. “The 'Bazaar Economy' of Afghanistan. A Comprehensive

Approach.” In Christine Nölle-Karimi, Conrad Schetter & Reinhard               Schlagintweit, eds: Afghanistan - A Country a without State?. Frankfurt a.M.: IKO-Verlag (Schriftenreihe der Mediothek für Afghanistan Bd. 2): 109-127.