From the Thermaic Gulf to Thasos

Abstract

Abstract The first of three regional studies, Chapter 4 focuses on the resource-rich North Aegean, exploring how the Athenians adapted their strategies of negotiation and exploitation to its particular demands. Strategically located allied communities, multi-polis entities with collective bargaining power, and Thraco-Macedonian groups including the Argead and Odrysian kingdoms, with kings and powerful elites, necessitated different parameters of negotiation and the navigation of overlapping spheres of authority. Private relationships with elite individuals were even more important in this region, at and beyond the formal limits of Athenian power. The second half of the chapter turns to the east of the region and the island of Thasos. It argues that the highly successful Thasian model of exploitation, facilitated partly through mainland settlements, forced the Athenians to adopt a number of different strategies to compete. Athenian intervention then forced the Thasians to adapt in turn. Not only was Athenian strategy adjusted in the face of Thasian competition and influence, but this process was mutual and multi-directional.