The economic history of ancient Greece must manifestly be of interest not only to those who study antiquity for its own sake but to those also who wish to see the material development of human societies in one typical and complete example. For Greece presents the unique spectacle of a race passing in a few centuries from family institutions to a system of individualism in the sovereign City, and extending its horizon rapidly beyond the small districts in which it was once contained to the whole basin of the Mediterranean. For political changes there are, necessarily, corresponding economic transformations. Evolution appears in a simplicity which is instructive; the' big periods are clearly defined one from another, and we may hope to discover general laws.
But it must be said in advance that economic facts do not appear in the ancient city with the same characteristics as in the modern state, and above all they are not so clearly marked. Many questions remain unanswered, and many answers remain vague and obscure, and sometimes seem contradictory. These difficulties are serious, and often insurmountable, either when one undertakes the necessary research or when one ventures to set forth a conclusion even of a partial kind.

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