chapter 11 Sacred Exchange: The Religious Institutions of Emporia in the Mediterranean World of the Later Iron Age Megan Daniels Introduction The Mediterranean Iron Age, while it is difficult to pinpoint its exact bound- aries temporarily,1 has as one of its hallmarks the proliferation of long-distance trade networks. The development of these networks led to the movement of peoples overseas to capitalize upon trade opportunities while at the same time establishing more permanent settlements around the Mediterranean. Overall, the Iron Age, particularly between the eighth and sixth centuries bce, is seen as a time of major economic accomplishment in terms of the novel economic structures that were created, allowing for a density of intercommunications supported by regular and frequent movement of goods and people.2 I wish to focus on these novel economic structures in particular in this paper, specifi- cally the institutions that developed out of and in turn spurred such prolific movements. While difficult to reconstruct out of fragmentary evidence, insti- tutions were vital in allowing human beings the means to cooperate with one another and thus to capture the gains made by commercial activities. Corre- spondingly, an investigation of Iron Age institutions is vital for explaining rising standards of living and population growth across the Mediterranean world at this time. 1 The term “Iron Age” lacks fixed boundaries—Near Eastern and Greek archaeologists tend to see it as commencing in the twelfth and eleventh centuries bce, following the collapse of Bronze Age palatial centres and the migration of the so-called Sea Peoples. On the other hand, on Sicily, the Iron Age does not begin until the ninth century, with shifts from chiefdoms to more egalitarian communities, while in North Africa the Iron Age is seen to commence with the founding of Carthage. The end of the Iron Age melds into more strictly delineated periods: the Archaic period in Greece, for example, or the Republican period in Rome (Hodos 2006 3–4). 2 See Morris 2006; 2007; 2009 for discussions on regeneration, demography, economic struc- tures, and economic performance in the Iron Age Mediterranean. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004283893_013 Megan Daniels - 9789004283893 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:29:23PM via free access 298 daniels Perhaps one of the most fruitful contexts for analyzing these institutions is the areas highlighted by both archaeological and literary evidence as zones of intense cross-cultural trade and interaction—communities oriented towards the sea, rivers, and other transportation routes which tended to develop cultur- ally heterogeneous populations. Such a settlement is known best as an empo- rion (Latin emporium), although how scholars define this term (or whether we should attempt to define it at all) is much disputed.3 A common and conspicu- ous feature of these communities in the archaeological record, however, is the proliferation of religious cults whose identities seemed to cut across cultural boundaries and which I argue provided important institutional structures to mediate social and economic transactions between foreigners. While the schol- arly literature has certainly not ignored these cults—nor, indeed the fluidity of religious identities in the ancient world—the deeper meanings and functions of such cross-cultural religious identities are often overlooked, with the result that they are most often regarded as only reflecting cross-cultural contact rather than actively facilitating interaction and commercial exchange.4 Through this paper I thus aim to call attention to the institutional structures of these nascent commercial and urban centres through their early cults, and to consider the role such cults may have played in facilitating trade between foreign commu- nities. I intend to do this first from a more general standpoint by analyzing the concept and function of the emporion during the Mediterranean Iron Age, and second, and more specifically, through examining the religious institutions within an emporion on the Tiber River in Italy dating to the sixth century bce, on the site of what would later be known as the Forum Boarium, or cattle mar- ket, of Rome. I end with a consideration of how both a theory of institutions and comparative evidence from later periods can help us discern the explana- tory power of these cults in terms of the larger processes of urbanization and economic growth in the ancient world. The Emporion as City in the Ancient World For the purposes of this paper and for the larger unifying theme of this vol- ume—that of the ancient city—it is first of all vital to examine how we define a trading community in the ancient world, and how it relates to the concept of the city. There has been some debate among scholars over how to characterize the idea of long-distance trade and how it functioned within and between soci- 3 E.g. Wilson 1997. 4 E.g. Scheid 2007. Some notable exception to this situation: Rauh 1993 and Malkin 2011. Megan Daniels - 9789004283893 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:29:23PM via free access sacred exchange: the religious institutions of emporia 299 eties, particularly concerning the space in which long-distance trade was con- ducted and foreign relations were negotiated. One of the dominant economic models until recently was the “port-of-trade” model, first given form by the economic anthropologist Karl Polanyi. To Polanyi, the port-of-trade denoted a neutral and geographically marginal place of exchange at the interface of two economically distinct groups of people, where trading partners could exchange their goods according to the terms and rates defined by the host society.5 The emporion contained the essential infrastructure for long-distance trade, includ- ing a harbour, quays and warehouses. It also provided social and legal functions, such as the exchange of information, the lodging of pilgrims, and the adminis- tration of international justice. This model had particular merit in highlighting the role of indigenous power in controlling an area of trade in reaction to exter- nal demands. The port-of-trade thus acted as a restraint on, and simultaneously became a place of attraction to, foreign merchants and inhabitants.6 The port-of-trade, as it existed in the ancient world, encompassed two types of settlement that Polanyi outlined: (1) the commercial harbour of the polis directed towards foreign trade (for example, the Piraeus, the port of Athens), differentiated spatially and conceptually from the agora, the centre of local trade, and (2) a settlement established by a group of merchants in foreign territory for purposes of commercial exchange with indigenous inhabitants, governed by indigenous regulations.7 An often-cited example of this second type is Naukratis, a settlement on a branch of the Nile in northern Egypt that Herodotos (2.178.1–3) describes as being given to East Greek traders by the 5 Bresson 1993 163. 6 Polanyi, Arensberg and Pearson 1957; Polanyi 1963. See also Gras 1993 105; 1995 139; Figueira 1984 24; Möller 2000 19–25. The port-of-trade is seen as a control point in trade between two cultures with differently patterned economic institutions—between a non-market society and a society of professional traders, for instance. It may be independent of both societies involved in exchange; it may be controlled by the trading power; or it may be controlled by the land power (Humphreys 1969 191–192). It was also particularly attractive for long-distance trade (Figueira 1984 24; Rouillard 1995 106), and was potentially a great source of revenue for the host society, which could enforce customs duties and taxes on foreign ships and cargo (Ampolo 1994). 7 Polanyi 1963 33–34. Polanyi saw the origin of this second type in the “dumb barter” outlined by Herodotos (4.196), by which means the Phoenicians traded with the African natives. Each party would leave a select amount of goods on the beach, adding more until the other party was satisfied, after which both parties withdrew their purchases. Polanyi notes the sacred nature of these early exchanges by citing K. Lehmann-Hartleben’s findings of low stone altars open towards the sea, with the sacred space delineated only by a low stone wall (Polanyi 1963 34). Megan Daniels - 9789004283893 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 03:29:23PM via free access 300 daniels Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis, as discussed in Astrid Möller’s publication on the site.8 The port-of-trade model has indeed been conveniently associated with the ancient Greek term emporion, a word attested in Herodotos and derived from the word emporos,9 meaning “merchant” or “shipboard passenger”. This term was used frequently by later authors as well, particularly Demosthenes and Strabo, who mentions 48 different emporia.10 Under such a model the emporion was regarded as a buffer zone between two distinct economic and political entities: local versus long distance trade (the first type), or a foreign group of people who differed economically and culturally from the indigenous community (the second type). Thus the world of long-distance trade was lim- inal by nature to urban society, and in some cases it was even a threat to the city’s proper existence. Such an attitude in the ancient world towards long dis- tance trade and foreign merchants seemed to be confirmed by philosophers such as Plato, who regarded the ideal polis as self-sufficient, built upon the har- monious values of trust and friendship. Indeed, Plato’s Athenian in his Laws implies that proximity to the sea and good harbours threatened to breed “lux- urious and depraved habits” within the city (Leg. 4.704e), particularly in one that was not self-sufficient: “for by filling the markets of the city with foreign merchandise and retail trading, and breeding in men’s souls knavish and tricky ways, [the sea] renders the city faithless and loveless, not to itself only, but to the rest of the world as well.” (Leg.