
The economy of ancient Greece: A Greek man doing carpentry (Athens, 400s BC)
The Greek word “economy”
The Greeks did not have the same idea of an economy that we have. The word economy is Greek. But to the Greeks, economy meant something like “rules of a household” (the “eco” part of economy is from the Greek word for house, oikos. And the “nomy” part is from nomos, their word for law). So the economy was the way a household ran. It was also the way a city-state ran.
More about the Greek idea of nomos
More about Greek houses
All our Ancient Greece articles

Ancient Greek trade: A man making shoes for a little boy
Sailing and the Greek economy
Even as far back as the Stone Age, many people who lived in Greece were sailors. The Greeks sailed all over the Eastern Mediterranean. They built different kinds of ships for different kinds of sailing. They had warships, and trading ships, and fishing boats.
More about ancient Greek ships
Fishermen and divers

Ancient Greek trade: Sailors rowing trading ships (Athens ca. 550 BC)
Like many other sailors in other places and times (like the Vikings for example), Greek sailors found a lot of different ways to make their living from sailing.
Some of them were fishermen. They ate some of the fish they caught and sold some fish in markets. Some Greek people were pearl-divers.
More about pearl-diving
History of fishing
Traders and manufacturing

Athenian sailing ship with soldiers
Other Greeks were traders, who bought things at one port and sold them at another port, and made some profit for themselves along the way. Many Greek people made things for the traders to sell: wool cloth, wine, perfume, and fancy pottery.
Ancient Greek wine
Greek pottery
Soldiers and mercenaries
Other Greeks were soldiers for their city-state, who conquered other cities and forced them to pay tribute. Many Greek sailors worked as mercenaries, hiring out themselves and their ships to fight for other countries like Egypt. Greek city-states also made money with taxes on trade. Merchants had to pay a percentage of the value of anything they brought in or shipped out.
More about mercenary soldiers
What is a city-state?
Greek hoplite soldiers

Ancient Greek trade: A wool workshop in Archaic Greece: women making woolen cloth to sell.
Pirates, raiding, and ancient Greek trade
Other Greeks were pirates, who simply raided wherever they could and took whatever they could get.
In real life, people probably didn’t fit so neatly into any of these categories. Pirates sometimes traded, and sometimes fished, and sometimes hired themselves out as mercenaries. Ancient Greek traders were not above doing a little raiding if they got the chance. For soldiers, the difference between fighting and raiding is not always very clear.

The Greek economy: Women pounding wheat or barley into flour
Women spinning and weaving cloth
One reason for raiding was to capture women as prisoners of war. Like other people – like the Assyrians or the Egyptians or the Persians – Greek rulers enslaved thousands of women.
More about women in ancient Greece
History of wool

A woman making a large pot, in a pottery workshop (Caputi hydria, by the Leningrad painter. Athens, about 490-470 BC)
They put these women to work in giant weaving workshops, spinning and weaving expensive wool cloth. Then traders carried this cloth on their boats to sell in other countries. These women were very important to the economy of ancient Greece.
Farming and the economy of ancient Greece
But, like everywhere in antiquity, many Greek men and women were also farmers, who spent most of their day growing food – planting wheat, harvesting olives, and weeding their gardens.
More about wheat farming
People kept a lot of sheep, especially in southern Greece, and cattle in the north. Greek traders also sold this food across the Mediterranean, shipping wheat, olive oil, wine, honey, cheese, and meat. They sold leather, and horses, and marble, and coal.
More about the history of honey
Imports to ancient Greece: What did Greek traders buy?
Greek traders didn’t only sell things – they also bought stuff to bring back to Greece and sell there. They brought medicine and pepper and cinnamon from as far away as India and Afghanistan.
More about black pepper
Where did cinnamon come from?
Indian medicine
They brought silk from China and glass beads from Egypt. They sold Egyptian papyrus and linen. And traders from many other countries also sold things in Greek ports.
History of silk
Who invented glass?
What is linen?
Did they use money or how did they buy things?
Greek traders did most of their business the way traders do today, without handling coins. They used written letters of credit, like today’s paper checks, or like writing a letter to your bank, to pay their bills. Bankers in each city wrote letters back and forth figuring out who owed how much to whom.
Paper money and letters of credit
Quatr.us Study Guides also has more detailed articles about the Greek economy in the Archaic period, the Classical period, and the Hellenistic period.
Did you find out what you wanted to know about the economy of ancient Greece? Let us know in the comments!
Learn by doing: making Greek coins
The Greek economy in the Archaic period
Looking for a second source to cite? Check out this excellent article on trade in ancient Greece from the Ancient History Encyclopedia.
Bibliography and further reading about the Greek economy:
Trade & Warfare, by Robert Hull (2000).
Ancient Greek Jobs (People in the Past Series-Greece), by Haydn Middleton (2002). Easy reading.
The Ancient Economy by Walter Scheidel, Sitta Von Reden (2002). A collection of essays by different specialists, but written for the non-specialist.
Economy and Society in Ancient Greece, by Moses Finley (revised edition 1983)
Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece: An Introduction by M.M. Austin and P. Vidal-Naquet (1980)
The Ancient Economy, by Moses Finley (1973, revised edition 1999). This has been the starting point for academic discussions of the Greek and Roman economy since it first came out thirty years ago.
idk if you still look at comments but this helped alot, thx :)
Thanks! I do read all of them, but I had a very busy week sending in a book proposal, so I’m sorry it took me a little while to answer you! I’m glad you found the site useful.
Oop! Just read your reply for my other comment. Thanks!
Do you have more websites or pages like this? I can’t wait to see more of these!
This was great! Do you have more stuff like this?
There are more than two thousand articles on this site. Just click on the links in this article to start reading more, or use the search box, or the index at the top of the article.
This was like the greatest text paragraph thingy I’ve read so far! This is great info! :)
Thank you, Ace! Your comment totally made my day!
Is this economy related to The united states economy
Is that the question you were asked? All economies are related in some way, aren’t they? The Greeks made a lot of money through trade, and from farming. Is that like, or unlike, the United States? They made and sold a lot of cloth. They also fought as soldiers for other countries, and did a lot of piracy too. Is that like us?
Yeah, You’re right. It is like us. I was just curious. Sorry.
Well, think again! It’s not exactly like us, is it? Do our soldiers fight for other countries (I mean, apparently this week we do fight for Saudi Arabia, but generally we don’t, do we?).
I could not find where their main source of income is can you help me find it
Well, that’s a good question! This article does not name one main source, because there wasn’t one. The economy of ancient Greece was pretty varied. A lot of people made their living through trade, and a lot of people were farmers. Both of those were very important, and I’d have trouble choosing between them.
It was good and gave information, but could you pls give more explanation, examples or statistics?
Hi Rose, I’m glad you liked the article! There aren’t a lot of trustworthy statistics from ancient Greece, but I’d be happy to give examples. What were you looking for? Did you have any specific questions?
hello, im trying to find stuff out in my s.s. class, but, i cant find anything i need at all, probaly cause i dont know how :/ plus im only in 6th grade
Hi Tracy! Thanks for stopping by. I’ll answer your questions in the comments; just ask away.
Wow good job
Thank you, Jenny! I love getting comments like that! I’m glad we could help. If you have (or if you are) a teacher or librarian who would like to link to this site, we’d be very grateful, so other students could find it! Or, if you or your folks would like to sponsor our Patreon, it’s here: https://www.patreon.com/quatr_us. Every sponsored $1.00 gets the ads off an article so we can all enjoy reading without the distracting ads.
It was helpful if you want to learn about Greece economy
good info
also what fave food b t w?
Dark chocolate! Oh, you mean what was the favorite food of ancient Greece? Check out our article on Greek food here: https://quatr.us/greeks/ancient-greek-food.htm
who’s the publisher
Quatr.us Study Guides is the publisher; we’re not owned by any big company, which is why we can say what we like (the truth!) and not worry about our bosses thinking we’re too feminist or too progressive or anything.
i like food but fish is tastie
aaaahaha put down a feeling
Hi I don’t really get this stuff what is a economy I have a project soon plz get back to me
An economy is a lot of things: the work people do, the money they use, what they trade or buy, and how they trade or buy things (in stores? by stealing it? by giving things away?).
I could use some help on how it effected Greek economy like how fishing effected it everything else was helpful thx have a good day
Fishing was important to the Greek economy because people ate fish, for one thing. But also, they salted and preserved fish, or made fish into a sort of sauce like ketchup, and sold the dried fish and the fish sauce to other people to get money.
This is great info for my school project. Thanks! :-)
Thanks, Cale! If you have a teacher or a librarian who could link to us, that would really help other students to find this site and we’d super appreciate it! Good luck with your project!
i think it should include if they traded or used money more
Good question, Ella! I’ve added a paragraph at the end about that.
Wow! this is great info! Thanks Karen. Best research I could possibly find for my project
FIVE STARS!!!
Thank you! That made my day :)
So what your saying is Greece had a poor economy? I’m in 7th grade working on a project and I’m but wondering
Well, sort of. Greece was not a great place to grow food, but it was a very good place for trade and piracy, and Greece ended up being pretty rich from trade. So not a poor economy, just poor farmland.
more in info on markets please for a school project
Hi Tim! You can find a good article on markets in ancient Greece here: http://historylink101.com/2/greece3/shopping.htm
Great help with my class, Thanks!!
Not too long not too short i’m doing a PowerPoint and this was very helpful thanks
helped me with many facts in my class
thank you for all the info
nice resource!!! its not to long and very very nice thanks a lot!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it.
this told me nothing I’m upset.
Sorry to hear it, Lilac! What were you trying to find out?
You should be nice she took her time to make this
thx really good info
hi this helped me a little bit more than nothing lol but thank you
If you have specific questions, please feel free to ask them here and I’ll answer them.
hi
This information is great, I am very grateful for your time to make this, it is a great advantage for school work, THANK YOU! ???
Wow, that’s very kind of you, James!
Good Info!
Thanks, Heidi!
this is a great resource thanks for taking the time to make it. :-)
Thank you, Trey!
Thank you, this info is very helpful. I am about to take the test (finally)
This was very helpful info for the test i hope i pass
I hope so too, Luke!
hi
hola
thx for the info i am working on my test and do u be here all day
More or less; I am also teaching classes etc., but I usually answer pretty quickly.
Thanks a bunch phew
Thank you for giving me info because i was studying for a test and i passed
You’re welcome! I’m glad we could help.
great info!
thanks!
Great Amazing Info on this website!
Thanks! That’s nice to hear.
hi
its great and amazing info
Thank you!
thank
hi
Hi Jeff! Thanks for stopping by.
i need more info please and thank you
and i am a kid for real
Hi Tony! What were you trying to find out? I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
i love your story and thanks for the info but how did you know all that
Mostly I know it from reading the books that are listed in the bibliography, and many other books like that. Some of it I know from digging up archaeological sites myself, and seeing what we found for myself.
thanks for the info
You’re welcome!
Very helpful thx
You’re welcome! I’m delighted to hear it.
needs more info
Sorry! Ask your questions here and I’ll be happy to answer them.
.lol
this is to long
Sorry to hear it! What do you think I should take out?
it is not to long is is just the right amount
Its a good length