What Did Ancient Greeks Do When They Ran Out of Food?

What Did Ancient Greeks Do When They Ran Out of Food? Athens couldn't grow enough grain to feed itself. Most of its bread sailed in from the Black Sea, more than a thousand kilometers away, and when the grain ships ran late, the price of wheat could more than triple. So what did ordinary Athenians actually do when the food ran out? From the 35 grain guardians who weighed every loaf against the law, to the 50-basket limit that could get a grain dealer executed, a Cypriot merchant crowned in gold for selling wheat at the old price, a marble pillar listing everyone one North African city shipped grain to (Alexander the Great's mother included), the acorns the Greeks had a proverb against, and the rumor that could empty the bakeries without a single ship sinking, here's how Athens survived hunger. You're on the jury in 386 BCE: the grain dealer admits he bought more than 50 baskets, but swears the officials told him to. Guilty or not guilty? Tell us in the comments. CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Fleet Went Down 1:39 The City That Ate Other People's Wheat 3:43 First, the Price Goes Crazy 5:41 35 Men Whose Job Was Bread 7:39 The Fifty-Basket Law 10:08 A Gold Crown for Cheap Bread 13:09 When Nothing Came 15:00 The Shipwreck That Never Happened 17:13 So What Did Athens Do? Sources in this episode: Demosthenes (Against Leptines; Against Phormio; Against Lacritus), Lysias (Against the Grain Dealers), the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians, the Athenian decree honoring Herakleides of Salamis, the Cyrene grain stele, Herodotus, Xenophon (Hellenica), and Galen. Subscribe for more of the everyday side of ancient Greece nobody taught you. #AncientGreece #AncientHistory #GreekHistory #AncientAthens #ClassicalGreece #HistoryDocumentary