INTRODUCTION

This conclusion differs both in scope and method from the rest of the book. In scope it goes from micro-historical to the macro-level; in method, from the closely empirical to the speculative. Such sea-changes are justified by a particular notion of the role a conclusion should play. The bulk of an empirical historical work should take the reader from knowing less to knowing more about a given subject. The conclusion should ask, “If true, what of it?” “What is the significance of one's findings?” To my mind, questions of significance call for comparisons, the most timely of which is a comparison between then and now, between the place of traders in the world of classical Greece and the place of their various counterparts in the society in which I live.

I live in the southeastern American sunbelt, the fastest growing region in America in wealth and population. In my city professional businesspeople are the wealthiest and most respected element. The nation's largest and fourth-largest banks have their headquarters here, as do 133 interstate trucking firms, a semi-equivalent of ancient maritime trading.