The food needs of the Athenians from the imperial period in the fifth century down to the Macedonian occupation of 322 BC could not be met from the resources of the territory of Attica alone. But the extent of Athens' dependence on external sources of supply remains problematic. There is a lack of precise and detailed information relating to land under cultivation, population level, food consumption rate, yield and sowing rate. Absence of data has not deterred scholars in the past from attempting to calculate the relative importance of home-grown and imported grain, and for better or worse their conjectures underpin current conceptions not only of the food supply policy of Athens but also of Athenian foreign policy in general over several centuries. Thus the conclusion that Attica could support only 60,000–75,000 people, 20–30% of the resident population as conventionally assessed (by my estimate about one-half of the figure actually supportable), underpins the doctrine that Athens' dependence on imports for ‘by far the greater part of her corn supply … led almost inevitably to naval imperialism’; it also underpins the more radical thesis that Athens relied on foreign grain as early as the turn of the seventh century BC, well before the era of ‘naval imperialism’. If, as I argue below, the productive capacity of Attica has been grossly underestimated, then a new interpretation of archaic Athenian history is demanded, one which is not shaped by conventional assumptions about Athens' early dependence on foreign grain.

POPULATION

There are no reliable demographic data from ancient Athens.