Amphores italiques en Lycie : témoins des réseaux marchands en Méditerranée orientale ? (iie s. av. J.-C./ier s. ap. J.-C.)

Abstract

The activity of merchants crisscrossing the mediterranean Sea from West to East has since the early decades of the twentieth century attracted the attention of historians. The analysis of literary and epigraphic sources shows that the presence of Italians in the Eastern increased significantly from the second century BC. The last two centuries of the Republic are also marked by the implementation by Rome of a hegemonic policy in the East. The discovery in many sites in this region, amphoras produced on the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy tends to support the hypothesis of the constitution of commercial networks for export to the East, of italian agricultural products, wine and oil primarily. In Lycia, the city of Xanthos has delivered ceramics assemblages associated with the fill related to a portico bordering the Roman Agora on the site. These level was composed of aegean and italic amphoras. This archaeological context gives the opportunity to insert Xanthos and widely Lycia in marketing italics products networks that hit the eastern part of the Mediterranean to the second and first centuries BC.

Keywords

• Lycia
• italic amphora
• networks exchange
• merchant