Sea Traders and Military Service in the Polis

[Eleatic Guest]

I was wondering whether in the classical Greek polis, with its brief but regular campaigns, citizens who worked as maritime traders were also required to fulfill their civic duties and go to war alongside the other professions. Since sailing and campaign season largely overlapped, it is hard to see how they could have managed to squeeze a war between their trading trips. Coming back from a dangerous sea journey they were probably also not too eager to risk their lives immediately again in some neighbour war they may not even have heard about until their return.

And considering that their line of work was likely more dangerous than that of a hoplite they would have had a good case to argue for their exemption from military service.

[Sean Manning]

In the archaic it seems to have been the other way around: the people who owned ships (especially galleys) were over-represented among the fighters, because they had contacts outside their neighbourhood and wealth and because they could use those ships to sail to another area and steal some cattle, women, and bronze. See books and articles by Josho Brouwers and Nino Luraghi's article "Traders, Pirates, Warriors: The Proto-History of Greek Mercenary Soldiers in the Eastern Mediterranean."

Edit: until the 20th century, the main difference between a trader and a raider is often the balance of force at any given spot. On my blog I cite an article on ancient slavers in the Black Sea who were arrested on dubious charges and sold into slavery. Chaucer's Shipman would have been familiar with tricks like that. The 19th century saw a lot of violent 'opening of places to trade' such as the Opium Wars and gave practices like shanghaing a name.