W HILE the history of Greece before 550 B.C. has always been an obscure period which scholars endeavored to illuminate per obscuriora, one tenet seemed to be securely fixed in our textbooks and histories: that the Ionian Greeks of the eastern Aegean played a leading role in the development of archaic Greece. Yet, in the last generation specialized archeological work has removed Panionism, Ionia as the source and inspiration, from the study of early Greek art and the implications are now spreading to other fields. In the last five years two articles, in particular, have been published from which I should like to summarize some conclusions as a starting point for my own remarks on economic development. They are Mr. George Hanfmann's article, "Archaeology in Homeric Asia Minor"2 and Mr. R. M. Cook's "Ionia and Greece in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C."3 Hanfmann concluded that Greek settlement of the eastern Ionian area began ca. 800 B.C. in Samos and Chios and that only in the course of the succeeding century did Greek settlers win the Ionian sites on the adjacent coast.4 If this is so, Ionian development was not parallel in form to that of Old Greece, which rose from the matrix of the migrations and settlements following the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. Instead, it was a colonial development which might resemble that of the western Greeks in Sicily and South Italy, for it was almost contemporary with them.5 Cook's article has extended the problem from origins to a general assessment of the place of Ionia in Greek development. As he observes, there are no direct estimates of the early importance of Ionia in the Greek sources ;6 but these are hardly to be expected in Herodotus and Thucydides, I think, for the intellectual climate of fifth century Athens was not sympathetic towards the Ionian Greeks, who had not only lost a war with Persia, but were charged with dragging Athens into one. Despite Herodotus' obvious approval of these views and minimization of Ionia7 his account carries the material for its refutation. A study of details leaves the impression that Ionia was very important, indeed, in the latter part of the archaic period. Cook concludes that the colonial activity of Ionia was on a smaller scale than that of Old Greece and began later. He distinguishes, however, between the character of colonization from each region: that of the Jonians was complementary to the parent-city while the western colonies of Old Greece were intended to be economically independent, to rid the motherland of surplus inhabitants and to create a new state.8 This seems an important distinction with interesting implications for the degree of economic development to which the founding cities of mainland Greece and Ionia had respectively attained. With regard to trade, Cook concludes that Old Greece was generally earlier in trading than East Greece, but points out that the evidence is not yet conclusive.9 He also observes that discussions of trade are almost necessarily based on the distribution of pottery. Yet, in the East Greek area, at least,