v08_0843 - MASSALIA - MARSEILLES Obole

MASSALIA - MARSEILLE

(385-220 BC)

The 4th and 3rd centuries BC seem to be a more difficult period, marked by the economic recession of Marseilles. The Carthaginians prove to be formidable competitors both in the Western and Eastern Mediterranean. The fall of Athens, the political and economic problems experienced by Sicily and Syracuse in particular, must have affected Massali's trade. In Gaul, in the hinterland of Marseille, the city had to face the incursions of the Ligurian tribes. The rise in power of Rome, from the first Punic war (268-241 AC), and the strategic choice of Marseilles, which plays Rome against Carthage, will restore, in the second half of the third century before our era, a role preponderant in Massalia in the international trade of the Western Mediterranean.