Yet the people of Athens were subject to few scarcities; and those they experienced happened in later times, when their enemies had acquired the superiority at sea. For so long as this state attended to her own navy and maintained her maritime supremacy, there was never, I believe, a deficiency of the grain in Peiræeus,[1639] though attempts were frequently made by the corn-dealers to create a monopoly and extort famine prices from the public,[1640] for which they were sometimes punished with death. Numerous proofs of the ease with which Athens could provision herself, occurred during the latter years of the Peloponnesian war, and the age immediately succeeding. Thus, when the Spartans, with their king Agis, were in possession of the pass of Deceleia, and ravaged habitually the whole territory of Attica, they felt that even the occupation of that important post was scarcely of any avail to them so long as Athens remained mistress of the sea, since they daily saw numbers of corn ships from all parts of the Levant, sailing into the Peiræeus.[1641] Afterwards, when the Spartans had begun to apply themselves to naval affairs, one of their first endeavours was to distress Attica, by attacking her corn ships, as on the occasion when Pollis sought to capture the transports in the neighbourhood of Geræstos, which however were relieved by the fleet under Chabrias.[1642] ----- Footnote 1639: Though afterwards in the decline of the republic it was otherwise. See in Plutarch an account of the base infraction of the law of nations by Demetrius which caused a famine in Athens. Demet. § 33. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. v. i. 23. Footnote 1640: See the whole oration of Lysias, against the Corn Monopolists in the Oratores Attici, ii. 523. Cf. Dem. cont. Dionysod. § 2. Footnote 1641: Xenoph. Hellen. i. 35. Footnote 1642: Id. v. 4. 61. ----- No inconvenience was ever experienced from the reluctance of the corn-growing states to export their produce. On the contrary, the petty kings of the countries on the Euxine were so anxious to secure to themselves the custom of Athens, that they conferred on that state numerous privileges and made her great presents, in order to tempt her corn ships into their harbours and prevent the application to rival states. It may indeed be said, that peace was scarcely ever interrupted between Athens and the exporting countries, and that not through the Athenians truckling to them to obtain their corn, but through their truckling to the Athenians to be allowed to supply them. Thus, as far as the experience of antiquity can be relied on, it must be concluded, that the country which purchases agricultural produce invariably exercises a paramount influence over the countries which supply it. It is in fact a rule all the world over, that it is the customer who coerces the dealer, not the dealer who influences the customer.