Very different was the position and occupation of the retail dealer or pedlar. He did not travel by sea, scarcely even by land, but usually carried on his business at one place; he either bought his goods direct from the producers or from the wholesale dealers, and offered them for sale in open shops or in booths on the market-place; in large towns there were special stands or markets for particular goods, but those who offered their wares at these places were usually the producers themselves, thus at the Pot Market at Athens, the wares were offered by real potters, who had doubtless made them themselves. We must therefore distinguish between shopkeepers who lived only by trade, and did not themselves produce, and producers, who brought their own goods to market; the latter were regarded as merchants by the ancients, and the hatred, where it existed, was chiefly directed at the small shopkeepers, who sold their wares for as high prices as possible. In small cities the circumstances may have been somewhat different, for it was only the most important trades connected with food and clothing that were carried on there, and many branches were not represented at all; consequently many kinds of goods had to be imported for sale by the small shopkeepers. No doubt the inhabitants of the small towns and even the country people often went to the capital to satisfy their wants, especially to the great markets held on fixed days of the month, usually on the first; the national festivals too provided opportunities for many kinds of purchases, since a sort of fair was usually connected with them. In the market-places of large towns there were usually covered arcades in which the merchants and dealers set up their wares; in some places there were market-halls of this kind for special goods, such as corn, oil, ointments, etc. Besides these permanent places of sale, there were light booths of a temporary nature, constructed in tent fashion of woven reeds and linen. The life in the market-place probably resembled that of the present day in the south; the custom of calling out and extolling goods existed in ancient Greece as well, and so did the excessive demands of the seller and the depreciation on the part of the purchaser, and even the notorious rudeness of the fish-wives seems to have been known to the Greeks. We find mention also of peddling, and carrying wares from house to house, and this was chiefly the case with provisions.