Alfonso Moreno shows how classical Athens, the largest and historically most important of the greek city-states, depend for its survival on a supply of grain from overseas sources, especially (in the fifth century BC) the conquered territories of its aegean empire, and (in the fourth century BC) the distant steppes of Scythia (modern Ukraine and southern Russia).á This trade was central to Athenian politics, and Moreno finds it to have benn organized and controlled by powerful elites, a conclusion that challenges prevailing interpretations ofáathenian democracy.