The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and RomansW. V. Harris Most people have some idea what Greeks and Romans coins looked like, but few know how complex Greek and Roman monetary systems eventually became. The contributors to this volume are numismatists, ancient historians, and economists intent on investigating how these systems worked and how they both did and did not resemble a modern monetary system. Why did people first start using coins? How did Greeks and Romans make payments, large or small? What does money mean in Greek tragedy? Was the Roman Empire an integrated economic system? This volume can serve as an introduction to such questions, but it also offers the specialist the results of original research. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 12 | |
2 What Was Money in Ancient Greece? | 38 |
3 Money and Tragedy | 49 |
4 The Elasticity of the MoneySupply at Athens | 66 |
5 Coinage as Code in Ptolemaic Egypt | 84 |
6 The Demand for Money in the Late Roman Republic | 112 |
7 Money and Prices in the Early Roman Empire | 137 |
9 The Nature of Roman Money | 174 |
10 The Use and Survival of Coins and of Gold and Silver in the Vesuvian Cities | 208 |
11 Money and Credit in Roman Egypt | 226 |
12 The Monetization of the Roman Frontier Provinces | 242 |
13 The Divergent Evolution of Coinage in Eastern and Western Eurasia | 267 |
References | 287 |
| 323 | |
8 The Function of Gold Coinage in the Monetary Economy of the Roman Empire | 160 |
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Common terms and phrases
actual amount Ancient appears argued Athenian Athens bank bankers bronze bullion Cambridge cash cent century bc circulation cities Classical clear coinage coins course currency Dacia demand deposits distance documents earlier early economy effect Egypt Egyptian electrum evidence example exchange fact function gold Greek hand History hoards imperial important included increase individual ingots institutions interest issues Italy kind known land Late least less limited loans London means metal military monetary monetization money supply nature observations Oxford paid payments period Persian political possible probably production provinces Ptolemaic quantities reason recent references regions Republic result Roman Empire Rome shows silver Society standard Studies suggest theory third trade traditional transactions urban weight