The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans

by W. V. Harris

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199233359
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

W. V. Harris is Shepherd Professor of History at Columbia University.

Also Known As:

Seth BoydJulian David CopeJacky AruGian-Marco SchmidAlex Alarcon

Table of Contents

1. The Monetary Use of Weighed Bullion in Archaic Greece, John Kroll2. What Was Money in Ancient Greece and Rome?, David M. Schaps3. Money and Tragedy, Richard Seaford4. The Elasticity of the Money-Supply at Athens, Edward E. Cohen5. Coinage as ‘Code' in Ptolemaic Egypt, J. G. Manning6. The Demand for Money in the Late Roman Republic, David B. Hollander7. Money and Prices in the Early Roman Empire, David Kessler & Peter Temin8. The Function of Gold Coinage in the Monetary Economy of the Roman Empire, Elio Lo Cascio9. The Nature of Roman Money, W. V. Harris10. The Use and Survival of Coins and of Gold and Silver in the Vesuvian Cities, Jean Andreau11. The Monetization of the Roman Frontier Provinces: A Quantitative Revision, Constantina Katsari12. The Divergent Evolution of Coinage in Eastern and Western Eurasia, Walter Scheidel

Editorial Reviews

"Monetary Systems serves as an excellent overview of the most interesting topics in ancient monetary history today and provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of the economic history of the ancient world in general." —EH.net

From the Publisher