Money and its Uses in the Ancient Greek World

The papers in this volume re-assess the role of coined money in the ancient Greek world. Using new approaches, the book makes the results of numismatic as well as historical research accessible to students and scholars of ancient history. The chapters provide a wide-ranging account of the political, social, and economic contexts within which coined money was used. In Part One the book focuses on the theme of monetization and the politics of coinage, while Part Two provides a series of case studies relating to the production and use of coined money in different areas of the Greek-speaking world, including Asia Minor, Egypt, and Rhodes as well as Greece itself. The individual chapters cover a broad chronological range from Archaic Greece to Roman Egypt. The book as a whole offers fresh insights into an important aspect of the ancient Greek economy.

1 - Archaic Coinage as Evidence for the Use of Money
2 - Coinage and Democracy at Athens
3 - The Politics of Coinage: Athens and Hellenistic Monarchy
4 - Money, Freedom, and Empire in the Hellenistic World
5 - The Coinage of Rhodes 408-c.190 BC
6 - Temples, Credit, and the Circulation of Money
7 - Money and the Elite in Classical Athens
8 - The Politics of Monetization in Third-Century BC Egypt
9 - Money Use among the Peasantry of Roman Egypt

Kirsty Shipton is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leicester. A former scholar of Somerville College, Oxford, she holds degrees from Glasgow, Oxford, and London where she is a recent winner of the George Grote and Norman Baynes prizes in Ancient History. She has published articles on Greek and Roman literature and on Greek history, and is the author of a forthcoming study of the cash-based economy of fourth century Athens. Andrew Meadows is Curator of Ancient Greek Coins at the British Museum, and holds degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Michigan. He is the author of articles on Greek and Roman history, epigraphy, and numismatics. He is secretary of the British Academy's Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Committee, and the editor of two volumes in the series, as well as editor of the Royal Numismatic Society's Coin Hoards.