Michigan (2015) p/b 293pp £65 (ISBN 0472036408)
The aim of this book is clearly set out on the second page: ‘…to trace the invention of coinage and its introduction to ancient Greece, to demonstrate how it differed from its predecessors, and to show how its influence proceeded through the society that adopted it until most areas of that society had fundamentally altered’.
S. bolsters this thesis before exploring it: first by the idea that, ‘when we speak historically, the invention of coinage was the invention of money; that is, the concept that we understand as “money” did not exist before the seventh century BCE, when coins were first minted’ (p. 15—author’s emphasis); and then by the claim that, in Greece, the economy was primitive enough for the imported idea of coinage to have a more profound impact than on the societies from which it came, indeed for the concept of money as it developed among the Greeks ‘to have passed to their neighbours’ (p. 17). In defence of this substantial assertion, S. discusses first coinage’s antecedents in the Ancient Near East; then Greece in the ages before coinage—bronze, Homeric and archaic; then the moment of and possible reasons for the invention of coinage and its arrival in Greece; and lastly the effect coinage had on various aspects of Greek society: trade, politics, war, labour, agriculture and banking. As a coda, S. adds reflections on the relevance of these effects of monetisation to us.
The book’s central thesis is open to debate—at least its conceptual aspect seems to be something of a distraction. S. had himself sidestepped a ‘precise’ definition of money (or what we understand by the concept of it) in favour of a ‘preliminary’ one (p. 4): ‘anything that is widely used for making payments and accounting for debts and credits’. This is not in keeping with the later remark that ‘the invention of coinage was the invention of money’, as S. gives plenty of evidence of payments, debts and credits from before coinage (e.g. p. 39, 46), even if the transactions were in a currency of cloth, tin or dates. He says that, from coinage on, money became the measure of wealth; but it was not the first time wealth was measured—again, S. himself provides evidence of that elsewhere, as in the tax revenues on Egyptian inscriptions (p. 36) or Linear B tablets (p. 58).
Moreover, while well aware of the ‘inventionist’ fallacy (p. 8), that before something was invented, the function that it performed was not performed at all, S. insists ‘the first coins were surely an innovation’ (p. 100). An innovation in what way, other than convenience for the user? S. addresses the question ‘Why were coins invented?’ (p. 96 ff.) but having argued against both the ‘top down’ and the ‘bottom up’ theories of their introduction, leaves the reader wanting more: was the process evolutionary, and if so how might it have taken place? Certainly alongside utensil money (such as Pheidon’s spits), there is evidence for the Greek use of unstamped silver as payment, in Solon’s laws (p. 89-90) and Peisistratus’ funding his mercenaries (p. 125). S. was wise to warn that ‘nearly every paragraph in this book could be expanded into an illuminating article’ (p. vii).
With these notes of qualification, S. is onto something: why did coinage catch on in Greece so much more completely than elsewhere? Specie payment facilitated many activities, which S. in his later chapters on the consequences of monetisation describes with a cautious eye against exaggeration. Above all, he says that the change was felt in the local economy, where loans could be made which were not possible before; in war, expensive navies and armies of mercenaries depended on coined money; money also produced a different sort of politician, who either gave of his own resources or proposed returning to the people their own revenues. Only in the labour market and in agriculture did the advent of coinage not make more than a marginal difference.
Most powerful for the reviewer, however, are the glimpses S. gives of the way societies functioned without coinage: the centralised collection and redistribution of Mycenae and Egypt, the conduct of foreign trade, the sharp distinction between value and price. They justify his final comment, ‘We cannot, while we live, leave the monetised world, and we cannot overcome it, but we may find our place more successfully if we recognise it’ (p. 212).
The book has a comprehensive index, a copious bibliography and, as when S. admits to not having read every word of the works he cites, a sense of humour. It is well worth buying for a classical library.
Christopher Tanfield
South Hampstead High School