"Exchange lies at the heart of the economic processes. It is also, as Aristotle maintained, an essential condition for political order. The separation of economic exchange from its social and political implications, commonplace in modern economic theory, would have been meaningless in Ancient Greece." "This book is the first sustained attempt to describe the consequences of a cast of thought in which the exchange of goods and the payment of money were viewed as social and political practices. The distinction between reciprocity and redistribution on the one hand and market exchange on the other is abandoned in order to explore the social symbolism of exchange across the boundary between politics and economics. Dr von Reden shows how economically motivated exchange emerged as morally inappropriate behaviour against a cultural background in which the political community was seen as a sacred order similar to that of the family. Drawing on literary and archaeological evidence, including vase painting and the iconography of coinage, she emphasises the overriding importance of the Greek city-state in shaping a notion of commerce opposed to other forms of exchange."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Deianeira sends her husband Herakles a poisoned robe. Eriphyle trades the life of her husband Amphiaraos for a golden necklace. Atreus’s wife Aerope gives away the token of his sovereignty, a lamb with a golden fleece, to his brother Thyestes, who has seduced her. Gifts and exchanges always involve a certain risk in any culture, but in the ancient Greek imagination, women and gifts appear to be a particularly deadly combination. This book explores the role of gender in exchange as represented in ancient Greek culture, including Homeric epic and tragedy, non-literary texts, and iconographic and historical evidence of various kinds. Using extensive insights from anthropological work on marriage, kinship, and exchange, as well as ethnographic parallels from other traditional societies, Deborah Lyons probes the gendered division of labor among both gods and mortals, the role of marriage (and its failure) in transforming women from objects to agents of exchange, the equivocal nature of women as exchange-partners, and the importance of the sister-brother bond in understanding the economic and social place of women in ancient Greece. Her findings not only enlarge our understanding of social attitudes and practices in Greek antiquity but also demonstrate the applicability of ethnographic techniques and anthropological theory to the study of ancient societies.

Coinage appeared at a moment when it fulfilled an essential need in Greek society and brought with it rationalization and social leveling in some respects, while simultaneously producing new illusions, paradoxes, and new elites. In a book that will encourage scholarly discussion for some time, David M. Schaps addresses a range of important coinage topics, among them money, exchange, and economic organization in the Near East and in Greece before the introduction of coinage; the invention of coinage and the reasons for its adoption; and the developing use of money to make more money.

In this collection of new essays, an international group of experts explores the significance of reciprocity (the principle and practice of voluntary requital, of benefit for benefit or harm for harm) in ancient Greek culture. Reciprocity has been seen as an important notion for anthropologists studying economic and social relations. A key question has been whether reciprocity constitutes an alternative pattern to the commercial, political, and ethical relationships characteristic of modern Western society. This volume takes the question forward in connection with Greek culture from Homer to the Hellenistic period. Building on previous research on this topic (especially on Homeric society), it provides a wide-ranging examination of reciprocity inGreek epic and drama, historiography, oratory, religion, and ethical philosophy. It asks fundamental questions about the importance of reciprocity in different phases of Greek history, the interplay between reciprocity and the ideology of Athenian democracy, and between reciprocity and altruism in ethical thought. Clear and non-technical, with all Greek translated, this volume will make debate on this important subject available to a wide circle of readers in classical, literary, anthropological, and historical studies.

Markets, Households and City-States in the Ancient Greek Economy brings together sixteen essays by leading scholars of the ancient Greek economy. The essays investigate the role of market-exchange in the economy of the ancient Greek world in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.