Money and the Early Greek Mind
Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy

An original theory that connects the development of coinage to the origins of rational philosophy in ancient Greece.

Richard Seaford (Author)

9780521832281, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 March 2004

384 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.8 cm, 0.73 kg

'… a well thought through, carefully organised, well structured and competently balanced work. It promises a fascinating and stimulating read.' Ancient West and East

How were the Greeks of the sixth century BC able to invent philosophy and tragedy? In this book Richard Seaford argues that a large part of the answer can be found in another momentous development, the invention and rapid spread of coinage which produced the first ever thoroughly monetised society. By transforming social relations, monetisation contributed to the ideas of the universe as an impersonal system (presocratic philosophy) and of the individual alienated from his own kin and from the gods (in tragedy). Seaford argues that an important precondition for this monetisation was the Greek practice of animal sacrifice, as represented in Homeric Epic, which describes a premonetary world on the point of producing money. This book combines social history, economic anthropology, numismatics and the close reading of literary, inscriptional, and philosophical texts. Questioning the origins and shaping force of Greek philosophy, this is a major book with wide appeal.

1. Introduction
Part I. The Genesis of Coined Money: 2. Homeric transactions
3. Sacrifice and distribution
4. Greece and the ancient near East
5. Greek money
6. The preconditions of coinage
7. The earliest coins
8. The features of money
Part II. The Making of Metaphysics: 9. Did politics produce philosophy?
10. Anaximander and Xenophanes
11. The many and the one
12. Heraclitus and Parmenides
13. Pythagoreanism and Protagoras
14. Individualisation
15. Appendix: was money used in the early near East?

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA]