Money and the economic interaction mode

The fact that the nature of ‘the ancient economy’ remains a thorny subject com-plicates any discussion of money and economic interaction modes. Obviously, this is not the place to address this matter in depth.²⁶⁰ For the purpose of this chapter, and based on the evidence of the text under discussion, I will thus state

what little is known see Parker, Robert C.T. Athenian Religion. A History. Oxford 1996, 220 with n. 10; Garland, Robert S. J. “Religious Authority in Archaic and Classical Athens”, in: ABSA 79 (1984), 75-123, here 82f.

258 Theophr. Char. 16.11. On the significance attached to dreams as omens see Harris, William V. Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA 2009, 123-127, who notes the wide variety of attitudes, concluding that normally dreams were not regarded as illuminating the future, though they could come to do so in certain situ-ations. The Superstitious Man is hence disregarding this constraint.

259 Theophr. Char. 16.15.

260 See Cartledge, Paul. “The Economy (Economies) of Ancient Greece”, in: Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden (eds.). The Ancient Economy. New York 2002, 11-32, and Scheidel, Walter, Morris, Ian, and Saller, Richard. “Introduction”, in: Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller (eds.). The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge 2007, 1-12 for summaries of the debate. The two major proponents of an ancient economic ‘primitivism’ as outlined in Max Weber’s concept of the consumer city (1972⁵ [1922], 729, 732), are Karl Polanyi (The Great Transformation.

Boston 1944) and of course Moses Finley, who influentially argued that (1973b, esp.

21) “[the ancients] in fact lacked the concept of an ‘economy’ and […] the conceptual elements which together constitute what we call ‘the economy’. Of course they farmed, traded, manufactured, mined, taxed, coined, deposited and loaned money, made prof-its or failed in their enterprises. And they discussed these activities in their talk and their writing. What they did not do, however, was to combine these particular activities conceptually into a unit, in Parsonian terms into ‘a differentiated sub-system of society’.” Finley’s argument thus hinges on the absence of self-awareness and con-ceptual language, not the absence of interaction modes, and that is the crucial point for the present purpose, though of course there is no denying that there is a strong discourse of embedding, e.g. at Xen. Mem. 1.2.5-7; see also Tordoff 2012.

only that I agree with the central notion of Karl Polanyi’s and Moses Finley’s approach, namely the embedded nature of civic economic transactions within the value cosmos of the late fourth century, i.e. its underdevelopment as a full societal system.²⁶¹ This acceptance necessarily complicates and qualifies any use of thought built around the central modern definition of economic action in the neoclassical vein, which holds that economic interactions are generally cha-racterised by rational choice and independent, informed action with the aim of maximising utility and profit, the resultant tensions between the actors being worked out in markets.²⁶² Despite these qualifications, however, I argue that the Characters show an implicit awareness of what we might call an economic system, which is present at the level of abstract identity, while the choices made by the individual actor, which are then made manifest in interaction, are tempered by the complex identity networks studied here.²⁶³ The embeddedness of the economic system thus exists at the level of interaction, but not necessarily at the level of identity – there seems to be a movement towards money associating non-em-bedded interaction. As a matter of fact, Karl Polanyi himself saw late fourth century Athens on the brink of becoming a full market economy.²⁶⁴ As a result, my reading of the Characters’ economic contingency-reducing value system will make use of modern theory that presupposes an economic subsystem.

As was already observed above, the Characters construct a monetised society:²⁶⁵ Even the Country Bumpkin thinks in money and knows what coins are supposed

261 Polanyi (et al. 1957) viewed embedded economic interaction as incompatible with mar-ket economy and as embodied in an undeveloped economic system characterized by reciprocity and redistribution.

262 A summary of the fundamental principles of the neoclassical economic model is of-fered by Weintraub, E. Roy. “Neoclassical Economics”, in: David R. Henderson (ed.).

Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Online 2007. http://www.econlib.org/library/

Enc1/NeoclassicalEconomics.html (Accessed 21.09.2017). On rational choice see Becker, Gary S. The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago 1976.

263 This is clear from the fact that the Characters depict economic interactions not in iso-lation from social interaction but rather as a distinct category of social interaction.

Examples are Theophr. Char. 1.5 (emphasis on communication); 2.9 (emphasis on visible haste); 4.15 (meta-communication about transactions); 5.8f. (emphasis on visi-bly exotic wares); 6.4f. (shame of making a great deal out of small interactions); 9.4.

Cf. Luhmann 1998, 328, for whom the development of coined money in Lydia ushers in the development of the economic subsystem. For Schaps 2004, 32f. anonymity is crucial.

264 Polanyi 1944. On the contested attitude to money in Classical Athens see e.g. Tordoff, Robert. “Coins, Money, and Exchange in Aristophanes’ ‘Wealth’”, in: TAPhA 142:2 (2012), 257-293.

265 Lane Fox 1996, 147 and see above p. 134. Concerns with prices: Theophr. Char. 3.3;

4.15; monetized loans: 1.5; 6.9; 9.2; 10.2, 10; 12.11; 14.8; 15.7; 17.9; 18.5, 7; 22.3, 9;

to look like.²⁶⁶ This is not surprising, given the social standing of the individuals portrayed, the general contingency of economic wealth traced by John Davies, and the high level of monetisation Athens enjoyed in the fourth century, a dynamic that was further intensified by the coined gold and silver generated by Alexander’s campaigns.²⁶⁷ The contingency-reducing value system of coined money is thus well established in the text and is never the subject of deviation in itself. The individuals portrayed think in terms of money and use it throughout to express value judgements: for instance, the Boastful Man actually has someone tot up the fictitious sums he claims to have spent on aiding his friends and fellow citizens, and the Absent-minded Man forgets the totals of a similar calculation, while the ὑπερήφανος shows his arrogance in having his slave perform these kinds of financial transactions with his equals in his stead.²⁶⁸ The only problem that is thematised on one occasion is the materiality of ancient money and the trust relationship necessary to authenticate it. When the Country Bumpkin challenges and tests a coin (ἀργύριον) on account of it looking too leaden (μολυβρόν),²⁶⁹ he implicitly thematises the constructed nature of this value system, i.e. the trust

30.3, 13; investments: 23.2; 30.15; money itself: 4.13; 5.7; 6.4, 9; 10.6; 12.4; 14.2; 18.3;

21.5; 23.2, 5f., 8; 24.12; 28.4; 30.7, 9, 14.

266 Theophr. Char. 4.10; 4.13 also shows him being economically active in the city and thinking in terms of money. It is nevertheless possible that two contradictory asso-ciations of ἀγροικία might coexist.

267 Davies, John K. Athenian Propertied Families: 600 - 300 B.C. Oxford 1971, 260; idem.

Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens. Salem 1984, 76; Davidson 1997, 183-210; Mørkholm, Otto. Early Hellenistic Coinage from the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336-188 B.C.). Edited by Philip Grierson and Ulla Westermark. Cambridge 1991, 23f., 42f.; Shipton, Kirsty. Leasing and Lending: The Cash Economy in fourth-century BC Athens. London 2000, 7-14; Reger, Gary. “Hellenistic Greece and Western Asia Minor”, in: Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller (eds.). The Cambridge Eco-nomic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge 2007, 460-483, here 470-472.

268 Theophr. Char. 10.4; 14.2; 23.6; 24.12.

269 Theophr. Char. 4.10. On counterfeit coins with a lead core, cf. Hdt. 3.56; Dem. 24.214.

The text is uncertain and the low level of detail means that no interpretation can claim final authority. Diggle 2004, 215f. is sure that the reason for rejection is a social issue, not the testing, arguing that his inexperience with money makes him unaware that worn silver can look leaden – a joke that only works if the coin appears to Theo-phrastus’ ‘normal’ Athenian clearly not to be made of lead. On the other hand, Rusten 2002, 63 n. 6 (note to 4.13), suspects that the error lies in preferring shinier, but less valuable money over duller, older, and therefore heavier coin, but his parallels hardly bear out his point; Lane Fox 1996, 147 thinks that he is suspicious of the coin being under weight from long use, which Diggle 2004, 216 counters by asserting that “[w]e want an unreasonable quibble, not the kind of thinking which would prompt an Athenian to consult the δοκιμαστής.” My interpretation thus offers an added level of meaning, based on the social irritation the action evidently causes.

required of the individual to accept coins as valuable. By labelling the episode as deviant, the text defends the coin and its individually, collectively, and institu-tionally guaranteed weight and value against such suspicions.²⁷⁰

As an aside, it is interesting to note here that the Boastful Man sketch may make reference not to silver money, but to gold (χρυσίον), which he obviously considers more prestigious, due to its far greater value (10-9,5:1).²⁷¹ While this point must remain very tentative, since χρυσίον can simply mean ‘money’, which need not even be minted,²⁷² it stands to reason that in the 310s minted gold coins would be Alexanders, i.e. coins minted on the Attic standard but conveying se-mantics chosen by a Macedonian king.²⁷³ The Boastful Man’s general pretenses to Macedonian economic contacts may lend this hypothesis further plausibility, though it is hampered by the fact that actual deposits in Athens have revealed

270 The coin is individually guaranteed by the trust normatively inherent in the philia relationship of economic exchange (Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1163b35f.). Assuming that the coin in question is to be imagined as an Athenian silver coin, its worth was collectively and institutionally ensured in that the Athenian boulē appointed public slaves as δημόσιοι δοκιμασταὶ, expert officials who were responsible for authenticating the silver content and marks of Attic and Attic-looking coins in the agora and the Piraeus, taking counterfeit coints out of circulation (SEG XXVI 72:3-5, 10-13, 16-18). See Stroud, Robert S. “An Athenian Law on Silver Coinage”, in: Hesperia 43:2 (1974), 158-188, esp.

164-167, who also points out that these duties were still being carried out in 306/5 BC, citing IG II² 1492b:102, 111, 137. This inscription seems to attest that the dokimastai now also authenticated Alexanders (101f.: [ἀργυ]ρίο[υ Ἀ]λεξα[ν]δρ[είο]υ//[δοκι]μαστὰ τάλ[α]ντα [ ...]), so the money in question need not be Attic for the argument to be valid.

271 On the relative value of gold and silver in the period under discussion here see Mørkholm 1991, 43; Lambert, Stephen D. “IG II² 1471A and the Value of Gold at Athens in the 320s B.C.”, in: ZPE 110 (1996), 84-86.

272 E.g. at Dem. 34.5. It can also be explicitly differentiated from ἀργύριον, however, as at Lys. 19.47. This is the only attestation of χρυσίον in the Characters, otherwise ἀργύριον is used: Theophr. Char. 4.13; 14.8; 15.7; 17.9; 18.3. Of course this may be pure coincidence, but an intentional choice fits the context of boastfulness.

273 On the proliferation of Alexanders in the late fourth century see generally Reger 2007, 470-472. Cf. also Aristophanes’ complaint (Ran. 718-726) about subaerate and gold coinage being un-Athenian, after the failure of the Sicilian expedition necessitated the minting of emergency money in 407/6 BC (see Thompson, Wesley E. “The Date of the Athenian Gold Coinage”, in: AJPh 86:2 (1965), 159-174). The emergency subaerate issue seems to have been later recalled (Aristoph. Eccl. 816-822; around 392 BC). Gold coinage recurred only under Lachares in 296 BC (Plut. Mor. 379c); it thus seems un-likely that the gold mentioned here would be in the form of Athenian staters. On Athenian coinage at the time see generally Mørkholm 1991, 86f. The ‘reperson-alisation’ of coinage is a feature of the Hellenistic period and constitutes a distinctive difference from the impersonal coinage of the Classical period (Seaford 2004, 152f.).

only relatively few Macedonian coins.²⁷⁴ This sketch is nevertheless the best example of contacts to the new macro-political powers generating wealth and prestige through its ostentatious display, but also of non-Athenian money being more prestigious than Athenian money. Both these sketches thus hint at con-tingency experiences potentially attached to coinage in the late 4^th century BC, though they are not made very explicit.

Despite these two scenes, coinage itself nonetheless generally appears as an unquestioned contingency-reducing value system in the Characters and is neither thematised in its controlling function, nor really deviated against. This result is unsurprising in that the monetary system of exchange is not constructed and controlled by the Characters’ civic collective alone, but constitutes a macro-level medium of value translation. So why discuss it if it is not a source of collective contingency? The problem is not with coinage itself, but lies in the nature of money as a medium in interactions characterised by payment: the system dictates that the presence of payment in an interaction marks it as an economic inter-action, its primary evaluative code becoming payment/non-payment.²⁷⁵ The value judgements necessary to balance out the transfer of wealth inherent in payment are facilitated by the contingency-reducing value system of money, one of Luh-mann’s symbolically generalised media of exchange. As such, money is capable of establishing impersonal relations across boundaries, transcending difference and always tending towards universal applicability.²⁷⁶

The occurrence of money in interaction further serves to categorise inter-action, reducing the contingencies surrounding the selection of the correct social code. The ‘economic’ interaction code activated by the occurrence of money includes behavioural maxims, such as making profit.²⁷⁷ The social interaction that

274 Theophr. Char. 23.3f. On Macedonian money in the archaeological record of Athens see Lönnqvist, Kenneth. “Studies on the Hellenistic Coinage of Athens: The Impact of Macedonia on the Athenian Money Market in the 3^rd Century B.C.”, in: Jaakko Frösén (ed.). Early Hellenistic Athens. Symptoms of a Change. Helsinki 1997, 119-145, esp.

134f. His data does, however, include one gold Alexander (127, table 4).

275 The concept originally derives from Talcott Parsons. The economic code of payment/non payment and money, its generalised symbolic medium, are elaborated in Luhmann, Niklas. Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M. 1988, 54f.; 224; 230-243.

276 Luhmann 1988b, 232 with n. 4. This explains the situationally aggressive protection of currency by Greek cities outlined by Sokolowski, Franciszek. “The Athenian Law Concerning Silver Currency (375/4 B.C.)”, in: BCH 100 (1976), 511-515, here 512f.

Cf. also Davidson 1997, 119f.

277 While the maxim of profit in ancient economic interaction was called into question by Finley (Scheidel, Morris, and Saller 2007, 3), this dynamic is apparent in Aristot. Pol.

1257b1-5, where the introduction of profit into exchange is the crucial development.

On Athenian attitudes to trade, wealth, and money see also Bleicken 1995⁴, 116-133.

follows therefore obeys rules different from those that govern other social inter-action.²⁷⁸ In the Characters a related sense of collective contingency hence derives from money’s function as a medium capable of spanning multiple social inter-action modes.²⁷⁹ Because of this expansive versatility, the embeddedness of mo-ney, and the social interaction modes tied to the medium, the collective needs to control the contexts in which money is a legitimate value standard, since its misuse can introduce contingency.²⁸⁰ As in the case of religion, the Characters’ treatment of economic interactions therefore documents a struggle for collective control over the boundaries of an interaction mode in practice. Since this is a core concern of the text, this shall be analysed below when we turn to the interplay within the network of these control regimes.²⁸¹ Before we do so, however, a few other value systems needs to be discussed.

3.6.1.4 Truth

Among many other things, decrees, particularly those of a honorific nature, docu-ment the exercise of collective semantic hegemony. The motivation formulae of honorary decrees can be seen as perpetuated manifestations of how the institu-tionalised citizen collective sets itself up as the authority that ultimately evaluates

‘good’ in relation to said collective, e.g. by means of the usual formula ἐπειδὴ ἀνὴρ

278 On profit see Luhmann 1988b, 55-58, esp. 57f.: “Sozial wird das System von Rezi-prozität unabhängig und damit unabhängig von Bedingungen, die sehr stark durch den sozialen Rang der Beteiligten beeinflussbar sind. Erst diese Ausdifferenzierung aus der normal erwarteten Reziprozität macht die Wirtschaft autonom, nämlich fähig sich selbst zu regulieren. Profit ist ein zustimmungsunabhängiges Motiv, und es selegiert das Handeln auch nicht durch die Erwartung, dass sich der andere komplementär verhalten wird [...]. Profit ist mit alldem für soziale Konditionierungen weniger anfällig als Reziprozität.” An independent economic system of interaction rules features in the Characters in the passage that criticises the Penny-pincher for overcharging because the re-seller will not be able to make any profit (Theophr. Char. 10.7), the expectation of profit is thus crucial on both sides of the transaction. In doing so, however, the text suggests the need for balance in the transaction, moderating the autonomy of the economic code and complicating the situation by documenting the lived entanglement of the social codes.

279 Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1133b10-22 already observes the versatility of money as a means of creating relational measurements of value between disparate objects.

280 Aristotle’s discussion of money (Pol. 1257a1-1258b8) already outlines a number of fundamental problems. See on this Meikle, Scott. “Aristotle on Money”, in: Phronesis 39:1 (1994), 26-44, esp. 26-29.

281 This unease regarding monetary exchange corresponds to the role of money in bringing about a new kind of individual self in the first place: Seaford 2004, 294.

ἀγαθός ἐστιν περὶ τὸν δῆμον τὸν Ἀθηναίων (“because he is an excellent man in relation to the people of Athens”).²⁸² On brief honorary bases that is all the reader has to know, which makes the performativity of this collective enforcement of value-judgement through the exertion of collective agency particularly visible;

John Ma has recently called this “the ontological primacy of community over individual”.²⁸³ He has also pointed out, however, that the decrees invariably con-stitute an act of negotiation between individual and collective interests and there-fore manifest a compromise: “[t]he polis needed to maintain equilibria between competitive pressures, between the affirmation of the public sphere and the con-stitution of an elite, between community ideology and family expression [...].”²⁸⁴ This contested nature of truth, which, I would argue, is the underlying concern here, is visible also in the Characters in that they are concerned with exercising control over the relational configuration of the semiotic and semantic webs of significance that regulate these equilibria. Drawing an example from the same context, the Man of Petty Ambition (μικροφιλότιμος) behaves deviantly in that he derives distinction vis-à-vis his fellow citizens via interaction modes that are not sanctioned by the collective. Unsanctioned expressions of distinction within fora of interaction thus need to be sanctioned, since the individual is exercising indi-vidual hegemony over the construction of social difference and the honour dif-ferential that keeps the equilibrium in balance.²⁸⁵ Similarly, the Friend of Villains (φιλοπόνηρος) and the Slanderer (κακολόγος) impose their own judgements of good and bad on their environment, undermining collective judgement in the pro-cess.²⁸⁶

The concept of truth is obviously a crucial underlying component in all con-tingency-reducing value systems, as it underpins the power dynamics of society:

dictating what is true is the quintessence of power.²⁸⁷ In the constructivist per-spective adopted here, truth is a correlative value, a harmony check between

282 Ma 2013b, 55-63. An example from the period under discussion here is, e.g., IG II² 450:13. The value cosmos of Athenian honorary decrees has been studied in depth by Whitehead 1983 and 1986, and Veligianni-Terzi 1997. On the honours and the formu-las see fundamentally Henry, Alan S. Honours and privileges in Athenian decrees: the principal formulae of Athenian honorary decrees. Hildesheim 1983.

283 Ma 2013b, 62. The first honorary decrees in fifth-century Athens are of this type:

Whitehead 1983, 61.

284 Ma 2013b, 238.

285 Theophr. Char. 21.2-5, 7-11.

286 Theophr. Char. 28, esp. 5f. and 29.2-5.

287 Foucault 1978, 51: “Jede Gesellschaft hat ihre eigene Ordnung der Wahrheit: d.h. sie akzeptiert bestimmte Diskurse, die sie als wahre Diskurse funktionieren lässt; es gibt Mechanismen und Instanzen, die eine Unterscheidung von wahren und falschen

Aus-perception-based constructions, and is thus closely entwined with the trust re-lationships covered by philia at an individual level. At the same time, it is also

Aus-perception-based constructions, and is thus closely entwined with the trust re-lationships covered by philia at an individual level. At the same time, it is also