Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens

Lending and borrowing were commonplace in Athens during the fourth century BC and could involve interest rates, security and banks, but the part played by credit was very different from its familiar role in capitalist society. Using a combination of sources, but concentrating on the law-court speeches of the Attic orators, Dr Millett shows that it is possible to see how lending and borrowing were a way of ordering social relations between Athenian citizens. Although debt could be disruptive, it had as its more positive side the strengthening of ties between individuals. That was, in turn, an aspect of the solidarity between citizens that was a part of the Athenian democracy.

Business & Money

Millett, Paul

Economics

Cambridge University Press

<p>Lending and borrowing were commonplace in Athens during the fourth century BC and could involve interest rates, security and banks, but the part played by credit was very different from its familiar role in capitalist society. Using a combination of sources, but concentrating on the law-court speeches of the Attic orators, Dr Millett shows that it is possible to see how lending and borrowing were a way of ordering social relations between Athenian citizens. Although debt could be disruptive, it had as its more positive side the strengthening of ties between individuals. That was, in turn, an aspect of the solidarity between citizens that was a part of the Athenian democracy.</p>

<p>This is the first extended study in English of Theophrastus' Characters , one of the briefest but also most influential works to survive from classical antiquity. Since the seventeenth century, the Characters has served as a model and an inspiration for authors as diverse as La Bruyère, Thackeray, George Eliot and Elias Canetti. This study aims to locate Theophrastus and his Characters with respect to the political and philosophical worlds of Athens in the late fourth century, focusing on later imitators in order to provide clues to reading the Theophrastan original. Special attention is paid to the problems and possibilities of the Characters as testimony to the culture and society of contemporary Athens, integrating the text into the extensive fragments and testimonia of Theophrastus' other writings. The implications for the historian of the elusive humour of the Characters , dependent in large measure on the device of caricature, are explored in detail. What emerges is a picture of the complex etiquette appropriate for upper-class citizens in the home, the streets and other public places in Athens where individuals were on display. Through their resolutely shaming behaviour, the Characters illuminate the honour for which citizens should, by implication, be striving. A key theme of the study is Theophrastus' ambivalent position in Athens: a distinguished philosopher and head of the Lyceum, yet still subject to the disabilities of his metic status.</p>

Theophrastus and his World (Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society Supplementary Volume)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Cambridge Philological Society

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Books by Millett, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Millett, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens

Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens

Theophrastus and his World (Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society Supplementary Volume)