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3recommend
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100% recommend
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- I found the book Ancient Greek law in the 21st century, edited by Paula Jean Perlman to be an interesting read as a layman:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36708211-ancient-greek-l...
Some interesting stuff on slaves having debt (is the debt transferred with the sale of a slave, or kept with the slave's master?) and owning things (like one of the largest banks in Athens, since finance was not an 'honourable' way to make money, so 'relegated' to less reputable people).
- For a good book on ancient economy, I found The Open Sea: The Economic Life of the Ancient Mediterranean World from the Iron Age to the Rise of Rome by J.G. Manning an interesting read:
> In The Open Sea , J. G. Manning offers a major new history of economic life in the Mediterranean world in the Iron Age, from Phoenician trading down to the Hellenistic era and the beginning of Rome's imperial supremacy. Drawing on a wide range of ancient sources and the latest social theory, Manning suggests that a search for an illusory single "ancient economy" has obscured the diversity of lived experience in the Mediterranean world, including both changes in political economies over time and differences in cultural conceptions of property and money. At the same time, he shows how the region's economies became increasingly interconnected during this period.
> The Open Sea argues that the keys to understanding the region's rapid social and economic change during the Iron Age are the variety of economic and political solutions its different cultures devised, the patterns of cross-cultural exchange, and the sharp environmental contrasts between Egypt, the Near East, and Greece and Rome. The book examines long-run drivers of change, such as climate, together with the most important economic institutions of the premodern Mediterranean--coinage, money, agriculture, and private property. It also explores the role of economic growth, states, and legal institutions in the region's various economies.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36854772-the-open-sea
* https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691151748/th...
Leans slightly academic, but still very accessible to a layman. Also the more academic Ancient Greek Law in the 21st Century edited by Paula Jean Perlman:
> The ancient Greeks invented written law. Yet, in contrast to later societies in which law became a professional discipline, the Greeks treated laws as components of social and political history, reflecting the daily realities of managing society. To understand Greek law, then, requires looking into extant legal, forensic, and historical texts for evidence of the law in action. From such study has arisen the field of ancient Greek law as a scholarly discipline within classical studies, a field that has come into its own since the 1970s. This edited volume charts new directions for the study of Greek law in the twenty-first century through contributions from eleven leading scholars. The essays in the book’s first section reassess some of the central debates in the field by looking at questions about the role of law in society, the notion of “contracts,” feuding and revenge in the court system, and legal protections for slaves engaged in commerce. The second section breaks new ground by redefining substantive areas of law such as administrative law and sacred law, as well as by examining sources such as Hellenistic inscriptions that have been comparatively neglected in recent scholarship. The third section evaluates the potential of methodological approaches to the study of Greek law, including comparative studies with other cultures and with modern legal theory. The volume ends with an essay that explores pedagogy and the relevance of teaching Greek law in the twenty-first century.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36708211-ancient-greek-l...
Did you know that one of the largest banks in Ancient Athens was owned/run by two slaves? It seems that making money from finance was 'undignified'—proper citizens and aristocrats focused on argriculture—and so was left to undignified people.
- > There's a good book on Athenian banking:
For a wider net, on the general legal framework(s) of that time, see perhaps Ancient Greek law in the 21st century, Perlman, Paula Jean, editor:
* https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/
It turns out one of the largest banks in Athens was owned/run by some slaves: finance was not a 'respectable' profession—with farming/agriculture being the most 'noble'—so it was left to the lower classes and other riff-raff. Lots of slaves ran businesses, and the question often came up whether any associated debt belong to the business, the slave, or the slave's master (important when slaves were bought and sold).
- For an academic-leaning book on contemporary thinking on it, see Ancient Greek Law in the 21st Century:
* https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/
* Review: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018.10.49/
Did you know that one of the largest banks in Athens was owned / run by two slaves?
> Edward E. Cohen returns to the issue of slave-owned businesses previously addressed in his work on Athenian banking, reasserting his view that enslaved business owners were liable for their own debts. Through comparison with the Roman system, he argues that the Athenian conventions of credit worked alongside this legal liability.
IIRC, the slaves incorporated the bank, and then the bank (as a legal entity) paid the master of said slaves for the services of the slaves through a leasing arrangement.
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