The present chapter concerns the Jewish inhabitants of the vast area stretching from modern Iran in the west to China in the east, and from the Central Asian steppes in the north to the shores of the Persian Gulf in the south. Most of the chapter is dedicated to the Jews of the Iranian world, namely, the territories which were historically inhabited by Iranian-speaking peoples, from the advent of Islam up to the rise of the Safavids in the early sixteenth century. I conclude this chapter with the history of Jewish presence in territories historically ruled by Chinese dynasties, as most of the sources relating to Jews in this part of the world indicate their possible Iranian origin.

Karaism is the Europeanized name given to a Jewish movement whose members identified themselves by the Hebrew name qaraʾim, a term widely understood to mean “those who are dedicated or devoted to the study of the Law [Torah],” “those who observe the Torah strictly according to the plain meaning of its text,” or “those who consider the text of the Torah to be the sole source of legislation.” Put otherwise, the Karaites are those Jews who reject the authority of the rabbinic tradition (or Oral Law, Torah she-be-ʿal peh) as the definitive interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.

Caesar was no aspiring autocrat seeking to realize the imperial future but a republican political leader whose success was based on a combination of patrician pedigree with a popular persona built on an extraordinary record of military achievement. He was no anti-senatorial, populist revolutionary but followed in the tracks of Roman heroes of the past such as the Scipios. His astonishing success hardened his enemies' determination to stop him, even at the price of forcing a civil war. His assassination on the eve of his departure for a great war of vengeance against Parthia precluded whatever plans for consolidation he may have had, but also propelled the violence of civil war into the next phase of what would become a decisively destructive cycle. If Gruen was correct to emphasize that civil war destroyed the Republic, not its preexisting institutional weaknesses, then human choices, especially those that brought about the Civil War, provide the most satisfactory explanation for the collapse of the Republic.

This introductory chapter presents the topic of money’s emergence in the eastern Mediterranean centuries prior to the invention of coinage, an important development with far-reaching effects, placing the study of money in early antiquity in the framework of thinking about the origins of money in human societies. The study of early money in the eastern Mediterranean Iron Age contributes to a better understanding of the interregional processes that shaped the eastern Mediterranean world from the end of the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age, while at the same time providing valuable insights into the important question of how money came into being. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that money has a single historical origin. Rather than being the result of a linear evolution, it is argued that money’s importance in the politics of value in any given society can rise, transform, and subside depending on the circumstances.

Caesar’s famous leniency in dealing with his former enemies has frequently in modern times been interpreted as an assertion of lordly mastery, establishing a quasi-monarchic supremacy over the recipients of his pardon that trampled aristocratic, "republican" sensibilities. But as Konstan showed some time ago, "clemency was a virtue," and an unimpeachably republican one at that. The first systematic collection of actual instances of Caesar’s Civil War leniency shows that his enemies rushed to avail themselves of it in great numbers, and never refused it (Cato notwithstanding) when it was actually offered. Nor were its recipients tightly bound to Caesar in chains of reciprocity once they had availed themselves of his pardon: the record of "recidivists" who simply returned to the fight after being pardoned shows that any gratitude they felt lay very lightly on their shoulders. Caesar’s letter to his advisers after Corfinium shows that it was no thinl -veiled blueprint for regnumbut a plausible attempt to prevent the catastrophe of civil war if possible and to minimize bloodshed if not, and in any case, to further restoration of a deeply divided community.

Exploring the vast anthropological and archaeological scholarship on money, this chapter lays out an approach to early money. Examining what it is we refer to when we talk about money, and what effect it supposedly has on society, it becomes clear that money can be diverse and does not have a set effect on society. Rather, the significance of money depends on the social and cultural logic in which its use is embedded. Arguing from this perspective, a distinction between primitive and modern forms of money – or equivalents, such as special-purpose and general-purpose money, or indigenous currencies and state money, with coinage representing modern/general-purpose/state-issued money – is rejected as arbitrary and not conducive to a better understanding of early money preceding coinage. Instead, money is conceptualized as being a commodity and a token at the same time. This is then applied to the material that is placed at the centre of this study – the cut and broken precious metal items generally known as hacksilber and hackgold – thereby substantiating an understanding of this material as a form of money, still preceding coinage.

In this chapter, a wide-angle historical approach contextualizes the use and significance of precious metal money in the broader region of the Levant from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. It is argued that the weakening of centralized authority – reflected by the collapse of Egyptian rule in the southern Levant – left trade networks and routes vulnerable, profoundly affecting trade networks and leading to an increasing reliance on precious metal in order to carry out transactions. Next, the importance of precious metal money and fiscal institutions are examined in the context of emerging territorial states, based on a critical approach to biblical sources documenting the hoarding and use of gold and silver in tributary payments to overlords. Rather than having stimulated monetization, the incorporation of the southern Levant into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the late eighth and seventh century is argued to have led to a depletion of the region from its silver. Only after the Egyptian takeover do we again observe fresh silver – e.g. from Aegean sources – arriving to the region through Egypt.