RECENT WORK ON THE HOROI

Since the appearance of my reassessment of the horoi in 1982 (summarized in SEGxxxiv 158–68), at least three further inscriptions have come to light, of which only one has so far been published.

A limestone plaque from Laureotike in Attica, found in excavations of the Asklepiakon mine at Soureza in 1976–8 (Conophagus 1980: 389 no. 2 ∼ SEGxxxii 236):

This horos (dated to c. 350) is briefly discussed in the text (p. 159, above). The two unpublished horoi are also from the mining area of Attica, from the excavation of a silver-mine site at Agrileza. In his preliminary report, Ellis-Jones records (1984–5: 122) ‘two… boundary stones recording mortgage leases, both using the common oros… pepramenou epi lusei formula; one, with six lines of neat stoichedon lettering of fourth-century b.c. date, came from the washery's SW sedimentation basin, and the other with five lines of less regular letters from alongside the washery.’ The three inscriptions will make a useful addition to the analysis of horoi from the mining area by Lauffer (1979: 89–97).

Several recent publications have a bearing on specific horoi. Whitehead (1986: Appendix 3, no. 58) questions Finley's ascription of a horos pledging property to the Halaieis (1952: no. 5) to Halai Aixonides rather than Halai Araphenides. The horos published as SEGxxx 122 has already appeared in print as SEGxxi 656 (see Chapter vii, n. 8). An inscription identified by Fine as a horos marking property pledged as security to the Thymaitian phratry (1951: no. 11 ∼ Finley 1952: no. 101c) has been convincingly reread by Hedrick (1988) as the boundary-marker of asanctuary.

MISER, MONEY-LENDER, BORROWER AND THIEF

An anecdote attributed to Antiphon the Sophist (but also found among Aesop's Fables) tells the story of a person in need who

Consideration of Antiphon's commentary on the story may conveniently be postponed till later. What matters here is the way in which the wealthy miser is criticized for failing to lend his money at interest. There is no hint of the antipathy towards interest-bearing credit we have encountered in other texts (25–6 and 99–100).

MOEROCLES AND THE METAPHOR OF INTEREST

Amongst the topics covered in Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric is the use of metaphor. Embedded in a long list of illustrations, most of them bons mots by Athenian politicians, is the following example (141 1a16–18):

The context of the comment is unknown, but Moerocles can be identified as a contemporary of Demosthenes. Although earlier commentators failed to appreciate the point of the metaphor (see Billeter 1898: 12), the allusion is presumably to the exaction of interest from borrowers (not profits; see Freese 1926: ad loc.). The figures quoted seem to represent the highest and lowest rates commonly found in Athens. In what follows, I will try to show how the moralizing aspect of the metaphor gives a clue to the fixing of Athenian interest rates.

Ancient interest rates come second only to banks in the attention they have received from historians, but an approach along moral lines is at odds with earlier suggestions. Superficial similarities invite arbitrary comparisons between ancient and modern rates, frequently combined with attempts to determine interest trends over time (see OCD s.v. ‘interest, rate of’). Interpretation of the evidence tends to be based on the assumption that the level of interest is itself a significant indicator of the condition of society.

This book has been a long time in the writing. It started out as a Cambridge doctoral thesis, ‘The structure of credit in fourth-century Athens’, begun in 1976 and completed in 1983. Although the subsequent seven-year delay in turning the thesis into a book has not been deliberate, the result is probably a better piece of work. I am grateful to my Faculty and College for not putting me under direct pressure to rush into print. The present version is the product of extensive rethinking and rewriting, away from the restrictions engendered by the Ph.D. format, in favour of the broader approach indicated by the change of title.

Concern that this study should be accessible outside the narrow circle of classical scholars has prompted several decisions about presentation. In the first place, I have tried to explain, however briefly, many terms and concepts which will be familiar to ancient historians. To explain everything would be cumbersome, and non-classicists may occasionally want to refer to entries in either the Oxford Classical Dictionary or the glossary of legal and associated terms at the back of Cartledge, Millett and Todd (1990). Secondly, I have made extensive use of quotations from ancient texts, all of which are translated into English. Key words and phrases are transliterated, and no Greek script appears in the text or notes. This decision was taken with many misgivings and I am aware of the understandable objections that will be raised by Greek scholars. But the gains in terms of a shorter, cheaper and less forbidding book seemed, on balance, to outweigh the inconvenience to those wanting to look at the Greek.

THE INGRATITUDE OF NICOSTRATUS

A few years before his brush with Stephanus, as described in the previous chapter (see above, pp. 24–7), Apollodorus had involved himself in a law suit against his neighbour Nicostratus. The speech he delivered on that occasion is preserved as the fifty-third oration in the Demosthenic corpus. The ostensible purpose of Apollodorus' accusation was to establish that two slaves, whom Nicostratus and his brother Deinon were claiming as their own property, were in reality the property of a third brother, Arethusius. Because Arethusius was a state debtor – the result of a previous legal encounter with Apollodorus – his property was liable to seizure. According to Athenian practice, a successful prosecution against Nicostratus would have brought Apollodorus a reward of one third of the value of the slaves; but in his introduction to the speech (§§1–3), he renounces all rights to any reward. He claims instead that his true motive for bringing a charge against Nicostratus is a desire to be revenged on the brothers for the repeated injustices he has suffered at their hands. ApoUodorus' recital of these wrongs (§§4–13) provides a convenient introduction to the main characteristics of credit in fourth-century Athens as set out in this and the following chapters.

Apollodorus begins his account of the origins of the dispute by underlining the good relationship that had previously prevailed between himself and Nicostratus (§4):

THE CASE AGAINST STEPHANUS

In the previous chapter (p. 9), it was explained how our exceptionally detailed knowledge of the bank of Pasion derived from a series of law-court speeches. Half of these speeches (Dem. xxxvi, xlv and [xlvi]) were the fruit of litigation by Pasion's son, Apollodorus, trying to recover monies which he claimed had been embezzled by his father's associate, Phormion. Our immediate concern is with a passage from one of these speeches; but, as both Phormion and Apollodorus will reappear throughout this study, some detail about their relationship may prove helpful.

Pasion began his career in the later fifth century as the slave of Antisthenes and Archestratus, who ran one of the earliest banks known in Athens. At some date around 400 Pasion was given his freedom and, by a process not clear to us, gained control of the bank. The business flourished and Pasion deployed his wealth wisely, so that some time after c. 390 he became an Athenian citizen. Shortly before his death in 370/69, he retired from active involvement in banking; the bank, and also a workshop making shields, were rented to Phormion, his former slave and assistant. The career of Phormion turned out to be no less remarkable than that of Pasion. Not only did he receive his freedom: according to the terms of Pasion's will he was to marry his master's widow, receiving a dowry of five talents. He was also to act as guardian to Pasion's younger son Pasicles; the elder son, Apollodorus, had already come of age. In this capacity, Phormion retained control of both bank and shield manufactory for approximately eight years, paying over an annual rent.

Polonius' advice to his son survives as a proverbial reminder of conventional wisdom about personal borrowing. The mood is unfailingly negative. ‘He who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.’ ‘He that borrows must pay again with shame and loss.’ ‘Better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt.’ ‘Out of debt, out of danger.’ Debt is popularly conceived as disruptive of relationships, morally reprehensible and economically damaging. From the mass of corroborative literature from Shakespeare's time onwards, one might single out Samuel Johnson's repeated and Polonius-like warnings to Boswell about the danger of borrowing: ‘Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt’ (1791: iv, 154). From the nineteenth century, a recurring theme in art and literature is the awful spectre of insolvency: what Carlyle writing in Past and Present (almost) called ‘the Hell of the English’ (Weiss 1986: 13). The combination of folk wisdom with Victorian melodrama may sound like voices from the past; but there are those who would interpret the unacceptable face of the credit explosion in the late 1980s as the penalty for neglecting Victorian values.

What has emerged from this study of credit in Athens is the existence of another, more positive side to the lender–debtor relationship. The Athenians were keenly aware of the unpleasant possibilities of debt (see above, p. 5), but they would have looked askance at Polonius' denunciation of lending and borrowing as dangerous to friendship and best avoided.

ARISTOTLE ON FRIENDSHIP

At the heart of Aristotle's analysis of philia or ‘friendship’ in his Nicomachean Ethics is an extended discussion of the differing obligations owed to the different varieties of philoi (1165a14–35):

THE TYRANT'S LAMENT

Among Xenophon's slighter works is the Hiero, his entirely imaginary account of a conversation between Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse in the earlier fifth century, and Simonides of Ceos, a poet at his court. The dialogue is contrived to show how, contrary to popular belief, tyrants lead a miserable existence. After some introductory comments, the conversation turns in the direction of philia. Says Hiero (iii.7):

Hiero goes on to complain that tyrants, by contrast, run a considerable risk of being murdered by their nearest and dearest. Whether this really was the case is immaterial. What matters here is Hiero's presentation of his list of ‘firmest philia’ as a hierarchy, with family connexions taking precedence even over hetairoi – the closest of companions.

Three related features distinguish intra-family philia from philia extending outside the family circle. In the first place, philia existed automatically between members of a family and was not generated by performance of a specific action. Secondly, there was no careful calculation of relative advantage in the giving or receiving of goods and services; either this was thought to be inappropriate (or impossible), or there was the assumption that a balance would be struck over time. Finally, family philia was enduring.