6.2.1 Monetization

The process of monetization can be defined as ‘the enlargement of the sphere of the monetary economy’.Footnote ³⁵ Monetization-ratio refers to the extent to which the total goods and services of an economy are monetized, that is to say, the extent to which goods and services will be acquired through monetary payment. This ratio is seen as an important indicator of the level of economic development,Footnote ³⁶ since, although monetization and marketization are distinct phenomena, monetization is a necessary condition for the development of a dominant market, due to its role in facilitating market exchange.Footnote ³⁷ At the same time, the level of monetization and of circulation of coinage suggest the presence of an active and strong wage labour relationship.Footnote ³⁸

The extent of monetization, reflected in the number of coins produced and in circulation, significantly increased during the Hellenistic period compared with previous epochs.Footnote ³⁹ This increase in coinage was closely related to state expenditure, with military expenses, in particular soldiers’ wages, foremost. However, while the need to pay monetary wages explains why coins were minted, it does not address the dissemination of these coins into wider society; reasons for minting and subsequent circulation are separate phenomena. The emergence of large-scale wage labour is one way of explaining heightened circulation, in so far as wage labourers rely on the market to procure daily necessities, thereby introducing this coinage to the marketplaces they frequent.

In the royal armies, payment was not only offered to those who enlisted voluntarily, but rather to all who served. Wages consisted of coin, kind, and other benefits. While on campaign, provisions and armour were at times given or sold on by the commander, but the provision of their monetary equivalents is also attested, indicated most notably in the agreement between Eumenes I and his soldiers.Footnote ⁴⁰ Soldiers were therefore in part reliant on markets in which coins were the prime medium of exchange. Even those soldiers who were given a grant of land appear to have been keen to monetize it, as indicated by their habit of subletting their land, as best recorded in Egypt.Footnote ⁴¹ The effects of this quickly growing dominance of wages paid out in coin should be directly associated with the increased monetization of the Hellenistic world. Alexander’s payment of soldiers’ debts and outstanding wages right before his death, for instance, prompted a significant minting effort and is viewed as the major initial impetus for the wider monetization of the Aegean.Footnote ⁴² This trend continued during the Successor Wars, especially initially, when market mechanisms ensured inflated wages, necessitating high mint outputs under each of the Successors. The globalized nature of these wars meant that these coinages were put into circulation wherever the armies were active, as well as in the soldiers’ home poleis upon their return.

Overstruck coinage provides an important piece of evidence in illustration of this process. The practice of overstriking was common in the ancient world and is crucial in establishing origins and chronologies of coinages; for when a foreign coin is overstruck, and thereby appropriated by the overstriking mint, it offers insights into circulation.Footnote ⁴³ Unfortunately, of course, successful overstrikes obliterate a coin’s original type and therefore its origin; thus, this type of evidence is restricted to instances in which the overstrike was careless or unsuccessful. Nonetheless, Cretan overstrikes on coinage originating from Cyrenaica have been used to put forward a strong case for the role of soldiers in the introduction of foreign coinage to local markets.Footnote ⁴⁴ Cretan poleis routinely overstruck coins, and in the early fourth century most of these coins were Cretan. From the 320s onwards, however, the majority of overstruck coins were foreign.Footnote ⁴⁵ Deriving mainly from Cyrenaica, they were cut down by 1–2 grams to be used as flans for staters on the Aeginetan weight standard, struck primarily at the Cretan mints of Gortyn and Phaistos.Footnote ⁴⁶ The presence of this coinage has been explained by Cretan mercenary service, particularly in the army of Thibron, a rogue commander who, in 324, attempted to take over Cyrene with a group of volunteer troops. It is likely that a number of these soldiers were Cretans, who returned home after their defeat in Cyrene and brought this coinage back with them.Footnote ⁴⁷ However, Crete saw a sudden and pronounced increase in silver coinage between c. 330 and 270,–270, and while no overstrikes are clearly visible, Mørkholm has argued that this increase should be attributed to the same mechanism: namely Cretan mercenaries taking part in the campaigns of Alexander and the Successors who brought home their riches.Footnote ⁴⁸

We can propose comparable sequences across the geographical range in which the soldiers were active. Circulation and integration of soldiers’ wages were also facilitated through the Hellenistic world’s large-scale adoption of the Athenian weight standard, and likewise the widespread adoption of Alexander-type coinage. Indeed, posthumous issues of the latter by the Successors signify soldiers’ demands for a widely recognized and trusted coinage.Footnote ⁴⁹ An oft-cited piece of evidence, to illustrate how widespread circulation of this standardized coinage was, is the hoard of Demanhur in Egypt, dated to c. 320–317. Containing some 6,000 tetradrachms,Footnote ⁵⁰ this hoard’s contents reflect the geographical extent of the new, enlarged Greek world, with one-third of the coins stemming from Macedonian mints, a quarter from Asia Minor, and one-seventh from Phoenicia and Babylonia.Footnote ⁵¹ It should, however, be stated that the Successors often minted large denominations, such as gold staters. These potentially reflect the amount of pay, but they were useless for everyday expenses.Footnote ⁵² Noticeably, the Greek cities around this time started to mint their own coinages, on the weight of the royal Alexanders and with the same iconography.Footnote ⁵³ As argued by Meadows, these posthumous Alexanders of the Greek poleis suggest the need ‘to create a currency that will be acceptable on a broad basis’.Footnote ⁵⁴ These issues effectively enhanced the process of local monetization within the poleis, and at the same time facilitated access to market by carriers of royal coinage.

While the role of army recruitment in both the accelerated minting of coinage and its subsequent circulation can be recognized, the conceptualization of these soldiers as wage labourers allows for their greater impact. Although these developments have been attributed to ‘mercenaries’, it was not only troops denoted as such who received wages: the impact is not restricted to misthophoroi, but rather to all forces of the royal armies. Furthermore, the near-constant nature of employment of the majority of these troops meant that they required access to markets in order to obtain the provisions not available to them via their commanders. The coinage, therefore, was not merely introduced by mercenaries upon their return home, but rather by all troops while on active service in the territories and communities through which they passed. This aspect must have been especially prominent during the Successor Wars, when wages significantly increased, and movement of troops was unprecedented. The process is in the cited Cretan example, in so far as the influx of silver was highest during the Successor Wars, but abruptly stopped in c. 280,/270, around the time when soldiers began to be settled on land again.Footnote ⁵⁵

As pointed out by Howgego, the military argument for the production of coinage should perhaps not be pushed too far; states had other expenses that also required them to mint, such as the need to renew old coins or standardize disparate circulation, or to ensure liquidity in order to facilitate exchange.Footnote ⁵⁶ Nonetheless, for these non-military reasons for minting to make sense, an existing degree of monetization and of market exchange is still required. The royal armies’ sustained use of military wage labourers, who relied on market exchange for the acquisition of goods in large numbers, should therefore be seen as fundamental to the continued and increased supply and circulation of coinage in the Hellenistic age.

6.2.2 Market Exchange and Production

The prevalence of wage labour and of monetization would normally result in a growing reliance on market exchange. Once the market mechanism has kicked in, increased demand can be expected to generate heightened production for these markets.Footnote ⁵⁷ Soldiers’ reliance on the market is well attested for the fourth century.Footnote ⁵⁸ The Ten Thousand, for instance, made use of markets and passing merchants to acquire provisions,Footnote ⁵⁹ and similarly the Athenian general Timotheus expected his men to frequent local markets.Footnote ⁶⁰ For the royal armies, there is no textual evidence comparable to that of the fourth century indicating how individual soldiers were directly reliant on markets to acquire food; yet the majority of their wages comprised coinage, and both soldiers and commanders deliberately monetized in-kind goods via, for instance, the leasing of land, and so they must have been able to acquire goods and services on the market. As argued by Reger, military needs impacted on the prices in Delos of papyrus and pitch – materials needed for records and shipbuilding – between 314 and 246.Footnote ⁶¹ The armies also relied on the market for services, the most notable example being the hiring of merchant ships for the transportation of soldiers, as in 358/357 by the tyrant Dion in Sicily.Footnote ⁶² This practice continued in the early Hellenistic period: in 305, for instance, Demetrius’ force was accompanied by 1,000 merchant ships, whose owners, according to Diodorus, were intent on enriching themselves.Footnote ⁶³

Growing reliance on market exchange is also reflected in the increased urbanization and the changing nature of civic architecture within the poleis across the kingdoms. As noted by Shipley, the Hellenistic agoras tended to be larger and more luxurious than their predecessors.Footnote ⁶⁴ Bintliff likewise observes a redirection in civic interest from politics and cult to commerce on the basis of changing civic architecture.Footnote ⁶⁵ For instance, the large agora at Pella, built towards the close of the fourth century under Cassander, is dominated by buildings seemingly aimed at commerce, such as shops and workshops.Footnote ⁶⁶ The (relatively late) changes of the mid-second century to the Athenian agora comprised the addition of the Middle Stoa, and of the Second South Stoa, which divided the South Square from the rest of the agora, thereby segregating the sizeable commercial space from political.Footnote ⁶⁷ Customized facilities for associations of traders also emerge, as seen at the late Hellenistic establishment for the association of Poseidoniasts of Berytos in Delos. This 1,300 sq m clubhouse of two floors contained a storehouse, offices, a meeting place, a hostel, and a shrine.Footnote ⁶⁸ Private associations, usually of a political or religious kind, had, of course, existed long before the Hellenistic period, and may have had dedicated spaces in the public sphere; however, the commercial nature of the association of Poseidoniasts sets them apart, and the reservation of public space for their activities indicates both the need and the willingness to accommodate them.Footnote ⁶⁹

The apparent facilitation of market exchange through enhanced urbanization and via the commercialization of civic space was inevitably caused by higher demand for goods acquired on the market. The impetus for larger-scale production is first witnessed in Macedonia: there, the emergence of military wage labour appears to have gone hand in hand with the intensification of agricultural production, as indicated by the appearance of storehouses of a size unattested in previous periods.Footnote ⁷⁰ Specialization of production also appears to have begun around this time. As argued by Margaritis, the rural site of Kompoloi in the plain of Leibethra at the eastern foot of Mount Olympus, whose establishment is dated to the reign of Philip, shows exclusive engagement in large-scale viticulture.Footnote ⁷¹ Viticulture was a notably high-risk form of agricultural production,Footnote ⁷² and the site’s sole emphasis on this crop indicates that its owner had enough capital to engage in intensive, specialized production.Footnote ⁷³ Unlike the produce of earlier farmsteads, which was more diversified and generated only a limited surplus, Kompoloi appears to have been producing for a growing market.

During the Hellenistic period, kings likewise controlled the produce of the royal land in their possession. This produce was not destined to go directly to the army, whose ‘provisions’ were under normal circumstances paid out in coin, but was sold on the (urban) market. Most recently, Boehm has connected the Successors’ policy of greater urbanization to their desire to facilitate market exchange for their produce.Footnote ⁷⁴ Unlike Aperghis, who relates Hellenistic urbanization to the Successors’ drift towards facilitating the extraction of resources in coin through taxation, Boehm argues that the newly founded cities, often placed along routes of commerce or ports, should be seen as locations ‘poised for profit’.Footnote ⁷⁵ The urbanization of this new Hellenistic world, it is argued, was aimed at the creation of centres of demand, in which produce from the royal land could be sold.Footnote ⁷⁶ The cities, furthermore, are said to have acted as ‘super-nodes’ for the exchange of not just goods, but also manpower and information: by connecting labour and specialized knowledge across the Hellenistic world, they also acted as forces to develop economic progress beyond the mere exchange of goods.Footnote ⁷⁷ By stimulating the creation of centres of demand and market exchange, the kings themselves therefore appear to have been directly producing for the market.

This process was not limited to the highest state actors. The desire to turn in-kind produce into coin, and therefore production for the market, was not just a royal target, but existed equally among individual landowners. Thus, we have seen settled soldiers in Egypt sublet the usufruct of their land to tenant-farmers. The in-kind produce, upon which a settled soldier may have relied, was thereby turned into another instance of payment in coin, which once more redirected the soldier to the market. Similarly, Chandezon argues that large-estate owners were engaged in ‘business ventures’, employing a number of people working in specialist production for the market, and fabricated numerous innovations to that end, such as the use of managers that were free-born and salaried, rather than enslaved.Footnote ⁷⁸ At times, Gabrielsen proposes, state and private actors may well have joined forces, fostering partnerships aimed at profit through the establishment of monopolies.Footnote ⁷⁹

Specialized production such as that which occurred in Kompoloi appears to have been part of a wider trend, geographically and economically. The Hellenistic period saw advances in, for instance, the milling of flour and the production of olive oil,Footnote ⁸⁰ which Bintliff takes as ‘symptomatic of greater commercialisation of agriculture and heightened industrialisation’.Footnote ⁸¹ It is striking that the containers in which liquids and dry goods – the majority of Hellenistic produce – were shipped not only survive in much higher numbers than those of earlier periods, but also show more uniformity, again implying a larger scale of production.Footnote ⁸² Indeed, the late third century begins to see serial lettering stamped on commercial amphorae, recording maker, controlling authority, and date of production.Footnote ⁸³ Hayes has argued that these are analogous to later Roman estate production, and indicative that production was in essence ‘impersonal and money-based’.Footnote ⁸⁴

These commodities needed to be produced somewhere. Unlike agricultural produce, a high portion of which was generated on royal land, the manufacture and distribution of other commodities appears to have been in the hands of private actors and is seen as the underlying cause of the rise of super-rich citizens in the various Hellenistic poleis.Footnote ⁸⁵ Such productive enterprises, however, also demanded labour. Shipley envisages a migration of labour to towns and their peripheries as the reason behind the evident reduction in rural settlement, alongside agricultural intensification.Footnote ⁸⁶The transition to the use of free waged labourers in positions previously filled by slaves, as was the case for estate managers, indicates that the wage labour relationship took hold more widely.Footnote ⁸⁷ Indeed, those leaving rural areas in favour of urbanized regions could only have done so if a means of subsistence was available to them, and are therefore likely to have been free labourers who worked in exchange for a wage. These (new) workers’ presence must have set in motion the same growth in monetization and marketization as the soldiers’ wage labour relationship had done for the areas in which they operated. Those landowners and other elites employing them could profit from the proceeds of their work.Footnote ⁸⁸

Private engagement in non-agricultural production is notoriously difficult to pinpoint. Sometimes, however, commodities are uniformly branded with the names of individuals: thus, for instance, the third-century roof tiles of the Athenian Metroön are marked with a stamp reading ἱερὰν Μητρὶ θεῶν | Διονύσιος καὶ Ἀμμώνιος – ‘sacred to the Mother of the Gods, Dionysios and Ammonios’. Here, the two named individuals are assumed to be the owners of the factory that produced these tiles.Footnote ⁸⁹

While private investment is difficult to trace, the flourishing business of credit is another indication of an economy increasingly governed by a desire for profit.Footnote ⁹⁰ As argued by Gabrielsen, forms of credit had always existed in the ancient world, but what set the Hellenistic form apart was the significant expansion of credit supply, most notably by the emergence of the ‘Public Bank’, and the development of chains of credit evolving from the collaboration and competition between existing sources of credit.Footnote ⁹¹ Substantivists deny the existence of credit in the ancient world, arguing that apparent cases in which it is extended should be evaluated in terms of whether the credit was ‘productive’, and thus an investment aimed at profit, or ‘non-productive’, aimed at immediate consumption. The substantivist view proposes that ancient credit fell into the latter category.Footnote ⁹² However, in the Hellenistic period, it is argued, suppliers of credit engaged with portfolio-holding entrepreneurs, who acted as intermediaries.Footnote ⁹³ Their activities, which were conducted with increasing financial sophistication, and the interdependence of a wide range of debtors and creditors, render the distinction between ‘productive’ and ‘non-productive credit’ meaningless. Instead, it is indicative of an established market for credit, and thus of a demand for investment.Footnote ⁹⁴

Finally, we can mention the evidence from known Hellenistic shipwrecks.Footnote ⁹⁵ As cautioned by Shipley, an increase in this evidence need not equate to evidence of an increase,Footnote ⁹⁶ but, combined with the other economic developments witnessed, such vessels and cargoes are to be viewed as relatively reliable indicators of at least an intensification of trade, conducted to exchange a variety of commodities in an increasingly integrated world. The third-century Zenon Papyri show this process in action, in so far as they record clear demand for Greek commodities and luxuries in Egypt.Footnote ⁹⁷ Greek producers responded to this demand by increasing production, and merchants and markets facilitated the exchange of these goods, thereby connecting the producers and markets across the Hellenistic world.

In sum, the wage labour relationship is said to have given rise to increased reliance on market exchange. The emergence of military wage labour seemingly went hand in hand with heightened and specialized production, in-kind produce was deliberately monetized, and a flourishing business of credit and investment appeared, with both state and private actors participating.

6.2.3 Private Wealth Generation

Having noted in Section 6.2.2 the appearance of more intensified production by both private and state actors, a final characteristic of market society is the emergence of rational economic activity aimed at profit. Substantivist scholars, such as Finley and Polanyi, took a rather rigid view on the matter, arguing that rational economic behaviour aimed at profit-making could only occur in disembedded economies, while formalist scholars tend to assume that it is the only motivation driving economic actors. Both views are too extreme. The purely rational actor with only the desire for profit at heart can be seen as a fiction, and social values can often override economic rationality in disembedded economies; at the same time, rational economic behaviour, and the seeds of the desire to make profit, can also be detected in embedded economies.Footnote ⁹⁸ Carrier therefore advocates a more flexible approach. However, while allowing the importance of social values in the economic process, Carrier nonetheless argues that the ‘market idea’, which refers to the belief in the fiction of the rational economic actor, determines the social values that a disembedded economy takes on.Footnote ⁹⁹

In looking for profit-driven activity in the Hellenistic period, a middle way might be found: a fully self-regulating market frequented by purely rational actors will not be found in this period, in the same way as it cannot be found in the modern world. However, indications can be traced that monetary gains, which were not required for direct consumption nor desired purely for communal benefit, were desired by private economic actors, which should be illustrative of a shift in economic thinking.

The soldiers of the Successor armies appear to have gone through such a transition, and the development of the market mechanism arose in tandem with their desire to make a profit. Apparently less motivated by a sense of duty or political loyalty, these waged soldiers were ready to change allegiance when better terms of service and increases in pay were offered. Because the men actively sought out the best price for their military labour power, and their movements were therefore motivated by monetary gains, they should themselves accordingly be conceived of as rational economic actors who display profit-driven behaviour. To be seen in the same light are those soldiers who joined the royal armies rather than serving in the civic armies in accordance with the traditional terms of military service; they may have found themselves serving against the interest of their home community.

The cited increased economic activity, marked by large-scale production of goods sold in markets across the Hellenistic world, organized on both state and private level, is itself indicative of rational and profit-driven economic behaviour. For without it, production would not have taken on the scale and nature it did. Substantivist scholars view the lack of this mentality as the limiting factor in embedded economies’ relative development:Footnote ¹⁰⁰ when production is aimed at consumption, economic agents simply do not have the incentive to produce more than immediately required, nor the incentive to develop the technology or the methods to do so.

Profit-driven behaviour is, to a degree, reflected in the rise and display of private wealth. Much like the public sphere becoming increasingly luxurious and monumental, as evident from the cited changes in civic architecture, the loss of restraint in the display of wealth in the private sphere is also attested.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Thus, in her survey of decoration in houses, Westgate has shown that mosaics become more prevalent throughout the Hellenistic world, and these are often located in the houses’ ‘public’ areas.Footnote ¹⁰² Such expensive decorations, in locations where they were meant to be seen, reveal that private wealth was to be displayed and celebrated. Arguably, the display of wealth moved down the social ladder, as indicated by the emergence of cheaper imitations of luxury goods: the black-gloss wares with impressed and incised ornaments that appear in the late third century are interpreted as blatant imitations of the silverware of the elites.Footnote ¹⁰³

Enrichment through commerce also allowed for advances in civic esteem. The descendants of the tile-makers Dionysios and Ammonios, mentioned above, held several high-ranking positions in later years: the sons of Ammonios served as mint-magistrates in 150/149 and 148/147.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ The older brother, Dionysios, acted as priest of the eponym of the tribe of Antiochis in 140/139, and held a second term as epimelētēs of Delos in 128/127;Footnote ¹⁰⁵ the latter office was held by at least three other members of the family in the following generation.Footnote ¹⁰⁶

Deliberate and open attempts at wealth generation should also be reflected in the rise of an extremely rich elite, whose prosperity was not determined by status alone but generated by commercial activity, and who used their capital to gather further riches. In some cases, such individuals were rich enough to bail out the poleis to which they belonged. Notable examples are the mid-century figures of Boulagoras of Samos and Protogenes of Olbia.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Both individuals were accorded honours for the services they had provided, and in both cases these services were financial: Protogenes paid protection money to a neighbouring non-Greek community, dealt with grain shortages, and helped cover the cost of a public granary and of the fortification walls;Footnote ¹⁰⁸ Boulagoras is likewise honoured for a series of good deeds for the benefit of his city, ranging from public service to the advancement of large sums of money to both the city and individuals in need.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ The difference in Boulagoras’ benefaction in the latter case, however, lies in the nature of his gift: the money was not given, but loaned to the city. His good deed consisted of the lack of interest on this loan, which implies he otherwise loaned money in pursuit of profit. Indeed, as argued by Gauthier, the provision of a loan rather than a gift of money is unattested as a form of benefaction before the Hellenistic period.Footnote ¹¹⁰ This change should signify an economy that had disembedded itself from its societal foundations, in so far as it constitutes an instance in which the social realm of the polis was reliant on a loan from a private individual who had made his money through commerce.

Current scholarship generally agrees that the Hellenistic age underwent significant structural economic change, to the extent that it has been characterized as a ‘proto-capitalist’ society that had more in common with the economies of the Roman world than with those of Archaic and Classical Greece. Although the military changes that engulfed the ancient world from the rise of Philip II of Macedonia onwards have been recognized as an important factor in the economic development of the Hellenistic world, this book argues that the military developments ought to be assessed from a labour history perspective.

Wage labour is a recognized, albeit disputed, variable in discussion on the nature and development of the ancient economy. Its value lies in the role it fulfils in the disembedding of the economy and the impetus it gave to its development. The wage labour relationship dictates the workers’ reliance on market exchange, and is thus accompanied by increased monetization and production, each of which are distinguishing characteristics of market economies. Wherever the soldiers passed through, this mechanism was activated, leading to greater monetization, more market exchange, and heightened production – the latter being accompanied by a growing division of labour, and thus further reliance on the market. Many of these developments were present in the late Classical period, yet the scale at which they occur following the rise of Macedonia is unprecedented.

Instances of wage labour have been sought in various periods, locations, and sectors of the ancient world, and yet military service has rarely seen full consideration as such. This study has argued that we should be identifying the soldiers of the royal armies as possibly the largest instance of wage labour in the ancient world thus far, operating on an unprecedented scale not only in number but also in space and time. Thus, while the author of First Maccabees saw the military activity of the Hellenistic age as the cause of many miseries, we might also have to recognize it as a catalyst in the development of increasingly market-based economies.