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.