¹ I am much indebted to Paul Cartledge, Michael Crawford, Lin Foxhall, Fergus Millar, John North, and Robin Osborne, all of whom have commented on an earlier draft of this essay which was awarded the George Grote prize by The Institute of Classical Studies in 1994. Thanks are also due to Edward Harris for his constructive criticisms as a reviewer. I am indebted to Leicester University for sponsorship at University College London, to whose stimulating atmosphere I owe so much.

² On Apollodorus' attitude to Pasion's bank see now J. C. Trevett, Apollodorus the Son of Pasion (Oxford, 1992), pp. 155–79. Career summaries of Pasion and Apollodorus conveniently appear in S. Isager and M. H. Hansen, Aspects of Athenian Society in the Fourth Century. (Odense, 1975), pp. 177–91.

³ The principal sources are Dem. 36, 45; [Dem] 46, 49, 50, 52, 53, 59 and Isoc. 17. For useful approaches to oratorical evidence see E. E. Cohen, 'Commercial Lending by Athenian Banks: Cliometric Fallacies and Forensic Methodology', CPh 85 (1990), 177–90; S. C. Todd, 'Use and Abuse of the Attic Orators', GR 37 (1990), 159–78; P. C. Millett, Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens (Cambridge, 1991), and E. Harris, Aeschines and Athenian Politics in the Age of Philip of Macedon (Oxford, 1994), ch. 1. Harris suggests a series of six 'guidelines' for evaluating evidence, including conflicting evidence, in the speeches of the court orators.

⁴ On what a bank was physically, see Dem. 45.33.

⁵ The most recent study of the authorship of Apollodorus, that of Trevett (n. 2), pp. 50–76, has concluded that he wrote the following speeches in the Demosthenic corpus: 46,49, 50, 52, 53, and 59.

⁶ The speeches of Apollodorus and Demosthenes help us to date the main episodes in the management of Pasion's bank: [Dem.] 49.22 Pasion was still running the bank in late 373 B.C.; Dem. 45.31 Pasion leases the bank to Phormio after 373 and before Pasion's death in 370/69. This lease lasted for eight years until Pasicles, the younger son of Pasion, came of age (Dem. 36.10 and 31).

⁷ The profits of the bank enabled Pasion (and later Phormio) to achieve citizenship. For details of Pasion's fortune, see Trevett (n. 1), p. 72, n.14.

⁸ References can most conviently be found in P. C. Millett, Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens (Cambridge, 1991), p. 225.

⁹ Cf. 'Land, Debt and the Man of Property in Classical Athens', cited from M. I. Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece, edd. Shaw and Sailer (London, 1981), p. 72.

¹⁰ M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (London and Berkeley, 19852), p. 48.

¹¹ See Millett (n. 8), p. 3.

¹² So too E. Harris in his review of Millett, CR 43 (1993), 102–7

¹³ The 'consumer city' model itself goes back to the work of Bucher. See below.

¹⁴ See, for example, R. Bogaert, Banques et Banquiers dans les Cites Grecques (Leiden, 1968) pp. 356ff; J. Andreau, 'M. I. Finley, la banque antique et l'economie moderne', Annali della scuola normale superiore di Pisa 7 (1977), 1130 52; W. E. Thompson, 'A View of Athenian Banking', MH 35 (1979), 224–41; R. Bogaert, 'La Banque a Athenes au IVe siecle avant J-C. Etat de la question', MH 43 (1986), 19–49; W. E. Thompson, 'Banking and Insurance' in Grant and Kitzinger (edd.), Civilisations of the Ancient Mediterranean. Greece and Rome (New York, 1988), vol. 1, pp. 829–36.

¹⁵ Often the word 'consumption' seems to be an umbrella term covering any loan which is not financing manufacture or trade. But if a dowry loan is consumption spending, what about the possibly profit-making advantages which could accrue from the marriage? Again is it appropriate to call loans for liturgy purpose 'consumption' borrowing when the holder of political offices, frequently achieved by liturgies, will expect to get a financial profit? For criticisms of the consumption-production dichotomy as a diagnostic tool, see the references in Harris (n. 12), p. 103.

¹⁶ M. I. Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London, 1981), pp. 3–23.

¹⁷ Tubingen, 1893.

¹⁸ The influence of Bucher on Weber is analysed by Finley (n. 16), pp. 12–15.

¹⁹ Again the importance of Sombart's Der moderne Kapitalismus (1902) is acknowledged by Finley (n. 16), p. 11.

²⁰ In J. Winckelmann (ed.), Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tubbingen, 1956), p. 4.

²¹ 'Modelling' is discussed in detail, and exemplified, in M. I. Finley, Ancient History: Evidence and Models (London, 1985), pp. 60–6 (on the use of models) and pp. 78–85 (where the method is applied to an analysis of ancient warfare).

²² For Polanyi's influence on Finley, see S. Humphreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (London, 1978), pp. 42–3.

²³ E.Meyer, 'Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Altertums', Jahrbucherfilr Nationalokonomie und Statistik 9 (64) (1895).

²⁴ K. Polanyi, Trade and Market in the Early Empires; Economies in History and Theory, edd. K. Polanyi, C. Arensberg and H. W. Pearson (Chicago, 1957).

²⁵ For the 'embedded' economy, see Polanyi (n. 24), pp. 68, 71.

²⁶ See, for example, W G. Runciman's A Treatise on Social Theory I (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 186–93, where he redefines the concept of a 'model'.

²⁷ See E. Harris (n. 12), pp. 102–3 for criticisms by T. Parsons and S. Andreski.

²⁸ See in particular N. J. Smelser, 'A Comparative View of Exchange Systems', Economic Development and Cultural Change 7 (1959) 173–82; S. Meikle, 'Aristotle and the Political Economy of the Polis', JHS 99 (1979), 57–73. See too the overview of Polanyi by Humphreys (n. 22).

²⁹ See references in n. 14 for evidence relating to studies of banking. More generally, see, for example, W. E. Thompson, 'The Athenian Investor', Rivista di Studi Classici 36 (1978), 402–23; 'The Athenian Entrepreneur', L'Antiquite Classique 51 (1982), 53–85.

³⁰ Exchange in Ancient Greece (London, 1995), p. 2.

³¹ Von Reden rightly observes that some of her criticisms of Finleyan positions are met by Paul Milieu's analysis in Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens, but seems unaware of Cohen's recent study of credit contained in his Athenian Economy and Society A Banking Perspective (n. 39 below).

³² Von Reden (n. 26), pp. 171–94.

³³ W. Jongman, The Economy and Society of Pompeii (Amsterdam, 1991), pp. 28–36.

³⁴ Perhaps paradoxically Jongman ends up with a 'consumer city' model in the sense that elite consumption is found to be the driving force of the Pompeian economy.

³⁵ D. Engels, Roman Corinth (Chicago, 1990). He claims to provide an 'alternative model' to Finley's (p. 3).

³⁶ K. Hopkins, 'Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire', JRS 70 (1980), 101–25. Hopkins claims (p. 101) to be writing 'in friendly debate' with Finley.

³⁷ R. Osborne, 'Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Subsistence: Exchange and Society in the Greek City', in J. Rich and A. Wallace-Hadrill (edd.), City and Country in the Ancient World (London, 1991), pp. 119–45.

³⁸ I. Morris, 'The Athenian Economy Twenty Years after The Ancient Economy', CP 89 (1994), 351–66; E. M. Burke, 'The Economy of Athens in the Classical Era: Some Adjustments to the Primitivist Model', TAPA 122 (1992), 199–226.

³⁹ E. E. Cohen, Athenian Economy and Society A Banking Perspective (Princeton, 1992).

⁴⁰ Cohen does, however, refer to Finley's views on some individual economic topics. For criticisms of Cohen's 'market economy' approach to the Athenian banks, see Scott Meikle who distinguishes between the 'use value' of the ancient economy and the 'exchange value' of the post-industrial market economy in 'Modernism, Economics and the Ancient Economy', PCPS (1995), 174–91. For another argument that ancient society was not controlled by exchange value, see S. Todd Lowry (criticized by Meikle loc. cit.), The Archaeology of Economic Ideas (Durham, 1987).

⁴¹ See in particular Millett's (n. 8) account on pp. 197–217.

⁴² Cohen (n. 39), pp. 111–89.

⁴³ See my review of Cohen in Financial History Review 1 (1994), 81–2.

⁴⁴ Millett (n. 8), ch. 5.

⁴⁵ This description of ancient banking is potentially misleading, as is Humphreys's comment that 'banks were differentiated economic institutions in the sense that transactions with them had no social significance' (n. 22, p. 152). A trapeza was not a corporate institution like its modern successor. It is much more apposite from the Greek point of view to see an ancient bank in terms of an individual running a service within the economy of the oikos. We shall see that bank lending, like other forms of lending, was very much conducted at a personal level. On the absence of the notion of corporation in Athenian law, see E. Harris CQ 39 (1989).

⁴⁶ For a detailed study of this ideology and its importance, see Millett (n. 8).

⁴⁷ Ibid., pp. 1–2. Millett's use of Lysias is now also criticized by Cohen (review of Millett in BMCR).

⁴⁸ We hear of Nicobolus snatching his petty suras of interest from Athenian stallholders, but this must be set against the evidence produced by J. K. Davies, Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens (New York, 1981), pp. 41–9 that workshops were a substantial source of wealth.

⁴⁹ Only one Attic Horos, no.39, clearly refers to a banker, Eukles (= IG 22,2741).

⁵⁰ Timotheus' lack of resources may well have been extreme but other generals must have found themselves in similar difficulties.

⁵¹ Isager and Hansen (n. 2), pp. 71ff list fourteen metic/foreign traders and fifteen citizens. We cannot assume that no Athenian traders used the private banks.

⁵² The slave Midas had borrowed 5T which his unfortunate new owner was expected to pay back (Hypereides, Against Aristogeiton).

⁵³ For a recent criticism of Finley's restricted view about the importance of Athenian banks, see I. Morris (n. 37). Morris, however, still sees the profitability of the banks as having itself led to their being marginalized.

⁵⁴ See most recently C. Howgego, Ancient History from Coins (London, 1995), pp. 13–15.

⁵⁵ For a succinct account of the problem of interpreting the evidence of coin hoards, see Howgego (ibid.).

⁵⁶ C. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London 1975), p. 73 on the wide distribution of Athenian tetradrachms. Athenian coinage formed 19 per cent of the Egyptian Asyut hoard of 475 B.C. (Howgego [n. 54], p. 97).

⁵⁷ Kraay (n. 56), p. 67.

⁵⁸ Ibid., p.68.

⁵⁹ Cf.Aristoph. Frogs 717.

⁶⁰ For the resumption of silver coinage early in the fourth century, see Aristoph. Eccl. 814. Cf. Xenophon's claim in the mid fourth century that silver coins were good merchandise for export (Poroi iii.2).

⁶¹ Aristoph. Wasps 656–63.

⁶² Hdt. vii.144.

⁶³ Kraay (n.56), p. 67.

⁶⁴ Thucyd. 2.13.

⁶⁵ Dem. 10.37.

⁶⁶ Dem. 10.38.

⁶⁷ Mor. 852F.

⁶⁸ Estimate is by Stanier quoted in Meiggs and Lewis, GHI, no. 59.

⁶⁹ Meiggs and Lewis GHI p. 165, quoting Heliodoros' claim ap. Harpocration s.v. Propulaia tauta of a 2000T total. The weight of the gold alone in the Parthenon statue (Meiggs and Lewis [n. 68], no. 54) suggests some 616T.

⁷⁰ Fouilles de Delphes 3.23, pp. 105–15.

⁷¹ IG 221672–3 (wages).

⁷² It is clear that loans were commonly made in 300 and 200 tranches: in three of the five records 37,000 dr are regularly out in 200 dr loans (Meiggs and Lewis, GHI, no. 53).

⁷³ IG I2 377.

⁷⁴ IG 22 2761 (deme of Halai Aixonides, 362 B.C.); IG 22 2492 (deme of Aixone, 345 B.C.); IG 221183.29 (deme of Myrrhinous, post 340 B.C.).

⁷⁵ In 393 B.C. assembly pay was 3 obols (Aristoph. Eccl. 380). By the time of Aristotle it has risen to 1 dr for an ordinary assembly and 1.5 dr for an ekklesia kuria (Ar. Ath.Pol. 62.2).

⁷⁶ M. H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford, 1991), pp. 315–16:45T (assembly); c 15T (council); c 22–37T (courts). Hansen's figure allows some 15T for the cost of honorific decrees.

⁷⁷ P. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply (Oxford, 1988), p. 105, while arguing that Athens' dependence on corn imports was not as high as is often claimed, nevertheless believes that imported grain was necessary to meet the needs of half the residents. Some indication of the quantities imported in the fourth century appears in Dem. 20 where it is claimed that the Bosporos supply of 400,000 medimnoi was as much as the supplies from all other foreign sources put together. But we do not know whether this refers to annual amounts or just to a single, possibly untypical, occasion. We also have to bear in mind that it suited Demosthenes' purpose in this speech to stress the dependence of Athens on Leucon, King of Bosporos. Nor do we have certain figures for Athens' own production of grain (from which we might be able to estimate her likely demand for imports). We do have precise figures for the harvest of 329/8 in IG I3 78. The total production of wheat was 27,062.5 medimnoi and 339,925 medimnoi of barley, figures which Garnsey claims could support a population of c. 53,000–58,000 per annum. But Garnsey argues (pp. 99–101) that the harvest of 329/8 B.C. was a poor one and therefore cannot be taken as a guide to Athens' normal levels of home production.

⁷⁸ Isoc. 17.57.

⁷⁹ Thucyd. 6.20.

⁸⁰ Dem. 34.36.

⁸¹ IG 22 283 records honours to a man from Salamis for importing grain to Athens from Egypt. Dem. 32 concerns a ship carrying grain to Athens from Sicily.

⁸³ In Dem. 42.20 Phaenippos, whose estate could have been bearing liturgies, sold barley at 18 dr a medimnos.

⁸⁴ Five decrees in 325/4 B.C., referring back to 330/29, thank Herakleides for selling 3,000 medimnoi of grain at 5 dr (IG 22 360).

⁸⁵ Dem.4.28.

⁸⁶ Lysias 19.29.42, 21.2.

⁸⁷ Dem. 50.7, 17–19,23, 56.

⁸⁸ V Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet (London,1994).

⁸⁹ Ibid., p. 216.

⁹⁰ From at least 410 B.C. the state made loans to assist with both capital outlay katastasis and feeding costs sitos for the horse. The state was also liable to pay 1200 dr to replace any horse that was killed. The cavalryman himself might expect to spend an average of 500 dr on a horse for himself, and he would also have to buy a cheap horse for his ippokomos. Spense, from whose The Cavalry of Classical Greece (Oxford, 1993) the above figures are taken, provides a table on p. 276 which shows the price of fourth-century horses ranging from 100 to 700 dr. Details of likely feeding costs apppear in Appendix 4, pp. 272ff.

⁹¹ Text followed is that of Finley, Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens, 500–200. (New Brunswick, reprinted 1985, with introductory essay by Paul Millett).

⁹² It so happens that cult groups appear as claimants in all three cases. But I cannot see that this in itself can justify Finley's suggestion that the concept of collateral (vice that of mere substitution) revealed in these inscriptions was a 'rather peculiar specialised application' of the right to have multiple encumbrances on the same property. Finley, who believed that real security was typically substitutive, and not collateral, saw this as evidence that there was not a developed market economy in ancient Athens. Harris in 'When is a Sale not a Sale? The Riddle of Athenian Terminology for Real Security Revisited' CQ 38 (1988), 352–6 effectively argues against the attempt by Fine (Horoi: Studies in Mortgage, Real Security and Land Tenure in Ancient Athens [Hesp. Supp. 9 (1951)]) to distinguish prasis epi luei transactions, which Fine sees as a substitutive form of security, from hupotheke transactions, which Fine saw as introducing the idea of collateral security. Harris argues that the Athenian legal system could not allow distinctions between various forms of real security. Harris now tells me per epistulam that he thinks there was no consistent procedure to indicate whether the creditor or the debtor should sell the property in the event of default. To the best of my knowledge, only three Horoi (Finley nos. 1,2,2A) stipulate who should hold the property during a loan in these three cases it is always the creditor. The presumption may well be that unless otherwise stated the debtor retained the use of the property which secured the loan. Unfortunately few of the conditions have survived. It may well be that whoever owned the property during the loan would be responsible for its sale in the event of default. Harris, in 'Apotimema: Athenian Terminology for Real Security in Leases and Dowry Agreements' CQ43 (1993) 73–95, convincingly demonstrates that, pace Finley, Dem. 41.10 refers to a law designed to protect the creditor, who took security from a defaulting debtor, against the debtor who might try to bring a suit for the return of his property.

⁹³ Lysias 32, 4–15. Diodotus' estate included a number of very large loans: 46,000 dr in maritime loans, 10,000 dr in landside loans, together with a large deposit of 30,000 dr with Diogeiton.

⁹⁴ Dem. 27,9–11. Apart from 3,000 dr of bank deposits Demosthenes has 7,000 dr in maritime loans, 6,000 dr in loans at 12 per cent, loans of 6,000 dr in small sums and 1,600 dr which may also have been loaned at interest. Demosthenes also possessed 8,000 dr in cash. His sword and couch manufacturers will also have produced liquid assets.

⁹⁵ Dem. Aeschines against Timarchos, 105. The degree of liquidity in this estate was caused by his selling of land for cash in order to evade taxes. His father had invested in mines a source of liquid assets. Timarchos is criticized for failing to do this himself.

⁹⁶ Of six estates described in the inheritance speeches of Isaeus, half involve the making of loans as a source of wealth, cf. Isaeus 8.35 and 11.42–3.

⁹⁷ There is an important limitation to the usefulness of the Attic stelae as evidence for sources of wealth. Since confiscated property was not necessarily sold off together, the items mentioned against each name may not represent total assets. For a detailed analysis of the property sold, see W. K. Pritchett, 'The Attic Stelai: Part 11', Hesperia 25 (1956), 178–328.

⁹⁸ I do not wish to imply that an influx of silver coins is unique at this time. Hoards reveal that silver coins from different sources existed in Attica at all periods.

⁹⁹ On close foreign imitations of Athenian owls, see I. Carradice and M. Price, Coinage in the Greek World (London, 1988), p. 95.

¹⁰⁰ A convenient bibliography appears in Cohen (n. 39), p. 12, n. 46 to which should be added T. R. Martin, Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece (Princeton, 1985), pp. 207ff, and I. Carradice and M. Price (n. 99), pp. 95–6.

¹⁰¹ We cannot be certain, pace Carradice and Price (n. 99), that such good imitations 'had' to be accepted. The vagueness of the phrase 'let the tester give it [i.e. good foreign silver currency] back to the one who brought it forward' is an insufficient guide to the legal status of such coins. A suitably cautious view is taken by T. R. Martin (n. 100) who merely points out that the law did not forbid the use of non-Athenian coinage in financial transactions.

¹⁰² We do not know when this Board was set up. The law of 375/4 is our earliest reference to it. We must also remember that the law may in part be repeating the provisions of earlier decrees.

¹⁰³ On 'open'and 'closed' coinage systems in general in the ancient world, see A. Burnett, Coinage in the Roman World (London, 1987), pp. 86–8. Burnett sees the decree of 375/4 as evidence of an open system operating at Athens at this point.

¹⁰⁴ A similar awareness of the growing importance of liquid wealth is revealed by Plato's severe strictures about chrematistike and the possession of coinage in Laws 742a.

¹⁰⁵ Our last evidence on Phormio, Hyper, fr. 134 relates to his trierarchy problems in 340. Evidently running his own bank after Pasicles took over Pasion's had greatly enriched Phormio. As trierarch Phormio would be amongst the 300 richest men in Athens.

¹⁰⁶ Cf. Davies (n. 48), p. 66.

¹⁰⁷ Cf. Dem. 36.11, and Isoc. 17.9 where Pasion can plausibly claim to be in a state of aporia.

¹⁰⁸ Pace Bogaert (n. 14), pp. 72–6, there is no convincing evidence of serious crises in the private banks. Dem. 36.50 does not claim that the banks he mentions all failed at the same time. And the reference to bank failures in the Scholia on Dem. 24.136 (if this is not pure speculation) certainly does not justify any claims of a dramatic crisis in banking when the Opisthodomos was burned down in 377/6 B.C. See a duly critical analysis of these passages in Cohen (n. 39), pp. 218–24.

¹⁰⁹ The legal status of Archippe as Pasion's 'wife' is debatable as she did not receive the citizenship along with Pasion. See most recently C. Carey, 'Apollodorus' Mother: The Wives of Enfranchised Aliens in Athens', CQ XLI (n.s.) (1991), 84–9.

¹¹⁰ A precisely similar disjunction between ideology and practice can be seen in our own culture, cf. The Times 23 July 1992: 'For the great and the good not only was money second-rate as a source of satisfaction, but even to express an interest in it was thought demeaning.'

¹¹¹ Humphreys (n. 22), p. 152.

¹¹² 'Friendship' (philia) is a loaded term whose instrumentality can change and so cover a whole range of relationships both inside and outside the private banks.

¹¹³ For a different type of argument, again suggesting that bank loans are not different in kind from normal 'friendly' loans, see E. Harris (n. 12), p. 106, who argues that the principle of reciprocity can be seen to work in both types of loan.

¹¹⁴ In view of this and other passages cited above I am at a loss to see how Humphreys (n. 22) can describe Greek banking as being 'outside the social network'.

¹¹⁵ 'Credit' in the context of Greek banking means quite simply the providing of loans. There is no question of the creation of credit which, historically speaking, is a fairly recent phenomenon.

¹¹⁶ Millett (n. 8), p. 225 is aware that this 'wall' could be bridged, but he sees this purely in terms of metics finding citizen guarantors who would be able, for example, to accept landed security. Harris (Phoenix 46 [1992], 309–21) sees in Horos 114A (Finley/Millett) a somewhat similar procedure where a woman can avoid legal restrictions on making loans by using a male partner.

¹¹⁷ An extreme example of misapplied cliometry is Bogaert's attempt (n. 14), pp. 370ff, to establish the number of Athenians who 'formait la clientele de la banque au IVe siecle'.

¹¹⁸ Cf. Isoc. 17.2: 'bankers are thought trustworthy because of their techne'.

¹¹⁹ We have no clear evidence that Pasion invested in his own bank. Our only information comes from Pasion's will in Dem. 36.5: '[Pasion had] more than 50 talents of his own out on loan. These included 11 talents from the bank's deposits, lent out at interest [energa]'. But the implications of the figures are understandably widely disputed. Bogaert (n. 14), pp. 35 9 reviews a number of interpretations. The most idiosyncratic account is that of Andreyev ('Demosthenes on Pasion's Bank. An Interpretation', Vestnik Drevnej Istorii [1979], 134–9 [Russian with English summary]) who takes the 50 talents as referring to bank deposits, with the deposits being regarded as loans to Pasion. Cohen (n. 39, pp. 129fF) accepts Andreyev. On the meaning of aphorme, see Millett in Garnsey, Hopkins, and Whittaker (edd.), Trade in the Ancient Economy (London, 1983), p. 46.

¹²⁰ Profits from shipping may well have provided Phormio with starting capital for his own bank. And Phormio would indeed have made profits out of running Pasion's bank. Its lease remained at the same level for many years and evidently bore no relation to the degree of profitability of the bank.

¹²¹ This was such a common procedure that there were established arrangements for carrying it out. Cf. Dem. 52.4.

¹²² I do not assume that the giving of interest was a necessary incentive. In modern banking interest on deposits tends to be given only as a result of competition, whether during the English Civil War when the goldsmiths paid interest in order to attract business away from the scriveners, or in very recent times when the banks are competing against other financial institutions.

¹²³ Bogaert (n. 14), pp. 346–8 and Isager and Hansen (n. 2), pp. 94–5 argue for interest on deposits. Thompson's claim (n. 10) that interest was paid only on certain deposits which were seen as actual loans is successfully rebutted by Bogaert (n. 14).

¹²⁴ Two other passages are often taken as showing that deposits attracted interest. But Isoc. 17 is too unclear to be used as evidence. The reference to 6 talents in 17.12 does not necessarily entail that the original deposit was 6 talents. Hence Pasion's providing of Archestratus as surety for 7 talents on behalf of the son of Sopaeus cannot be taken as proof that the original deposit had gained one talent of interest. More plausible proof appears in Dem. 45.66 where Stephanus is accused of using banks to make concealed profits and so avoid liturgies. But it is not certain that the profits Stephanos hopes to receive will come from interest on deposits.

¹²⁵ Scholia Demosthenica, vol. II, ed. M. R. Dilts (Teubner, 1986), nos. 272a, b.

¹²⁶ KCU ravra fiev OIKOI Karehnre, vavriKa 8'(Dem. 27.11) The distinction between'home' and 'outside' is not (pace Cohen, n. 39, pp. 121ff) to my mind a distinction between 'nonmaritime' and 'maritime' assets. In the circumstances of the speech the young orator is concerned to establish in front of the court the whereabouts of his father's property which he claims has in part been misappropriated by his guardians. Property 'at home' can readily be vouched for by members of the household. Other property, whatever it may be, can best be shown to exist by reference to those who actually possess it, whether as bankers (like Pasion) or as managers of maritime loans (like Xuthos). Hence Demosthenes' care to name these people, except in the case of the many holders (up to perhaps nine) of the small loans of 200 and 300 dr where a lengthy list would be involved.

¹²⁷ 'These [workshops and one talent loaned at interest] were the income-bearing assets of Demosthenes Senior (KCU ravra fav evepya KareXnrtv). But apart from these were ivory, iron.

¹²⁸ Literally 'in the hands (irapa + the dative) of Xuthos. The Loeb translation 'to Xuthos' fails to recognize the locative function of the dative.

¹²⁹ 'Loaned free of interest' is my translation of diakecrhmenon, a word which appears to imply a lending transaction without charge.

¹³⁰ Cf. Isaeus 8.35 where estates, houses, slaves and furniture are avepa but liquid assets such as loans at interest are.

¹³¹ On the term 'invisible' assets, see V. Gabrielsen, Classsica et Mediaevalia 37 (1986), 99–114.

¹³² It is tempting to speculate that the charges against Agyrrhios of misappropriating state funds (he was responsible for advancing state payments on behalf of his deme) may refer to a suspicion that he had somehow profited at the state's expense through the use of a bank. We know he was a friend of Pasion (Isoc. 17.31).

¹³³ The creation of credit is a modern development beginning with the first issue of government fiduciary currency, namely the tallies issued by Charles II cf. Pepys Diaries May-June 1666. The ancient world (though one has to make some exception in the case of Ptolemaic Egypt) had no giros or cheques. We only have three examples of devices to avoid moving large cash sums. At most the ancient banks could speed up the circulation of money by making the same quantity of money 'go further'. See E. Lo Cascio 'State and Coinage in the Late Republic and Early Empire', JRS 71 (1981), 76, n. 3.

¹³⁴ The claim in Bogaert (n. 13) that credit provision by the banks was 'fort limite' is at best a very premature assessment.

¹³⁵ A convincing case is made for this by Cohen (n. 39), pp. 98–9.

¹³⁶ Cf. Dem. 27.27 where his guardians are criticized for allowing a second loan against the same security of couch-making slaves.

¹³⁷ It should always be remembered that house contents could be much more valuable than the houses themselves, more than three times so in the case of Demosthenes (Dem. 27.10).

¹³⁸ We hear of a number of traders both active and retired who made such loans. Cf. Millett (n. 8), pp. 192ff.

¹³⁹ Bogaert (n. 14) and Isager and Hansen (n. 2) deny that banks made such loans. So too does Millett in his detailed study, 'Maritime Loans and the Structure of Credit in Fourth-century Athens', in Garnsey et al. (n. 119), pp. 36–52. While Millett is right to draw attention to what he calls the 'professional' maritime lenders, namely the traders and retired traders who can be seen to have made maritime loans, this evidence does not exclude the possibility that bankers may have made associations with such 'professional' individuals with whom they must readily have come into contact. Counter-arguments claiming that banks did make such loans appear in Thompson (n. 14). The question of maritime lending by the banks has been reassessed by Bogaert (n. 14). Since this review the issue has been examined at length by Cohen (n. 39), pp. 121–83. But not all his arguments to prove that banks did make maritime loans are equally convincing. This is particularly true of his attempt to use the account of Demosthenes' estate (Dem. 27.10) as a main piece of evidence. The view that the banks did not make maritime loans is most recently repeated by Millett (n. 8). For a convincing argument in favour of banks making maritime loans, see now Cohen (n. 39), ch. 5.

¹⁴⁰ Is the hypothetical loan to Philondas by Pasion at Dem. 49.35 a maritime loan since the cargo is acting as security? Is the loan to Apaturius by the banker Heracleides a maritime loan when its purpose is to prevent the seizure of his ships by his creditors? Conversely Lysias fr. 13 strongly suggests that the 'men in the Piraeus', who must at least include maritime lenders, might themselves be involved in a non-maritime loan the funding to enable Aeschines to acquire a perfumery.

¹⁴¹ Cf. Dem. 34.51: two maritime lenders claim that 'the resources which traders need come from. those (like the speakers) who lend'.

¹⁴² We hear of one bank loan which lasted for a year in Dem. 53.12–13. But our evidence about the normal duration if such there was for landside loans is very slight. Thus the imperfect deletion of Horos no. 71 which reappears as Horos no. 152 (Finley, n. 91) allows us to detect such a loan paid up within one year. While banks would no doubt welcome the high level of interest which maritime loans would produce, they must also have found the relatively speedy repayment period useful for ensuring further capital to repay deposits and to make further loans.

¹⁴³ I exclude the loan of bedding, clothing, silver bowls, and a small cash sum at Dem. 59.22 since it is not clear whether the cash was seen as a bank loan. When this loan is referred to again at Dem. 59.31–33 the argument is only concerned with the silver bowls which turned out to have been deposited by another customer. The replacement cost had to be recovered from Timotheus I answered [Nicostratus] that I would make an eranos contribution of 1,000 drachmae for his ransom.... Since I was not well provided with funds I took to Theocles who was then in the banking business some drinking cups and a wreath of gold and I asked him to give Nicostratus a 1,000 drachmae. ([Dem.] 53.8–9)