differences in the division of labour between large and small towns (Xen.
Cyrop.8.2.5; cf. Xen.Mem.3.10. 9–15: on the unique products of
particularly gifted craftsmen). These remarks about particular kinds of
goods for particular clients point to some specific ways in which the
modern academic debate about ancient markets can be taken forward.
As economists have come to realize during the banking crisis of the
last five years, even contemporary markets are hard to understand,
because the reality of multiple transactions, in highly variable economic
settings, cannot be subsumed under the formulae composed at the
(necessarily simplified) abstract level. We may think of markets in
terms of stocks and shares, or complex electronicflows; but the rules
of formal inter-bank transfers are quite different, in substance as well as
in kind, from the transactions made by individuals. If I want to pay for
local services incurred duringfieldwork in any southern European coun-
try (or in any predominantly rural part of the globe), I must pay in cash.
Various international currencies are acceptable, but I may not pay by
credit card. I can make an electronic bank transfer of credit from a UK
bank account to a foreign bank account associated with overseas part-
ners, but that must be done in a branch that has the designated authority
to do so. The differences between these transactions reflect the non-
compatibility of certain kinds of exchange. Similarly, the price of cup
cakes at a charity event, or of second-hand items in a car boot sale, is
determined by various locally determined criteria, not by the price of
these items on the high street. As John Kay has argued, using many
examples, from the price of Van Gogh’s artworks toflower markets and
Far Eastern commodities, there are many different markets and they
operate according to different rules. Historical assets play a role in
determining the range and robustness of markets in specific areas of
the world, but social attitudes to consumption are at least as significant in
determining how the cumulative effects of market transactions translate
into national budgets.^40 We might expect ancient economies to display at
least some of the same inconsistencies and incompatible transactions as
in the contemporary world.
Recent work on banking, on the overall level of monetization in the
Mediterranean, and on the range of denominations available in a large
number of locations, shows that money in antiquity was not a rudimen-
tary mechanism.^41 To admit this does not make ancient economies
somehow analogous to modern ones. There is nothing particularly
(^40) Kay 2003,14–36, 65–86.
(^41) The contributions to Verboven et al. 2008 amply demonstrate the objective complex-
ity of monetary practices, including credit transfers.
100 Societies and economies