Oxen, cauldrons and spits: money without coins #Shorts

Two men face each other in the middle of a battle and, before fighting, they recite their genealogies. Sixty verses later they step down from their chariots, clasp hands, and do not fight.

Homer tells it in the Iliad, around the eighth century before Christ. Glaucus takes sixty verses to answer — his father, his father’s father, and what each one did — and suddenly Diomedes recognises a name: his grandfather once hosted that man for twenty days, and on parting they exchanged gifts, a belt and a cup of gold. Their grandfathers hosted one another, and that binds the grandsons. A debt of two generations that nobody ever wrote down.

Because nothing here is written. What a man owes, and to whom, lives in the memory of his people. That is why it takes sixty verses to say who you are.

This is a society that knows perfectly well what things are worth and still has no prices. When the two warriors exchange their armour, Homer recites its worth: the bronze one, nine oxen; the gold one, a hundred. The value was known, and the exchange was unequal anyway. It was not a price. It was an obligation.

The ox is the unit the value is counted in, and a cauldron is worth an ox. But nobody pays with oxen, because they cannot be divided. For what is precious, cauldrons, which are stored and inherited. For what is ordinary, iron bars: meat spits over a metre long. The excavated hoards — one beneath the sanctuary of Hera, above the plain of Argos — say they were exchanged in handfuls of six. That handful was called a drachma, from the Greek word for to grasp; and the spit, an obol, its sixth part. That they circulated outside the sanctuaries is not proven, and the video says so.

None of the three works as money on its own: the ox counts, the cauldron stores, the spit exchanges. And all three have something in common. Nothing is weighed: it is counted. There is the cost of counting instead of weighing, and it is what the chapter is about: one ox is not identical to another, so somebody has to agree which one counts. The scale needs no agreement at all. Only the spits are identical.

With all this behind them the Greeks arrive at coinage. They do not invent it, but nobody adopts it as they do: the city’s coin enters every deal and takes from the man who shares out the meat the right to decide your portion. Here ends everything that was money before coinage.

Series “The History of Money” — chapter 10.
▶ The full series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLBHOsJv-zZU

TOPICS
– Glaucus and Diomedes in the Iliad: the recited genealogy as the only proof of who you are
– Xenia, inherited guest-friendship: an obligation two generations deep that nobody wrote down
– A society without writing: what is owed, and to whom, lives in the memory of your people
– The armour exchange, nine oxen for a hundred: the value is known and still it is not a price
– The ox as unit of account, and why nobody pays with one: it cannot be divided
– The cauldron, stored and inherited; the iron spit over a metre long, which changes hands
– The hoard beneath the sanctuary of Hera above the plain of Argos, and the handfuls of six
– Where the words drachma — “to grasp” — and obol, the sixth part of the handful, come from
– That the spits circulated as money outside the sanctuaries is NOT proven
– A Greece with no king holding power, no palace, nobody collecting taxes and no market
– The sanctuary as the one thing that brings these people together: an ox killed, roasted, shared by rank
– Counting instead of weighing: one ox is not identical to another and somebody must agree which counts
– The scale needs no agreement at all, which is why the identical spit is the missing piece

IMAGE CREDITS
Map card: coastline and marine areas from Natural Earth, and ETOPO 2022 relief (NOAA),
both public domain and carrying no attribution obligation; the credit is included anyway.
This video contains NO third-party photographs and no third-party footage: all the visual
material is original and was made for My Best Wealth.

⚠️ EDUCATIONAL CONTENT — NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE
This video is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not financial,
investment, tax or legal advice, nor a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Past
performance does not guarantee future results. Make your own decisions and, if you need
it, consult a licensed professional.

#Shorts #historyofmoney #Greece #Homer #money

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