Episode 53. When Philosophers Feared Money More Than War

Coinage didn’t just make trade easier in ancient Greece, it reshaped the city itself. I walk through how money becomes a geographic force that pulls people toward marketplaces, builds a new kind of commercial Athens, and sets off an economic chain reaction that looks a lot like the early blueprint of modern finance. If you’re into the history of money, ancient trade, or the origins of banking, this is where the story gets surprisingly familiar.

We meet Pythias, an early merchant banker whose fortune from gold mines shows how liquid capital turns into real political power, and we follow the trail into Athens where banking takes a distinctive form. Because Athenian elites look down on commerce, the work falls to outsiders, metics, and even enslaved people. That social “gap” creates space for someone like Pasion to rise from slave scribe to the most celebrated banker in Greece, while the city runs on currency exchange, lending, and trade finance across hundreds of competing coin systems.

From there, I break down what Athenian banks actually do: safekeeping deposits with full reserves, interest-bearing demand deposits that can be lent out, and an early version of fractional reserve banking that expands the money supply through credit. We also get into interest rates by custom and risk, maritime loans, mining finance, and bills of exchange that reduce the danger of carrying coins across the sea, all without central banks, deposit insurance, or formal reserve requirements.

Then we collide with the philosophical resistance. Socrates questions money’s meaning and dies in a democracy that can be swept up by the crowd; Plato pushes hard against coinage and usury; Aristotle lands in a more practical place while insisting economics must stay ethical. If this helped you think differently about markets and morality, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Show Purpose And Setup

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Hi am Mike D. This is the History of Money, Banking, and Trade Podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade along with money, banking, and credits.

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From ancient civilizations to present day market innovations.

Pythias Wealth And Persian Power

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Before establishing democracy in Athens, the Greeks, unlike the established Phoenician and Persian civilizations, were people still taking shape. Their decision to adopt money became their great accelerator, propelling them past all their neighbors. In doing so, they became the first civilization to be revolutionized by coinage, pioneering a path down which every other culture would soon travel. Money was a geographic force. Its arrival created marketplaces, which in turn birthed a new kind of city, one oriented towards commerce and the agora instead of the palace gates. Around the time that Athens was adopting democracy and had been fully monetized, a man named Pythias, who was the grandson of the last Lydian king Cretius, was operating as the world's first known merchant banker on Anatolia around 480 BCE, of which we have documented records for. To be clear, Pythias wasn't the first banker because banking operations were taking place out of the temple complexes in Mesopotamia thousands of years prior. The reason Pythias was able to become wealthy and therefore a merchant banker was the Lydians were possibly the wealthiest empire in the world at the time, as they were the first to mint coins. The Ionian Greeks being the neighbors to the Lydians had developed a very good relationship with them, and therefore they adopted coinage shortly after the Lydians started minting their own coins. In Greece, coinage formed the foundation of their financial system. Consequently, banking evolved primarily to support the minting and circulation of coins rather than assuming the central role in wholesale exchange that was played out in ancient Sumer.

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The Lydian king Cretus was extremely wealthy, possibly the second richest guy in the world.

Themistocles Deposits And Early Bankers

Pasion From Slave To Banker

Interest Rates And Trade Finance

Deposits Vaults And Early Credit

Bills Of Exchange And Accounting

Socrates On Money And Mob Rule

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This says a lot about the Persians and Cyrus the Great because previous kings that had conquered foreign territories would have had the conquered kings and his immediate family put to death. Instead, Cyrus let Cretus live and even brought him into his court and made him a trusted advisor, a role in which Cretius served for the remainder of his life. It's because of this that his wealth was able to stay in the family. So by the time Pythias was operating as a merchant banker, he possibly was the second richest guy in the world, second only to the Persian king of kings, Xerxes. To show his loyalty to the king, Pythias offered to fund the entire Persian campaign with his fortune. Xerxes was probably impressed, but nonetheless he declined the offer and rewarded Pythias by giving him 7,000 gold directs to his wealth. While the story doesn't mention much in terms of banking, Pythias' actions demonstrate a key feature of early banking and capital accumulation in the ancient world, and even in the modern world, in that Pythias' great wealth from gold mines gave him significant economic and political power. His ability to offer a vast sum of money to fund a war shows that he commanded immense liquid capital, which is a key function of banking. In offering to support Xerxes' campaign, Pythias attempted to use his financial power to gain favor and leverage with the most powerful ruler in the world at the time. Mind you, Xerxes I was the king that invaded Greece during the Persian War. Thermostles was the Athenian politician that convinced the Athenians to use its vast silver reserves from the local mines to build up their navy because he was convinced that the Persians would invade Athens. Thermostles needed a safe place to store his money and gluted from the Persians after their defeat. So he deposited 70 talents, which would be worth millions of dollars today, of which he would earn a 5% interest with the Corinthian banker Philistophanus, who was the earliest banker in Greece. These bankers were the first bankers in and around Greece, but they certainly wouldn't be the last. In fact, the most celebrated banker in Greece was Pasion. He came a bit later at the Pythias and Python, as he lived from around 430 BCE to 370 BCE. He wasn't a native Athenian. In fact, he came to Athens as a foreign slave from Syria or somewhere within the Levant area, when a vast number of Syrian slaves were brought to Greece through Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon. He was owned by two bankers who owned a bank about five miles outside of Athens. He started out as a scribe who was so talented that they granted him his freedom and eventually their bank when the owners retired. Passian then established a shield factory where he gifted Athens 1,000 shields and a trireme. Now it sounds unusual that a former slave would become a wealthy banker, but the reason this happened was the aristocratic upper class of Athens looked down upon bankers as they viewed land ownership as the ultimate status and source of wealth. For the aristocratic authors of antiquity, money represented corruption. They viewed the marketplace with contempt, believing that a true man of honor would be wholly self-sufficient, drawing all the needs from his estates without debasing the touch of a coin. Therefore, the elites viewed bankers with disdain and considered them nouveau riches. Banking was left to the slaves and the medics. The medics were free residents of the city-state, but were not citizens and could not own land. Many medics came to Athens specifically to benefit from economic opportunities, as Athens was a cosmopolitan city. This wasn't unlike previous cosmopolitan cities like Sardis on Anatolia or Carthage in Northern Africa or even modern day New York that had attracted immigration for economic opportunities. As it were, many medics gravitated toward banking because there was an obvious void left by the citizens of Athens because the elites refused to get involved in banking as a career. This void left a pathway for the medics to achieve wealth and upward mobility in the Athenian society. In addition, by providing the essential financial services, medic bankers and even slaves became an essential driver of the Athenian economy. Without bankers, trade would have been inefficient and more expensive because there were more than a thousand cities, each minting their own coins. Therefore, every time a foreign transaction occurred, the bankers needed to step in and change the money to local currencies to complete the deal. Passian started out as a money changer, meaning he was taking a middleman position as a foreign exchange dealer. This was a vital function for any merchant buying and selling goods in another city state or any other state outside of Greece. The reason being was each state had its own currency. As the business grew, he was able to transform from the less prestigious business of facilitating foreign exchange to diversifying into wholesale banking. Wholesale bankers in ancient Greece involved issuing less risky loans, ranging from a low of 6% to the more standardized 10%. The reason 10% became a standardized rate was in ancient Greece, regular loans to individuals remained stable for hundreds of years. From the 5th to the 2nd century BCE, the rate of interest demanded on loans made by the Temple of Apollo on Delos was set at 10%. So they basically set up the standard. This was different from the Babylonian 60, where interest on silver loans was charged at a rate of 116th per month. Under the Roman Duodecimal system, interest was usually at 112th of principal or 8.33% per year. John Maynard Keynes, who studied Babylonian monetary history while researching his treaties on money, believed that interest rates were determined by custom rather than market forces. Bankers in ancient Greece also financed long distance trade by ship. Since these were risky ventures, interest rates were substantially higher than the average loans, as rates would typically be upwards of 30%. Wholesale banks also financed the slave traders with rates ranging anywhere from 20 to 30% as well. There were no legal upper limits on interest rates, so charging high interest was normal, albeit sometimes criticized by influential people at the time. But getting back to Passion, now he diversified even further by issuing loans for the leasing of mining activities, especially certain mining rights in DeLorean mines. He also issued loans to farmers and finance builders who used slave labor for public works projects. Passion diversified his risk through various assets that included boats, farms, and real estate. It is believed that Passion had accumulated a personal fortune of 74 talents by renting from his businesses in 371 BCE. One talent equals about 7,200 drachmas. A talent of silver from 370 BCE varied by region, but typically weighed about 30 to 40 kilograms, which converts to approximately 960 to almost 1100 troy ounces. When you factor in purchasing power, his net worth could be a bit over$100 million in today's terms. Passion was so successful and rich that he was eventually named a citizen of Athens. Passion transferred his banking knowledge to his wife, who was able to run the banking business on her own. When Pasion died, an incredibly wealthy man in 370 BCE, his wife married Formion, a slave-turned banker, in order to keep the bank in his family. Reportedly, she destroyed some of the bank records to protect Formion and the business. So maybe we don't have as much detail as we'd like because of this. For additional color on how ancient Athenian banking practices worked, the depositor had two choices when depositing their accounts. They could deposit coins or valuables with bankers and savings accounts for safekeeping. These savings accounts were for pure custodial services. The bank acted as a vault for safekeeping. Consequently, the depositor electing to use savings accounts paid a small fee for the security, as the depositor did not receive interest from the bank. Furthermore, the exact deposit had to be available for a withdrawal. In other words, the depositor paid the bank to store their money, and the bank could not use those assets to lend to other people. They had to keep 100% on reserve. The other option for the depositor was to put money in interest-bearing checking accounts. These interest-bearing checking accounts were essentially demand deposit accounts that the banker could use for lending. In return for granting the banker the right to use their capital, the deposit owner earned interest. The banker would obviously need to lend out at a higher percentage than they borrowed, as the spread would represent their profits. This is essentially the reverse of our modern banking practices. In addition, by lending out money from checking accounts, these ancient Athenian bankers practiced an early form of fractional reserve banking. Whether they realized it or not, fractional reserve banking made the money supply elastic, meaning it could be increased beyond the amount of physical coin in circulation. Simply put, fractional reserve banking generated debt-related credit money and therefore expanded the overall money supply in Athens. This is precisely how modern money is created, as almost all modern money, especially bank deposits, originates as debt, but once created, it circulates freely. However, a vast majority of the total money supply consists of these bank deposits, meaning nearly all the money we use daily is tied to past credit creation, with significant portions always being actively borrowed or lent. The biggest difference of modern banking practices from those in ancient Athens was they didn't have any formal reserve requirements by law or a central bank. In ancient Athens, there weren't rules stating that maximum interest rates could be charged. Therefore, the system relied heavily on personal reputation and trust. Bankers who were perceived as trustworthy, like Passion, attracted more business. Because the banks did not keep 100% reserves in their checking accounts and they didn't have a modern form of deposit insurance, they were exposed to bank runs. In addition, the owner was personally liable for all bank debts, as limited liability did not exist. Demosthenes, who was born in 384 BCE, was a professional speechwriter and lawyer and was heavily involved in legal matters for his bankers and clients. His extensive experience led him to remark that any banker whose loans were based solely on his capital was heading for bankruptcy. The reason being was lending was such a high-risk business, and banks didn't want to own their own capital. These ancient bankers also provided an extremely valuable service, whereas they would write a note in one port, and then the note could be carried by the merchant to a foreign port where it could be given to another banker where they would receive coins. These bills of exchange were an important risk mitigation tool for the merchant as it reduced transportation risk that included, in fact, the physical coins or even coins lost in a shipwreck, while providing liquidity and flexibility by allowing deferred payments and early cash access through discounting, especially in international trade. These notes offered security by acting as a legally binding promise of payments. They reduced reliance on trust and physical coinage. The Medici were famous for using bills of exchange in medieval Italy, as this was not only allowed for foreign trade, but also provided a means for getting around Catholic usury laws. Another thing the Medici were famous for was their strict accounting practices. In ancient Athens, it wasn't uncommon for the head of the household to keep a daily diary of all receipts, which every month he'd enter his income and expenditures, often recording future incomes as well as outstanding loans and debts. Bankers kept the same basic single entry books. The Greeks were thus proficient at keeping detailed accounting records, along with keeping historical records of speeches from the courtroom and philosophers. What is interesting is the fact that Greece was progressing forward in terms of banking and economic practices. However, many other most influential philosophers weren't necessarily on board with these changes. In fact, the most well-known philosophers from ancient Athens were very regressive when it came to money and the economic developments of Greece as a whole. Socrates was one of its most famous philosophers of all time, but he may not have written anything down. In fact, most of what we know from Socrates came from his famous student and protege, Plato. So much of what we get from Socrates is secondhand information. In fact, there are some who have suggested that he might have been a composite figure or literary creation by Plato. But most historians agree that he was a real Athenian citizen. Socrates viewed coinage with skepticism. However, his view on money is logical as he saw money's worth as a human construct. Coinage had value because we say it has value. He also acknowledged that it could potentially be worthless if the people of Greece collectively said it's worthless. It's basically the same view that modern people have when it comes to fiat money. In addition, he viewed coinage as a deceptive image of true goods. True wealth comes from the virtuous soul, not from money itself. This conservative view would have been a similar view of the aristocrats who viewed land as wealth and not the collection of money. But he also had a very modern view on money, and that money could become problematic when it's pursued as an end in itself, meaning its materialistic focus distracts people from wisdom and the soul's health. This aligns with the fact that it's not uncommon to hear about an ultra-wealthy person that just isn't happy. It's hard for the average person to understand, but Socrates probably understood this quite well in 420 BCE. Socrates ultimately practiced what he preached as he refused to collect payments or fees for his philosophical discussions, because he viewed this pursuit of fee generation as corrupting the pursuit of wisdom, unlike the paid sophists. Lastly, he believed that the truly rich person is content with little, not one who hoards wealth. I can only imagine how disgusted Socrates would be if he saw these modern billionaires who run or ran companies while their employees are living below the poverty line, and therefore need government assistance in terms of shelter, food, and medical insurance while they're hoarding billions. Socrates still lives with us today as one of his lasting reasoning tools was to ask probing questions to inspire critical thinking and lead individuals to discover their own understanding. This Socratic method was first informed by Plato, but is still taught in universities around the world. In fact, during my grad school studies, we were required to read Eli Goldblatt's work on alleviating bottlenecks and enhancing operations based on Socratic method. Socrates' greatest sin was that he taught his pupils to think freely. This sounds great to the modern listener living in a democracy, but eventually the Athenian politicians became concerned that the people were thinking too much for themselves and just a little too freely. And after some of his teachings were uncovered by authorities, he was actually charged with this so-called crime of corrupting the youth as well as general impiety, which basically means he lacked a proper reverence of their gods. The charge was apparently on the grounds that he was accused of worshiping false deities while failing to adhere to proper state religion. When Socrates went on trial, he did not have an attorney. He defended himself. Despite all his communication skills and reasoning, Socrates was ultimately unable to convince a jury of his peers, and he was found guilty and was sentenced to death.

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He was forced to drink a cup of poison hemlock.

Plato Against Coinage And Usury

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Apparently, one thing the powers that be hated the most was the fact that Socrates taught people to embrace death without fear or hesitation. When the time came, he took his cup of poison to prove that he practiced what he preached. When he saw certain people begin to cry, he told them not to be sad. That was just a transition that we all must face. Thus, Socrates became a martyr for all his students and subsequent philosophers. His death taught us that just because the majority in a democracy believes something to be true does not make it right. The United States is a prime example of this. The country's foundation was built on chattel slavery, and then when the slaves were free, the freed slaves and their descendants faced extreme racist laws and unwritten rules. The majority agreed with these measures, and it's obvious how wrong the majority was. Now, in an interesting twist, the early founders of the U.S. were concerned that mob rule would come to horrible conclusions. Therefore, the founding fathers of the U.S. took lessons that they learned from Socrates' fates and the terrible things that could occur when a mob of people get caught up in the moment and decided something should be put in place to make sure this doesn't happen. James Madison appeared to have a good understanding of the trappings of a direct democracy, as he was well read on the subject of ancient Athens. He saw the dangers of an overly passionate crowd, and how this could lead to catastrophic and completely wrong decisions on the part of the democratic populace. This wasn't just about Socrates either. The Athenians rushed to conclusions when a fire at the Acropolis occurred, as they blamed the Corinthians, but they had nothing to do with it. The founding fathers feared things like this could happen in the US. James Madison stated in his Federalist papers at the America's Founding that in all very numerous assemblies of whatever characters compose, passions never fail to wrestle the skepter from reason. He then went on to note had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. In other words, even the most reasonable citizens could easily be confused and swayed by the masses. George Carlin said it best when he said, People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate groups of people with a common purpose. Cause pretty soon they all have little hats and armbands and fight songs and the list of people they're probably gonna visit at 3 a.m. So I dislike and despise groups of people, but I love individuals. Every person you look at, you can see the universe through their eyes if you're really looking. While George Collin wasn't referencing Athenian direct democracy or the death of Socrates, he kind of gets to the point that the founding fathers of the U.S. were concerned with. It was for this reason that the founding fathers instituted a representative republic in which democratically elected representatives vote on behalf of their constituents. That presumes that the constituents are enlightened enough to vote in the best and the brightest. Unfortunately, we in the United States do not elect the best and the brightest. In fact, we have a sitting congresswoman who has never even graduated from high school. I remember as a kid seeing these elected officials and naively thinking they were some of the most intelligent people we have. I guess my preteen self was way off. The fact is our founding fathers had a lot of foresight, but they obviously had flaws. The preamble of the Constitution says we the people, but only meant white property-owning men denying the rights of women, black people through slavery, indigenous people, and non-property owners for generations. They were slave-owning men who started out the Constitution. Despite their many flaws, scholars still today dig through the rich academic works of words and ideas laid down by these Greek philosophers, starting with Socrates, by way of his followers. The idea of teaching economics may in fact be tied to Socrates and Ischomachus, one of the richest businessmen of Athens. We got this account through Xenophon's Socratic dialogue, The Equinomicus, which was Socrates recounting his conversations with Ichinochymus to explore household management or economica as a form of practical and ethical learning, thus establishing foundational concepts for economics as a science of household and estate management. Socrates' protege Plato carried his torch after his death. When it comes to the modernization of the Greek economy, Plato was just like Socrates. He took a very conservative view, so much so that if they were ever to fully implement his idea, it could have possibly taken the Greek economies, including Athens, possibly backwards. Plato associated wealth with corruption so much so that he proposed banning metallic coins by replacing them with government-issue tokens or some sort of government script that was used solely for record keeping among tradesmen. He also wanted to ban foreign coinage in Athens. His idea was anyone returning from a foreign port with money should have been forced to surrender it upon arrival. In reality, he wanted to go back in time to the days of credit arrangements where anyone doing any sort of transaction would have a written contract to deliver a certain commodity or good or service in the future in glue of payments. His idea of using a token will be used in places where metallic money is scarce. This happened in the British Isles in the 1600s, when coins were hoarded and no longer available for simple purchases. This happened again in the British North Americas in the 1700s when the British put restrictions on minting local coinage, and there was a constant outflow of European coins back to Europe. Similar measures were used in the 1920s in Germany and Austria after World War I, when the Central Powers experienced hyperinflation. So Plato's idea of using tokens or script was something that many societies have had to resort to, and many more may have to resort to again in the future when governments collapse from economic instability. One could conclude that if Plato was around in the 1900s, he would have been admired in Lenin's Russia. In fact, early communist Russia under Lenin did in fact try to abolish money and move towards a moneyless system. He had used an extreme measure by introducing hyperinflation to destroy the value of money as a tactic. But this led to an economic collapse and was replaced by the more rational new economic policy of the NAP, which reintroduced money in markets, proving a full transition to a non-monetary system wasn't feasible in the time of Russia, and certainly wasn't feasible in Greece once they embraced money. Plato grew to tolerate money, but only as a purely abstract symbol to expedite exchanges. Plato's views and interests aligned with some of the greatest minds in history in that they hated interest on loans. These views were shared by his teacher Aristotle, along with other great thinkers such as Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and later critics like John Ruskin and Leo Tolstoy. The Old Testament in particular placed restrictions on usury. Thou shalt not lend to a brother. The Old Testament in particular placed restrictions on usury. Thou shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury. The Hebrew word for usury neshtek means to bite, symbolizing how interest bites into the borrower's livelihood, causing harm just like a serpent's bite. Plato depicts usury as setting rich lenders against poor borrowers, which is probably a pretty widely held belief even to this very day. This might be a big reason why the aristocrats of Greece refused to get into banking and why banking often fell to the immigrants, non-citizen medics, and slaves because money lenders in ancient Athens were generally of low social standing. Plato argued that wealth and honesty were fundamentally incompatible, as dishonesty invariably yielded greater profit. He therefore concluded that a person's wealth served as a measure of their dishonesty and lack of virtue.

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Accordingly, Plato believed individuals should face punishment for trying to buy or sell the land or home assigned to them.

Hierarchy Slavery And Hard Truths

Final Summary And Listener Support

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Aristotle took a much more progressive view in comparison to his earlier conservative philosophers. Aristotle was born in 34 BCE and died in 322 BCE. It appears that he slowly progressed in his worldview to accept a more modern world where coinage played a role. In 330 BCE, Aristotle was exploring an idea in his work on politics. Initially, he proposed that households would have been self-sufficient, producing all their own necessities. Over time, some families likely began to specialize. For example, some would grow grain and others would make wine, and then they would trade their surplus. Aristotle reasoned that money must have arisen naturally from this kind of exchange. Yet, like the medieval scholars who later revisited his account, he remained unclear on the precise mechanism of its emergence. Unlike Plato, he saw stamped coins as a tool for efficiency and convenience. His embrace of a more modern economy from his predecessor philosophers included a view that saw private property as a source of building wealth. However, he didn't understand their anonymous nature, and on the other hand, he thought prices should be determined by social status of the participants, not the value of the merchandise. So Aristotle was obviously not a modern free market thinker. He did not articulate a systematic concept for the management of the household and property that he called lygonomia, the root of the modern term of economics. For Aristotle, liconomia did not mean financial management aimed at profit maximization, but rather the ethical stewardship of a household, and by extension the city-state according to the principles of moderation, sufficiency, and purpose. He did not believe in wealth accumulation and would probably have some serious opinions on the growing billionaire class, as he believed wealth was to be used well, not endless accumulation, and people should not profit at the expense of others. And above all, interest on loans, not endlessly accumulated, and people should not profit at the expense of others, and above all, interest on loans. Aristotle never shared the repressive tendencies of Plato, but he did have some other rather interesting ideas about markets. To him, it seemed only natural that people with more money should pay higher prices than the poorer people. But when you think about it, it is kind of how many markets are priced in modern markets. Dynamic pricing means prices adjust according to the supply and demand. And therefore the wealthy will generally pay a higher price. Aristotle does not deny regularities in exchange. He denies that those regularities are morally self-justifying. Markets may function according to patterns, but they are not independent from moral systems. For him, the purpose of the market was not merely to exchange goods and services, but also to satisfy greed. One might conclude that, in a modern sense, Aristotle's critique of markets sounds closer to modern moral critiques of capitalism than defenders of laissez-faire economics. But it's also worth noting that Aristotle was hierarchical, anti-egalitarian, and deeply comfortable with inequality rooted in status. Furthermore, Aristotle and Plato saw the idea of slavery as if it were an inherent economic fact. It gets even worse because racist ideas were preached by earlier philosophers such as Hippocrates, who is often referred to as the father of clinical medicine and surgery, and where we get the Hippocratic oath. Despite these contributions to the medical field, he also had an extremely racist opinion in which he stated that people from warm climates were placid and submissive and therefore worthy of being slaves. This rhetoric was taken up by Plato and Aristotle, as both believed in slavery as a consequence of the superior nature of some people and the inferior nature of others. The Romans recognized the practical and moral appeal of much of Aristotle's framework and often indirectly incorporated its assumptions into their own thinking about property, governance, slavery, and civic responsibility. To sum up this episode, the adoption of coinage transformed ancient Greece, especially Athens, from a loosely formed society into a commercial civilization. Money reshaped cities around marketplaces rather than palaces, it accelerated trade and laid the foundations for banking. Early figures like Pythias of Lydia and later Athenian bankers like Pasion illustrate how liquid capital, currency exchange, lending, and trade finance emerged to support a monetized economy. Because Athenian elites disdained commerce, banking became the domain of the slaves and the medics, allowing outsiders social mobility while making them indispensable to trade across a fragmented world of hundreds of local currencies. Greek bankers developed sophisticated practices such as interest bearing deposits, loans for trade and mining, bills of exchange, and even early fractional reserve banking, anticipating many features of modern finance, albeit without regulation, central banks, or deposit insurance. Alongside this economic progress ran deep philosophical resistance. Socrates viewed money as a human construct that distracted from virtue and condemned its pursuit as an end in itself, ultimately dying as a martyr to free thought in a democracy vulnerable to mob rule, a lesson later reflected in the U.S. founders' preference for a representative republic. Plato was even more hostile to money and interest, associating wealth with corruption and advocating strict controls or alternatives to coinage. Aristotle took a more moderate stance, accepting money and private property as practical tools while insisting economics remain ethical, focused on stewardship rather than profit maximization. Yet all three philosophers accepted hierarchy and slavery as natural. Together, their ideals reveal a tension on the heart of Greek civilization, rapid advances in money, banking, and economic organization, alongside enduring moral anxiety about wealth, inequality, and the social consequences of markets. If you want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreon.comslash history of money banking trade or visit our website at money bankingtrade.com. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.