Monetary historians have written extensively on the operation of the nineteenth-century gold standard, and European monetary systems in the medieval and early modern period. In contrast, the history of monetary systems in Classical antiquity has basically been left to the classicists and numismatists. I opened these two slim volumes on a quest for the monetary history of the Classical era, and with an eye to what monetary historians could learn from them. In other words, this is not the review to read for a scholarly assessment of the validity of the evidence assembled; it is a review by an economist of what they tell us of the evidence available to address open questions in monetary and historical economics.

Both books are well-positioned for this task. Sitta von Reden's book has the larger scope, embracing Greco-Roman monetary systems from the seventh century BC to the third century AD. Constantina Katsari has a narrower focus on the Roman world in the first to third century AD. Both present analyses of monetary systems as opposed to being narrowly numismatic in focus, although Katsari stays closer to the numismatic evidence. Both begin by setting up the key debates in classical monetary history—what was the role of the state in determining the extent of monetization? Why did the state control the mints? What is the interrelationship between prices and money? Did coins circulate at intrinsic or fiat values?

Von Reden starts from, and rejects, Moses Finley's classic “substantivist” approach to ancient monetary systems (The Ancient Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). Finley argued that the great differences between ancient economies and modern economies imply that modern theoretical approaches should not be used to analyze such economies. He argued that in Classical antiquity, monies were relatively local phenomena that played a limited role in the economy; money circulated at its intrinsic value and was issued by states solely to address their fiscal needs. Von Reden takes a middle ground between Finley and the subsequent revisionists and argues that the impact of money was neither “limited” nor “considerable” (p. 11). Rather she suggests, since money is socially constructed the extent of monetization varied over time and place. She accepts the usual determinants of monetization—the growth of markets, expanding government expenditures and increasing supply of monetary metal—but argues that the variations in the extent and pace of monetization were also influenced by (a) the development of monetary networks through the spread of empire, (b) the development of institutions that support credit markets, and (c) currency consolidation through both imperial tax collection and development of legal systems that supported property rights (p. 12). After a thoughtful discussion of the distinction between money and coinage, and the temporal precedence of the former, the chapters of the book illustrate these arguments. The first two chapters describe the introduction of coins into archaic Greece and early Rome; the third and fourth chapters expand on (a) and (c), and (b) respectively.

Two subsequent chapters discuss the behavior of prices. These chapters were both instructive and frustrating. Chapter 5 lays out the challenges and the methodology. After noting that the quantity equation provides an accounting framework for categorizing influences on prices, she introduces a case study—grain prices in Greco-Roman Egypt—to show how monetary political and economic factors interacted to affect prices. The data (presented in the Appendix) are remarkably scant: a total of 98 prices covering (different seasons of) 400 years and including both market prices and prices used to convert in-kind payments or contract payments. While Von Reden is extremely careful in describing the data it is hard not to agree with her quotation from Scheidel, “Their [price data in general] main value lies in their capacity to shed light on ancient practices of symbolic quantification, and on the instrumentalization of numbers for rhetorical purposes” (p. 128).

This book is published in the Key Themes in Ancient History series, whose goal is to introduce new readers to basic topics in ancient history and suggest avenues open for further scholarship. The book achieves those goals. It includes a wealth of information, as well as extensive footnotes and a bibliographical essay. The vast time and space surveyed precludes a simple narrative but for the reader interested in the early forerunners of Western monetary systems, this monograph provides a valuable foundation.

Katsari's monograph takes a smaller canvas—primarily focusing on monetary arrangements in the second and especially, third century AD in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. The topics covered by each chapter are precisely those a monetary historian would wish: How should the numismatic evidence be interpreted? What was the role of the central/local state? How did the bimetallic regime function? Can the quantity theory of money explain inflation? Was the region integrated monetarily? How did the state address the challenge of multiple denominations? Did coins circulate by intrinsic value or extrinsic (fiat) value? I started the book with enthusiasm. But these are challenging questions, and the answers were not always satisfying.

The contextual discussion of the questions is careful and insightful, but the nature of the numismatic evidence that underlies the core of the book needed to be clarified. This evidence is presented as 43 charts that describe coins minted, or found in excavations or hoards. Chart 13 (p. 116) is a randomly chosen typical example: it shows the proportion of the total bronze coins found at each of seven Syrian excavations, by reign from Trajan to Valerian (100 AD to 260 AD – I kept my list of regnal years at hand, beside my atlas). For example, it shows that from the Palmyra excavation, 10 percent of the bronze coins were from the reign of Hadrian and about 52 percent from the reign of Philip I, with the rest in small amounts from the other 13 reigns. Although chapter 1 has a careful discussion of the different implications of material found in hoards, excavations, and stray finds, it would have been helpful to have more context for these data. Why is it irrelevant how long the reigns were? Why shouldn't we expect to see more coins from years close to the date that the material was lost or buried? Why doesn't it matter if the excavation had a total of 20 coins or 200?

In analyzing the operation of monetary systems the book is more compelling. In chapter 5, Katsari distinguishes between numismatic, monetary, financial, and economic integration. She argues that the evidence supports only regional numismatic integration, but interregional monetary integration. For example, the denarius was widely used as a unit of account, but the medium of exchange in the Eastern provinces was a locally minted coin which had an official exchange rate against the denarius. The question of circulation by fiat or intrinsic value is answered in a nuanced way as Katsari believes that a combination of chartalist (fiat money) and metallist (intrinsic value circulation) theories is needed. I think she is right, but this is only the first step as the nature of that combination and how it is implemented is at the heart of monetary economics.

Katsari's volume (as does von Reden's) highlights the challenge of simply knowing what the monetary system looked like given the dearth of written information, and demonstrates the consequent significance of the numismatic evidence. For example, she discusses in detail an inscription from Mylasa in the second century, which was a civic order restating that coin exchange should occur only with official bankers. (The accepted Greek version of the inscription is included as an Appendix.) Traditional historiography interprets the order as a response to an increase in hoarding of silver coins, however, recent numismatic scholarship notes that such an increase is not observed. This motivates her suggested alternative translation of the critical last sentence of the inscription from “people are without resources and the public is in want” to “many are in need and the bronze coins are rare.” This one text pivots the understanding of the role of small denomination coins, the impact of debasement of the silver coinage, the role of the local state in monetary affairs, and the relationship between imperial and local authorities.

In sum, these two monographs provide a window onto an era of monetary history that deserves to be better understood by monetary historians (and monetary economists!) For a non-Classicist, they are densely packed with information, and provide a useful starting point for anyone interested in the earliest Western monetary systems.