Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome

Neil Coffee

ISBN 10: 0190496436 / ISBN 13: 9780190496432

Published by Oxford University Press Inc, 2016

About this Item

Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome shows how, over the course of Rome's classical era, a vibrant commercial culture progressively displaced traditional systems of gift giving that had long been central to Rome's material, social, and political economy, with effects on areas of life from marriage to politics. Series: Classical Culture and Society. Num Pages: 312 pages. BIC Classification: 1QDAR; 3D; HBJD; HBLA; KCZ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 168 x 244 x 2. Weight in Grams: 542. . 2016. 1st Edition. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780190496432

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0190496436
• ISBN 13: 9780190496432
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The economy of ancient Rome, with its long-range trade, widespread moneylending, and companies of government contractors, was surprisingly modern. Yet Romans also exchanged goods and services within a traditional system of gifts and favors, which sustained the supportive relationships necessary for survival in the absence of extensive state and social institutions. In Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome, Neil Coffee shows how a vibrant commercial culture progressively displaced systems of gift giving over the course of Rome's classical era. The change was propelled by the Roman elite, through their engagement in a variety of profit-making enterprises. Members of the same elite, however, remained habituated to traditional gift relationships, relying on them to exercise influence and build their social worlds. They resisted the transformation, through legislation, political movements, and philosophical argument. The result was a recurring clash across the contexts of Roman social and economic life.

Neil Coffee's comprehensive volume traces the conflict between gift and gain from Rome's prehistory down through the conflicts of the late Republic and into the early Empire, showing its effects in areas as diverse as politics, law, philosophy, personal and civic patronage, marriage, and the Latin language. These investigations show Rome shifting, unevenly but steadily, away from its pre-historic reliance on mutual aid and toward the sort of commercial and contractual relations typical of the modern world.

About the Author

Neil Coffee is Associate Professor of Classics at the State University of New York at Buffalo.