Bankers in ancient Athens were just one type of creditor among many that citizens used. It was normal for Athenians to be in debt, as expressed in comedic plays of the time which portrayed debt and avoiding repayment as defining human traits. Bankers gained skill in identifying counterfeit coins from their original role as money changers, as travelers needed to exchange currencies between city-states. While money changing was an early service bankers provided, the term for bankers evolved from referring specifically to money changers to encompass broader financial functions over time.
Bankers in ancient Athens were just one type of creditor among many that citizens used. It was normal for Athenians to be in debt, as expressed in comedic plays of the time which portrayed debt and avoiding repayment as defining human traits. Bankers gained skill in identifying counterfeit coins from their original role as money changers, as travelers needed to exchange currencies between city-states. While money changing was an early service bankers provided, the term for bankers evolved from referring specifically to money changers to encompass broader financial functions over time.
Bankers in ancient Athens were just one type of creditor among many that citizens used. It was normal for Athenians to be in debt, as expressed in comedic plays of the time which portrayed debt and avoiding repayment as defining human traits. Bankers gained skill in identifying counterfeit coins from their original role as money changers, as travelers needed to exchange currencies between city-states. While money changing was an early service bankers provided, the term for bankers evolved from referring specifically to money changers to encompass broader financial functions over time.
Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens , Paul Millett.
Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2002. 3: Bankers were only the last in a long line of different species of credit. 5: owing money was seen as a natural and normal condition for Athenian citizens. A speaker in Aristophanes' Birds (11. 114-16) suggests that a leading characteristic of mankind is to fall into debt and then try to avoid repayment. An unplaced fragment from Menander's Citharistes [The Lyre Player) (Sandbach fr. I ~ Allinson p. 378 fr. 281) expresses envy for wealthy people as not being kept awake at nights worrying about their debts. 216: The skill of bankers in identifying false or underweight coins derived from their activities as money-changers. The monetary chaos of the Greek world, with each state having its own coinage (Bogaert 1968: 308-15), forced travellers to rely on the expertise of professional changers. Right through the fourth century and beyond, changing would have played an important part in the range of services offered by bankers. It is now generally agreed that banking institutions as known in the classical period had their origins in money-changing, with the term trapezites referring to the changer's table (Bogaert 1966: 135-44). It is, however, impossible to be precise about the point at which the word ceased to mean merely ' moneychanger'.