debt
debt,the creation of obligations in cash or kind, existed at all levels of society throughout the ancient world: from loans of seed and implements between peasants (Hesiod Opera et Dies 396ff., 453ff.) to lending of small sums and household objects between city-dwellers (Theophrastus Char. passim), from borrowing to cope with unforeseen crises (Demosthenes 53.4ff.) to substantial cash loans between the wealthy to support an élite lifestyle (Aristophanes Nubes; Plutarch Moralia 827 ff.). More generally, the partly random testimony of papyri from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt hints at the likely frequency of loan transactions in other times and places, largely concealed by the perspective of surviving sources. The part played by debt in funding trade and commerce is disputed; but always to the fore were the socio-political implications of widespread indebtedness, plausibly linked with the...
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