#ancient economies

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Ian Moyer on Democedes’ ”Golden Fetters” (Herodotus III 125, 129-137): experts and cultural exchanges in palace and market economies of Antiquity

Ian Moyer  “ Golden Fetters and Economies of Cultural Exchange”,  2006, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 6 (abstract and preliminaries)

“Abstract

 In W. Burkert’s Orientalizing Revolution, itinerant craftsmen and other specialists moving from East to West are the primary vector for the movement of Near Eastern ideas and practices to the Greek world in the archaic period. In this model, the incentive for movement is a choice between western economic freedom and the despotism of eastern palace-centered economies. When set in the context of theoretical debates over the ancient economy, and particularly the important studies of C. Grottanelli and C. Zaccagnini on the mobility of specialists, Burkert’s model appears to accept that modern divisions between eastern and western economies were also salient for ancient actors. This supposition is tested through a reexamination of Herodotus’ story of the Greek doctor Democedes and the golden fetters awarded to him by Darius (Histories 3.125, 129-137). Though Herodotus uses the symbol of “golden fetters” as a focal point for the construction of cultural difference, parallel Greek and Egyptian evidence of specialists in royal service suggests that such gifts could also function as cross-cultural prestige items, and that the royal economies in which they circulated could facilitate and even stimulate the adoption and dissemination of notionally foreign ideas and practices.

Preliminaries 

Herodotus’ ethnography of Egypt encapsulates a paradox that plagues theories of cultural exchange. In a famous passage, the Greek historian  wrote that the Egyptians are entirely opposite to other people in their manners and customs, and yet he also claimed that many Greek practices and ideas, especially in the realm of religion, came from Egypt.2 On the one hand, his oppositional definition draws boundaries around Egyptian culture, and on the other hand the boundaries are porous and their content transferable. Similar ambiguities permeate the unreflective uses of inherited anthropological categories such as “culture” in the study of contacts between the Archaic Greek world and adjacent regions surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean. As J. Hall has observed, concepts of a universal, transnational culture (or civilisation) spreading out from the Near East are found alongside descriptions of interaction and exchange between bounded, plural cultures.3 Though much work over the last 3 decades has gathered evidence of connections between Greece, the Near East, and Egypt, the processes of cultural interchange have received less attention than they merit. In particular, models of the economies in which culture contact and exchange took place—that is, the systems of transactional relationships in which people, goods, practices, and ideas moved—still remain relatively underdeveloped.4

Perhaps the best known model for interaction with the Near East in the archaic period of Greek history is outlined in The Orientalizing Revolution by the eminent historian of religion, Walter Burkert. His account includes contact and exchange between Greece and the Orient in a number of modes, including trade and military expansion, but the dominant explanation, indeed the one framing the structure of his work, is the movement of various specialists, whether in sacred or profane technologies, from East to West. The aim of Burkert’s work is to correct earlier historiographical tendencies to view Greek culture in isolation, and yet the way he envisions the process of cultural interchange in the early archaic period reifies  some of the divisions he seeks to break down. In Burkert’s description of cultural vectors, the force that drew Eastern specialists to the Greek world was rational individual choice between western economic freedom, and the despotism of the East:

To sum up: For craftsmen of the East, at least the chance for free movement had existed for some time, since the influence of the despots was limited in extent. In the West, this mobility was fully developed by the orientalizing period. It can be presumed that precisely this factor could act as a strong incentive for emigration to the freer West.... Even if free enterprise was an invention of the early orientalizing period, the “orientals” were certainly involved too.5 

Just as the direction of flow in Herodotus’ view of Greek debts to Egypt is determined by the antiquity and conservatism of the Egyptians and the youth and receptivity of the Greeks,6 Burkert organizes the economic forces involved in his model of mobility along the lines of an East-West divide.7

I propose briefly to reexamine this model of migration and the distinctions it makes between East and West against the background of its economic assumptions, and through a familiar tale from Herodotus. The story of the Greek doctor Democedes of Croton, who received from Darius a pair of “golden fetters” while serving involuntarily at the Persian king’s court has been used to illustrate the tension between the freedom of the itinerant specialist and the tyranny of Near Eastern economies in which craftsmen were controlled by the palace.8 Parallels from Greek and Egyptian sources, however, suggest that the “fetters” need not have had the despotic significance Herodotus assigned them. These examples reveal circuits of migration tied to the historical conditions and ideologies of palace economies, thus situating the model of craftsmen moving east to west in the context of other economies in which contact and exchange took place. My purpose in this is to ask whether the distinction between eastern and western economic patterns was as salient a factor in motivating the movement of specialists as Burkert’ s model suggests, or whether this model accepts too easily a Herodotean view and certain metanarratives inherited from theories of the ancient economy.”

The whole article can be found on https://href.li/?https://www.academia.edu/475659/Golden_Fetters_and_Economies_of_Cultural_Exchange

This is another very interesting article of Ian Moyer, which has as subjects a number of very important questions on the history of Antiquity: the interactions between Greece and Near Eact during the archaic and early Classical periods, the vectors of this interaction, the role of itinerant specialists and craftsmen in the cultural exchanges in Antiquity, and above all the nature of the economies of the ancient Near Eastern monarchies and of the Greek city-states and their relations with the political structures of these polities. 

My remarks on this article are that, first of all, the last decades there is a tendency to overestimate the Near Eastern influence on the development of the ancient Greek civilization, perhaps as a reaction to the previously dominant view, according to which Greece was essentially isolated from the Near East. However, I think that the truth is that, although the Greeks borrowed important things from the Near East, the ancient Greek civilization had since its beginning its own particular identiy, character, and dynamic of development, and of course its own characteristic major contributions and breakthroughs. 

Secondly, it seems to me that Moyer’s criticism of Burkert’s model about the movement of specialists and craftsmen from the East to the West as anachronistic is rather justified and, moreover, I suspect that perhaps Burkert overestimates the extent and importance of this movement. 

Thirdly, I think that Moyer tends to overlook somehow the particularity of the situation of Democedes and to read in Herodotus’ story about him more than what there is in the text. Democedes was not a typical itinerary specialist coming to offer his services to the Great King of Persia, usually after invitation: according to Herodotus, Democedes had gone to Susa as a captive after the execution of his former employer Polycrates of Samos by the Persians, and it is in this particular context that Darius’ gift of “golden fetters” must be understood. Herodotus presents Darius’ gift as an expression of royal favor and gratitude toward Democedes for his medical services, but also as a reminder of his status as a captive. In all this there is of course a depiction of Darius’ absolute power, which can raise someone from misery but also, conversely, annihilate the recipient of this favor, if the King is displeased with him,  and an implicit comparison with the Greek political structures in which (with the exception of tyranny) no individual had such a power over free people. But I don’t see this story as an illustration of the differences in the situation of the various experts in the economic models of “free entreprise” and “palace economy’, because, as I said before, Democedes was not a typical specialist working for Darius, but a captive. Moreover, it is not uncontroversial that the economies of the developed ancient Greek city-states, although for sure in a large part market economies, were systems of “free entreprise” in the modern sense of the term. 

More particularly concerning Herodotus, although it is true that he shows the role of the market in the life of the Greek city-states (see above all 1.153 with the description of the Greeks by Cyrus the Great of Persia) and the role of royal power in the circulation and distribution of resources and wealth in the Persian Empire, it would be problematic to make of him some kind of preacher of the “free entreprise” in the sense that this term has today. 

Now, despite my remarks about the particularity of the situation of Democedes in Herodotus’ story, I believe also that the traditional view that entering the service of the Great King or of other monarchs with absolute power meant not only advantages, but also a loss of personal freedom, and that the gifts of the King were expressions of an unequal relation and means to tie even more their recipient as subordinate to his royal benefactor is largely correct, as Moyer himself shows when he presents the role of the royal gifts in the Achaemenid court. 

Another remark that I have is that more generally Moyer’s views on Herodotus’ ethnography seem somehow unsympathetic in this article. For instance, when Moyer writes that...  the direction of flow in Herodotus’ view of Greek debts to Egypt is determined by the antiquity and conservatism of the Egyptians and the youth and receptivity of the Greeks , to attribute immediately afterwards the flaws of Burkert’s model to a mentality similar to that of Herodotus in the previous excerpt, it seems that he rather reads Herodotus through the lens of the modern critical to Orientalism postcolonial theory. But I think that this reading is anachronistic, because first of all Herodotus in general admires Egypt and avoids comparisons which would show the Egyptians as culturally inferior to the Greeks, secondly because “antiquity and conservatism”  were not seen by the ancients as something necessarily worse than “youth and receptivity” and perpetual change: in fact one can find in the ancient Greek literature several passages in which the conservatism and (supposed) immutability of ancient Egypt are seen with great admiration.

These critical remarks and disagreements from my part do not mean of course that I deny that Ian Moyer’s article on Democedes’ “golden fetters” is important and thought-provoking.

[racefortheironthrone]

I once read the reason why merchants were so ill seen in pre-modern times was because there was a lack of understanding on how they buying a product from a place of production and selling at a place of consumption added value to the product and thus entitled the merchant to selling at a profit something he did not produce. My question is (and I undertand it is quite out of your area of expertise): do you think the Bronze Age civilizations would have shared such a view, or would they have interpreted merchants and their trade closer to how we do, given those civilizations dependance on the commerce of copper and tin?

I don't think it's a question of not understanding - I think it's a question of disagreeing that buying low and selling high as opposed to actually contributing physical labor creates a moral right of ownership.

I would highly recommend Jacob Soll's book on this point, because one of the things he points out is that this attitude or belief was incredibly common across pre-modern societies from Western Europe all the way to Japan and China, in part because these societies were overwhelmingly agricultural economies where the farmer was respected because they were vital to survival, such that even the aristocratic elite tended to espouse a kind of pastoral "gentleman farmer" ideal and despise the values of merchants.

In these contexts, Soll notes, the idea that merchants and other middlemen had economic (and thus moral and cultural) value was something that had to be actively asserted and argued for, and he uncovers a literature on the subject that goes as far back as Cicero and all the way through the Middle Ages and beyond. At the same time, it was an incredibly divisive and contested topic that the merchants didn't win a lot of the time - hence the Church getting behind Aquinas' concept of the "just price," hence why Renaissance bankers had to reverse-engineer lending at interest to get around prohibitions on usury, etc.

[rotzaprachim]

you’re thinking about how easily massive numbers of the wildly antisemitic tankies would have been pulled into the actual political tenets of (esp early to mid 20th century) armed Zionism and you’re laughing?????

[nickysfacts]

The Ancient Egyptian economy was based on the breadst standard!𓏏

😄

[finelythreadedsky]

it's incredible what you can get done when you're trying to put off something you don't want to do

[quarkflavors]

cannot believe that mac tried for 2 years to get me to make a flight rising account and then got *me* banned when he reported himself for multiaccounting YEARS before my account even existed

[dankovskaya]

Yesterday during class I was thinking like Damnnn I should've majored in legal studies because these classes I'm taking for the minor have been some of the most interesting and thought provoking and like. Useful feeling* that I have ever taken plus the sort of Legal Logic used in the cases we look at and the philosophies behind the opinions and dissents and all that shit is just "clicking" for me in a very engaging way but. Most of the people taking this class are majoring in legal studies or something adjacent (polisci global studies whatever) and as soon as I hear some of them talk outside of the case analysis discussions its like. actually nevermind I think you people would have gotten me expelled for physically attacking one of you

[ananke-xiii]

the radio:🎶you can kiss a hundred boys in bars

me: no, no and NO.

[dickinfectionbez]

good morning adora i keep having scary dreams and then waking up and going "??? that was stupid as fuck why did i think that was real"

Good Morning Coyote!

Oh no that sounds terrible, maybe they are being triggered by a change in your routine or maybe something you are anxious about?

[ilikedetectives]

The Mirage advertisement DLC makes me realize that mayyyyyybe the reason AC Valhalla doesn't have a NG+ (and probably won't ever) is because they need to herd a bunch of AC Valhalla players over for some sales.

[historyfiles]

Castro Culture Economy: while the preceding Bronze Age economy had been based on the exploitation and exportation of mineral local resources, and on mass production, the Iron Age economy of the Castro culture was based on one of necessity goods.

[economicsresearch]

page 547 - knife with significant hand guard about to murder a blue square

[niconiconwo]

I want owned physical media back, but I'm not sad to see DVDs go – optical media was always a transitional technology, and suffers from a number of intractable drawbacks. I want them to start selling movies on indestructible solid-state cartridges the size of a quarter, so I can keep my entire media collection in an unsorted pile in a random cabinet drawer and have to go rummaging through it like an amateur chef trying to find the lemon zester every single time I want to watch something. Do you understand? I want to lose the entire Star Wars trilogy between my couch cushions.

[traveleventandnews]

Discover China: Top 10 Fascinating Facts About the Land of the Dragon

Discover China: Top 10 Fascinating Facts About the Land of the Dragon China is a country of immense beauty, rich culture, and groundbreaking innovation. As one of the most visited destinations in the world, it continues to captivate travelers with its ancient history and modern advancements. If you’re curious about this incredible country, here are the top 10 fascinating facts about China that…

[richnessinhealth]

Use Chocolate as Money?? #ancienthistory #ancient #chocolate #money #mon...