Money, Expense, and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History 1-5.24

Thucydides has been found guilty of indifference toward financial matters without a consideration of all the evidence. Lisa Kallet-Marx redirects the approach to Thucydides’ treatment of financial resources by studying his comments on finance in the context of the whole work and scrutinizes other, chiefly epigraphic, evidence as well. Her comprehensive inspection of the Archaeology, Pentekontaetia, and history of the Archidamian War demonstrates that the role of financial resources is central to Thucydides’ ideas about naval power and figures prominently in his speeches and narrative. The accumulation of chremata, or money, and its relationship to nautikon, or the fleet, provide a key for analysis.

Kallet-Marx’s research reveals an important stage in the historical development of thought about state power, wealth, and imperialism. Her book will greatly interest classicists as well as scholars of ancient economics.
This title is part of UC Press’s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.