Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold

The invention of coinage in ancient Greece provided an arena inwhich rival political groups struggled to imprint their views on the world. By linking the imagery of metals and coinage to stories about oracles, prostitutes, Eastern tyrants,counterfeiting, ratail trade, and games, trhe author traces the rising egalitarian ideology of the polis, as well as the ongoing resistance of an elitist tradition to that development.