Banks and Lending in Greco-Roman Egypt

Abstract

This thesis looks at some specific areas of banking practice in Greco-Roman Egypt between 260 BC and AD 260, and draws comparisons between banking then and banking today. Greco-Roman Egypt has been chosen because there is a greater range of papyri available covering the period under review than there are similar sources for other countries at that time, because banking in Egypt was more sophisticated for its time than banking in other countries, and because Egyptian banking shows the seeds of our present day banking systems. The period chosen covers the days of Hellenistic Egypt from when Egypt had been conquered by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great to when Egypt was a Roman sphere of interest under the principate.