The Athenian Bank: a Conspicuous Example of Labour Specialisation

Abstract

Summary My research applies the categories of labour specialisation and professionalism to the Athenian bank with a view to demonstrating that banking was a full-time occupation requiring a complex set of skills and that bankers could be considered professionals rather than simple workers. This paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I scrutinise all the sources regarding the banks’ activities and the bankers’ clients to show that the trapezai were constantly frequented by traders, members of the wealthy upper class and most likely individuals belonging to the social middle class. This first section reveals how the banks’ clients exerted a high and constant demand for the services offered by the Athenian bankers. The second section explores the set of skills required to run a bank or even simply to work as a bank employee and aims at demonstrating how important it was that banks were efficiently organised through a precise division of labour. Such a division clearly shows that banking was a highly specialised activity. In the third section I identify the features that qualify bankers as professionals, namely social prestige, the passing down of knowledge and skills to individuals other than the bankers’ sons, and the creation of a wide network of international contacts. The analysis conducted on Athenian bankers to determine whether or not they constitute professionals is reinforced with several parallels to bankers active in other prosperous poleis, such as Delos.