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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;robinjojo, post: 8204179, member: 110226&quot;]John Gardner, in his novel <i>The Wreckage of Agathon</i>, had this to say about the iron currency of Sparta, introduced by King Lykourgos.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is Agathon, a seer who has gone quite mad in old age, in the King&#039;s service, speaking:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>&quot;He outlawed wealth.&nbsp; First, he redistributed the land, splitting all Lakonia into thirty thousand equal shares and Sparta itself into nine thousand, with provision for yearly review and redistribution.&nbsp; Of those who fought him, some stood trial for treason, some merely vanished.&nbsp; Nevertheless, men still had money, and Lykourgos knew from his travels in Asia, especially Sardis, that treasure hoards, like land, mean inequality.&nbsp; Finding that it would be dangerous to go about seizing men&#039;s gold openly, Lykourgos took another course and defeated greed by a stratagem; he commanded that all gold and silver should be called in to be reminted and standardized.&nbsp; When the money came in - you remember the story - he returned it not in gold or silver but in iron bars, the coin of the ancients, before Asian influence.&nbsp; A great weight and quantity of the stuff was of very little worth: to lay up, say, three thousand dollars&#039; worth required at least a large shed.&nbsp; Thus he closed out several vices at once.&nbsp; Who would rob a man of such coin?&nbsp; Who would even accept as a bribe a thing by no means easy to hide, a thing not a great credit to possess, or of any worth cut in pieces?&nbsp; Moreover, it was ugly. When it was red hot they quenched it in vinegar and spoiled it: it couldn&#039;t be worked.&quot;</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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