In the area of the Mediterranean and the ancient Near East, coinage was invented in the seventh century BCE in Asia Minor, but it only slowly became the main instrument of economic exchanges, first co-existing and only gradually replacing other economic systems. The increased use of coined money in the ancient world entailed not only economic, but also thorough cultural changes, both for the states and communities that stroke and used coins, and for individual agents. The seminar will follow two correlated threads. First, it will address the question of why ancient states stroke coins, laying the stress on the question of whether motivations for striking coins were purely economic, or whether coinage also served political purposes and was a means to express state or collective identity. The chronological and geographical scope of the survey will include Archaic and Classical Greece, the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, and the Hellenistic world, and (succinctly) the early Roman Empire. The second thread will focus on the world of the Greek cities, and explore how the shift in economic practices that resulted from the combined impact of coinage, democracy, and literacy entailed changes in the nature of inter-personal relations, and ultimately, in the self, with bearings on cultural and religious developments.