Homeric Talents and the Ethics of Exchange

Abstract

The Homeric talent, a quantity of unworked gold, has attracted very little scholarly comment. Yet it is a conspicuous enough feature of the Homeric economy: when Agamemnon lists the gifts with which he hopes to win over Achilles, he includes ten talents of gold ( khrusou talanta ) in the first line of his plutocratic catalogue. The same sum also features among the gifts Achilles receives from Priam. In what follows, I argue that the talent occupies an anomalous position within the system of Homeric gift exchange, and that this anomaly has interesting implications both within and beyond the Homeric text.