ABSTRACT
Paul’s telling of the ‘money from barter’ story in Digest 18.1.1. is indeed a myth. Rather as early thinkers told their mythoi, Paul retells a traditional narrative about events in the remote past to establish his idea about the essential legal characteristics of money. His story lies somewhere between philosophical demonstration and historical speculation. The precise historicity of the facts he describes matters less to the story than its demonstration of the essential difference between coins and commodities and, for lawyers, the need to distinguish sale and purchase from barter. The story establishes three essential characteristics of money in the law – the relevance of a definitive form, the representation of nominal value, and the role of public authority over the monetary system – which were then absorbed into Western legal thought.
David Fox, The law’s creation myth for money, 30 Edinburgh Law Review issue number 3. Accepted / in press – 16 June 2026.
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