What the oldest money advice actually says

A poem to a brother who cheated

The oldest surviving money advice in Greek is a poem written about 700 BC by a farmer called Hesiod. It is addressed to his brother Perses, after the two had quarrelled over their father's land.¹ Perses had taken more than his share and, the poem says, had bribed the judges to do it. So the advice comes from someone who had already been cheated by family.

That is worth keeping in mind. The poem is called Works and Days, and most of it is about when to plow and when to sail. But its money advice has lasted three thousand years because it was written by a man with a grievance and a ledger, not a theory.

Add a little to a little

The best-known line is about saving. Add a little to a little, and do it often, "and soon that little will become great".² There is no interest rate in it and no compounding. It is about the habit, and about the fact that the small amount is the one you can actually put aside.

The poem is equally plain about the other direction. Take fair measure from your neighbor, and repay the same or better, so that when you are in need you can ask again.³ Borrowing is a relationship, and the relationship is the collateral.

Get a witness, even with your brother

The line that has lasted longest is about the other party. Fix a friend's wage in advance. And then: "even with your brother smile, and get a witness; for trust and mistrust, alike ruin men."⁴

Hesiod is not saying trust nobody. He is saying that trust is not a substitute for a record. A written or witnessed agreement protects both sides, because it removes the argument about what was agreed. He had learned this from a brother.

Older still: no witness, no claim

The rule was not new when Hesiod wrote it. A Babylonian law code roughly a thousand years older says that if a man gives goods to another for safekeeping "without witness or contract", and the other denies it, the owner has "no legitimate claim".⁵ The same code makes buying from someone's servant without a witness or contract a serious offense.⁶ The written record was the difference between a claim and a story.

A book of Jewish wisdom, written some centuries after Hesiod, puts it in five words: "when you give or receive, put it all in writing."⁷

Get a house, a wife and an ox

Hesiod's list of what a household needs is short: a house, a woman, and an ox for the plow.⁸ Aristotle quoted the line three centuries later when he set out what a household is.⁹ The household was the unit. Everything else in the poem is about keeping it fed, keeping it out of other people's debt, and keeping a record of what was agreed.

What has not changed

Three of Hesiod's rules survive every change in money since. Put aside a little, often. Repay in full and on time, because your reputation is what you borrow against. And never let trust stand in for a record, not even with family. Most of the money advice written since is people relearning the third rule.