2000 years before Adam Smith

Yo A! That patina really sets off your rippling biceps and six pack abs.
So, ah...whatcha doin' later?

"...money is as it were our surety; for it must be possible for us to get what we want by bringing the money. Now the same thing happens to money itself as to goods--it is not always worth the same; yet it tends to be steadier. This is why all goods must have a price set on them; for then there will always be exchange, and if so, association of man with man. Money, then, acting as a measure, makes goods commensurate and equates them; for neither would there have been association if there were not exchange, nor exchange if there were not equality, nor equality if there were not commensurability. Now in truth it is impossible that things differing so much should become commensurate, but with reference to demand they may be come so sufficiently. There must, then, be a unit, and that fixed by agreement (for which reason it is called money); for it is this that makes all things commensurate, since all things are measured by money."

Oh! Yes.
By which I mean YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSS! (And so on.)

My goal for the next few weeks is to get through the Nichomachean Ethics. I've read various parts of it at various times, but not the whole thing start-to-finish. Until now. I plan to sneak up, catch it in a flying tackle, wrestle it to the ground. There will be kicking and biting and hair pulling and scratching and ninja throwing stars and muskets and mustard gas. I will emerge victorious, and I will own it. Then I'll beat my chest and roar out my triumph as I absorb its powers while being struck over and over by lightning because, after all, there can be only one.

If you know what I mean.