For love or money
ITEMS known as wallets have been around for millennia. In Ancient Greece, they were a feature of life for mortals and gods alike—after Perseus killed the sleeping Medusa, he is said to have popped her severed head into a magic wallet.
Their use and design has changed markedly over the ages, however. Most of us have little need for something to carry the head of a gorgon in and, if we did, a modern-day wallet wouldn’t be up to the task.
Wallets were for keeping food and possessions in, but, as classical scholar A. Y. Campbell explained, this, Ulysses tells Achilles: ‘Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherein he puts alms for oblivion.’
