definitely, it's the greed not the money, people want to hoard whatever precious thing that could guarantee their safety and apparently in this age this thing is money, since we can pretty much good anything from money.

but back then, kingdoms also hoarding foods, golds, and so on at the expense of other at some point, it's the same thing but with different tool.

the root of evil and the root of fear is always greed from the start, money as I already stated just a tool which can be abused or can be used for the benefit of other people.

so the statement is invalid.