The Persian Standard.
We may adopt the generally received belief that the Persians, like the Medes and Babylonians, did not coin money (although they were probably acquainted with the Lydian stater) until after the conquest of Asia Minor and Egypt by Cyrus and Cambyses, and the reorganization of the empire by Darius the son of Hystaspes (522-485 B.C.). For although the learned savants MM. Oppert and Révillout[358] hold that Daric (Δαρεικός) is unconnected with the name Darius (Δαρεῖος), an opinion supported by Dr Hoffmann[359], and rather regard it as derived from the Assyrian darag mana, “degree (i.e. ⅟₆₀) of a mina,” and although Mr G. Bertin has read the word dariku on a Babylonian contract, dated in the twelfth year of Nabonidas, five years before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus[360], it does not at all follow that either darag or dariku refers to a coin. That the unit was employed for gold ages before the Persians ever descended from the mountains there can be little doubt. But whether we adopt or reject the Greek tradition that the Daric (Δαρεικός) was named from Darius, as the Philippean and Croesean staters were called after the sovereigns who first struck them, it is perfectly certain that Darius organized the whole numbering system of the great empire to which he had succeeded, and that he coined gold pieces of the first quality: for Herodotus tells us that Darius, having refined gold to the greatest extent possible, had coin struck[361]. This would be very analogous to the course pursued by Croesus and Philip; gold in some form was current in the dominions of both these princes before their reigns, but it was owing to certain reforms introduced and to the issue of a gold coin of a certain pattern, that the names of both became associated with particular kinds of gold coins. By the time of Xerxes the son of Darius vast quantities of these Darics were circulating through Asia Minor, for Herodotus relates that the Lydian Pythius had in his own possession as many as 3,993,000 of them, a sum afterwards increased by Xerxes to 4,000,000. They became the gold currency of all the Greek towns not only of Asia Minor, but also of the islands, and made their way in considerable quantities into the great cities of the mainland of Hellas, and wrought as much harm in disuniting the various states of Greece as did the gold staters of Philip at a period a little later. Darics formed a regular part of the wealth of a well-to-do Athenian at the time of the Peloponnesian war. Thus Lysias[362] relates that when his house was entered and plundered by the minions of the Thirty, his money chest contained 100 Darics, 400 Cyzicenes, and 3 talents of silver. It is only necessary to enumerate some of the passages in the Greek authors, where mention is made of their coins, to show how wide an influence they exercised in the eastern Mediterranean. Besides Herodotus and Lysias already mentioned, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Arrian, Diodorus and many others all make mention of these famous coins[363]. No classification of them according to the reigns of the monarchs by whom they were issued is possible, for this is precluded by the absence of all inscriptions, and the great uniformity of style. They bear on the obverse the king of Persia bearded crowned and clad in a long robe; he kneels towards the right on one knee; on his back is a quiver, in his right hand is a long spear, and in his outstretched left a bow (from which came the familiar Greek name of Archers for these pieces). The reverse is simply marked by an oblong incuse.
Their weight may be set at 130 grs., which of course is the light shekel or ox-unit. We have no difficulty in fixing the gold mina or talent. In fact we have already seen on p. 260 that the Persian talent of gold was the same as the Euboic-Attic talent. Hence
| 1 | Daric | = | 130 grs. |
| 50 | Darics | = | 1 mina = 6,500 grs. |
| 3000 | Darics | = | 60 minas = 1 talent = 390,000 grs. |
For silver currency the Persians employed half of the Babylonian silver stater of 168 grs., its usual weight being about 84 grs. This coin was in every way similar to the Daric and in fact is sometimes called by the same name by writers of a later age[364], but the more usual appellation in the classical writers was the Median siglos (Μηδικός σίγλος) or simply siglos. Twenty of these sigli were equivalent to one gold Daric, for Xenophon appears to count 3000 Darics as equal to 10 talents of silver, or in other words to 60,000 sigli (6000 × 10 = 60,000). The siglos may therefore be regarded as the Persian drachm or half-stater. As 130 grains of gold are thus made equal to 1680 grs. of silver (84 × 20), gold held to silver the old ratio of 13:1.
The Persian silver standard was formed thus:
| 1 | siglos | = | 84 grs. | ||||||
| 100 | sigli | = | 50 | staters | = | 1 | mina | = | 8400 grs. |
| 6000 | sigli | = | 3000 | staters | = | 60 | minae | = | 1 talent = 504,000 grs. |
As regards commercial weight we may fairly assume that the old light and heavy royal systems continued in use in the respective regions where they had been employed in early days.
CHAPTER XII.
The Greek System.
We are now come to the most important portion of our task, the development of the Greek and Italic systems. In the Homeric Poems we found the Talanton (or value of a cow in gold) the sole unit of weight, and that only employed for gold. This Talanton has been shown to be the same in weight as the light gold shekel of Asia Minor, which, under the form of coin, we have just been discussing as the Croesean stater and Persian Daric. It was therefore nothing else than the Euboic or Attic stater of historical times, which at all periods and at all places that fall within our knowledge formed the sole unit for the weighing of gold.
Besides the Talanton based on the ox, there was in all probability another higher unit in occasional use in Greece Proper. This was the threefold of the ox-unit. We have already had occasion to notice the small gold talent, called by some writers the Macedonian, which was equal to three Attic staters. The same weight under the name of the Sicilian talent was employed likewise for gold only in the Greek colonies of Sicily and Southern Italy. The conservatism of colonists is too well known to need illustration, and we may with high probability infer that the Greek settlers in Magna Graecia brought the small talent from their original homes. What was the origin of this weight? We have seen that everywhere all over our area the slave is the occasional higher unit. Thus the Irish slave (cumhal) was a unit of account equal to three cows. The slave in the Welsh Laws is equal to 4 cows, whilst in Homer we found a slave woman valued at 4 cows also. From the way in which this notice of her price occurs, it is probable that Achilles did not give a woman of the most ordinary kind as a prize, for had she been the ordinary slave-woman of account, there would have been no need to mention the price, as any one would have known how many cows exactly she was worth. It is then not improbable that three cows were commonly reckoned as the value of a slave, and accordingly the small gold talent, which is the multiple of the ox-unit, is simply the metallic representative of the slave, just as the Homeric Talanton itself is that of the cow.
What the exact weight of this unit was on Greek soil we are now enabled to ascertain by the aid of the treatise on the Constitution of the Athenians known to the ancients as the work of Aristotle, and the brilliant discovery and identification of which by the officials of the British Museum reflects much credit on British scholarship.
We had previously known from Plutarch (who ascribed the first coinage of Athens to Theseus[365]) that amongst his other reforms Solon caused drachms to be coined of lighter weight than those previously in currency, so that 100 of the new ones would be equal in value to 73 old ones. Some scholars have inferred that this was an expedient for relieving debtors, who would be allowed to pay in the new coin debts contracted in the older currency. The newly discovered Constitution dispels this assumption, and also affords us some most valuable additional matter[366]: “In his Laws then he appears to have made these enactments in favour of the people, but before his legislation he appears to have wrought the cancelling of debts, and afterwards the augmentation of the measures and weights, and the augmentation of the currency. For in his day the measures likewise were made larger than those of Pheidon, and the mina, which previously had almost seventy drachms, was filled up by a hundred drachms[367]. But the ancient type was the didrachm[368], and he also made as a standard[369] for his coinage 63 minas weighing the talent, and the minae were apportioned out by the stater, and the other weights.”
Fig. 30. Coin of Eretria.
The first point to engage our attention is the formation of a new standard for the silver coin (for no gold was coined for nearly two centuries): sixty-three old minas were taken to form a new talent, which of course was divided henceforward into 60 new minas. As the weight of the Attic talent in post-Solonian times is most accurately known, we can at once discover the weight of the ancient mina by dividing the ordinary weight of the talent (405,000 grs.) by 63: 405,000 ÷ 63 = 6428 grs., that is 322 grs. less than the post-Solonian mina of 6750 grs. As there are 50 staters in the mina, the ancient stater weighed 128·56 grs., or just a grain lighter than the Daric (129·6 grs.). The old mina of 6428 grs. had been equal to 70 drachms; each of these then must have weighed 92 grs. nearly, that is, the ordinary weight of an Aeginetic drachm. There can be no doubt that the coins of Aegina were used as currency at Athens before Solon’s time, where they circulated side by side in all probability with the coins of Euboea which bore the bull’s head, whence arose the tradition of the earliest coinage of Athens consisting of didrachms stamped with an ox. The old mina (63 of which went to the new silver talent) was of course the ancient standard used for weighing gold and silver before coined money was employed. It was that known as the Euboic, based on the ox-unit. The Aeginetic standard was only used for silver, gold at all times being weighed by the Euboic standard even where the Aeginetic was in use for silver. This standard was of course in full use for gold and evidently likewise for silver in prae-Solonian times, even though the Aeginetic drachms passed as currency at Athens. For if they had adopted the Aeginetic standard, 100 Aeginetic drachms would have been reckoned to the mina, but as only 70 drachms went to the mina it is evident that the old ox-unit (so-called Euboic) standard of unit 130 grs. with its corresponding mina was always the national Athenian standard.
We showed at an earlier stage that in the age when the art of coining was first introduced into Greece by Pheidon of Argos, it was probable that gold stood to silver in the proportion of 15:1. For convenience, then, in Peloponnesus and in Central Greece a system was adopted by which 10 pieces of silver were equivalent to one piece or ingot of gold. This system, known as the Aeginetic, was thus obtained.
Gold being to silver as 15:1,
1 gold ingot (Talanton) of 130 grs. × 15 = 1950 grs. of silver, 1950 grs. ÷ 10 = 195 grs.
Therefore 1 gold Talanton of 130 grs. = 10 pieces of silver of 195 grs. each.
It is possible that this method of making 10 silver pieces equal to one gold unit was developed at the time of the introduction of coined money, but it is more likely that it may have been in use even before that time.
Now it is worth observing that all through the classical period of Greek history the term stater is generally confined in use to gold pieces. Thus silver coins, unless they weighed 135 grs., are not described as silver staters, but are regularly termed didrachms. So general evidently was this practice that the adjective chrysous (χρυσοῦς) was regularly employed to express the gold unit, the masculine gender showing that the noun understood is stater (στατήρ). Thus Pollux says: “Some were termed staters of Darius, some Philippeans, other Alexandrians, all being of gold, and if you say gold piece, stater is understood: but if you should say stater, gold is not absolutely to be understood[370].” From the fact that Pollux draws attention to the exceptional use of stater to express a silver coin, on the principle that exceptio probat regulam, it is evident that stater regularly represents a gold piece of two Attic drachms. The familiar practice in Attic Greek, when speaking of a considerable sum of silver without employing either the term mina or talent, is to say 1000 drachms, 2000 drachms and the like, but not 1000 staters or 2000 staters, etc., whilst on the other hand, under like conditions, the practice is to enumerate gold not by drachms, but by staters. Thus in a fragment from the Demi of Eupolis quoted by Pollux[371] a man is described as possessing 3000 staters of gold. We certainly hear of an Aeginean stater and a Corinthian[372] stater (both of silver), but both are found in writers of comparatively late date, when usage was getting less exact, and besides, as the Aeginetic system had a separate individuality of its own, its unit being perfectly different from the Euboic Attic, might with justice be termed a stater. We are thus justified in considering the gold stater the legitimate descendant of the Homeric Talanton, the stater or weigher representing the Talanton or weight of the older time. As long as no other unit than the ox-unit or Talanton was employed, the Talanton or weight par excellence was sufficient to describe it, but when under Asiatic influences the higher unit of the mina (μνᾶ) and talent were introduced, a term was substituted which indicates clearly that the gold unit of 130 grs. was the weigher or basis of the whole system. Starting then with our ox-unit, we find already in Homer definite traces of a decimal, but nothing to indicate the existence of a sexagesimal system. Ten talents of gold are mentioned in several passages.
Starting then with the ox-unit of 130 grs. we can thus arrive at the fully elaborated Greek systems. The term mina (μνᾶ) is beyond doubt a borrowing from the East. How far it was ever much employed in the reckoning of gold it is hard to say, but it is at least remarkable that, when we hear so frequently of minae of silver in the Attic writers, no instance of a mina of gold is quoted in our books of reference. From this one is led to infer that it was for the purpose of measuring the less precious metal, silver, that the term mina was brought into use in Greece. In fact, as stater is essentially a term which clings to gold, so mina is especially a term used of silver. With the mina the Greeks borrowed likewise the highest Asiatic unit (the kikkar of the Hebrews), which became the Talanton or talent of historical Greece. But it is remarkable that the Greeks did not borrow its Asiatic name along with the unit itself. They simply gave it their own name weight (literally, ‘that which can be lifted,’ cp. τλάω, tollo, etc.). This fact can be explained readily if we suppose that the Greeks, like all those other primitive peoples whom we have mentioned, had a rough and ready unit for estimating bulky wares, the standard of the load, or as much as a man could conveniently carry on his back. Having already such a unit they would have no difficulty in adopting the load or talent, which had been fixed according to the Sexagesimal system, and which had permeated all Western Asia. In fact their position towards the Asiatic load, which had been accurately fixed by the mathematical skill of the Babylonians, would be exactly analagous to that of the Malays of Java and Sumatra towards the accurately adjusted Chinese picul. Because the Malays themselves were accustomed to use loads of various weights as their rough highest unit of bulk, they have with all the more readiness received the form of the same unit, which the clever Chinese have incorporated into their commercial weight system by making it equal to 100 chings (catties, or pounds). But it is doubtful if at any time in Greece Proper the talent of gold was ever considered as a monetary unit. We have found Eupolis speaking of “3000 staters of gold” instead of simply saying a talent of gold, and when we do find mention made of talents of gold, as in a famous passage of Thucydides, where he describes the amount of gold employed by Pheidias in the making of the world-renowned chryselephantine statue of Athena for the Parthenon, whilst the computations in silver are expressed simply by talents, the gold is enumerated as talents in weight. We may assume that gold was weighed throughout Greece in historical times on the following system:
| 1 | stater | = | 130 | grs. | ||
| 50 | staters | = | 1 | mina | = | 6500 grs. |
| 3000 | ” | = | 60 | minae | = | 1 talent = 390,000 grs. |
When silver came into use it was probably weighed all through Hellas, as in Asia and Egypt, on the same standard as gold. This continued always to be the practice amongst the great trading communities of Euboea, Chalcis and Eretria, and their colonies, and also with Corinth and her daughter states. Hence the system was commonly known as the Euboic, sometimes as the Corinthian, and in later times, for a reason to be presently given, the Attic. But in this silver system it is no longer the stater which represents the smaller unit, but rather the drachm (δραχμή). Furthermore we find in most constant use a subdivision of the drachm called the obol (ὀβολός nail or spike), six of which made a drachm. There can be no doubt that this silver obolos represented the value in silver of the ancient copper unit from which it took its name, which itself was not estimated by weight but probably, as we saw above, was simply appraised by measure, as is done by all primitive peoples in the estimation of copper and iron, nay even in the very earliest stage of gold itself ([p. 43]). As six of these nails or obols made a handful (δραχμή) in the ancient copper system, so when each of them was equated to a certain amount of silver, the equivalence in silver was called an obol, and the six silver obols obtained the old name of handful or drachm. In the ordinary Greek system of reckoning silver it is 100 drachms, not 50 staters, of silver which form the mina. But of course at the earlier stages of the use of silver we may with some boldness assume that silver was simply weighed by the stater (or Homeric Talanton).
It is important then to note that among the smaller weight denominations silver has virtually no term peculiarly its own: for we have seen that stater belongs essentially to gold, whilst drachm and obol have originated in the use of copper. This is in complete harmony with what we know of the history of the metals themselves, gold and copper being known and employed long before men had learned to utilize silver; and so too, we find the late-introduced term mina in especially close connection with the latest employed of the three metals. This Euboic-Attic silver system may be stated as follows:
| 6 | obols | = | 1 drachm |
| 100 | drachms | = | 1 mina |
| 60 | minae | = | 1 talent. |
The Corinthians, whilst making the obol of the same weight as the Euboic, made a different division of the silver stater; for as Corinth occupied the very portals of Peloponnesus where the Aeginetic system was universal, she found it convenient for purposes of exchange to divide her silver stater of 135 grs. into three drachms of 45 grs. each, one of which was for practical purposes identical with the Aeginetan half drachm. Thus two Corinthian drachms of 45 grs. each were equal to one Aeginetan drachm of 90 grs.
The Aeginetan Standard.
The desire to obtain 10 silver pieces equivalent in value to the gold ox-unit induced the Aeginetans, who were famous merchantmen, to make a silver system distinct from that of gold. Gold being to silver as 15:1,
| 130 × 15 | = | 1950 | grs. of silver. |
| 1950 ÷ 10 | = | 195 | grs. |
With the Aeginetans as with the Euboeans in their silver system, the ancient copper units of the nail and handful played an important part. The story of Pheidon[373] having hung up in the temple of Hera at Argos the ancient currency of nails of copper and iron as soon as he struck his first issue of silver coins, if not absolutely true in all details, at least contains a most probable statement of what did actually take place when a real silver currency was first introduced. We have seen how the Chinese, starting with a barter currency of real hoes and knives, the objects of most general demand, gradually replaced those larger and more cumbrous articles by hoes and knives of a more diminutive size, until finally they became a real currency when they had been so reduced in size as to be utterly unfit for practical use. We saw likewise how that at the present moment the real hoe is the lowest unit of barter among the wild tribes of Annam, and that small bars of iron of given size are used in Laos, and that plates of metal ready to be made into hoes, and hoes themselves, are employed by the negroes of Central Africa, whilst on the west coast axes of a size too diminutive for actual use are employed as a real currency. As the day came when the Chinese finally replaced the archaic knife by the full developed copper coin called the cash, so the Aeginetans and Argives of the days of Pheidon superseded by a real coin ancient monetary-units consisting either of real implements of iron and copper, or bars of those metals of certain definite dimensions, or possibly mere Lilliputian representatives of such, which had previously served them as a true currency. On the whole however it is safest to assume from the names nail (Obol) and Handful (drachme) that the form in which copper or iron served as currency in Peloponnesus and the mainland of Hellas in general was that of rods of a certain length and thickness. We have cited already many analogous forms from modern Asia and Africa, and from the ancient Kelts, to which we shall presently add the ancient Italians. But just as we found that in the Soudan, whilst the slave and ox were universally the higher units of value, each particular district had its own distinctive lower unit according to the nature of its products and requirements, so it is most likely that there were many different units of value (but all alike sub-multiples of the cow) in use among the various Greek communities. It is also probable that they must have exercised a certain effect in the formation of the units of silver currency. Nor is evidence wanting for this. I have already maintained ([p. 5]) that the fact of the occurrence of the type of the cow, or cow’s head, on early Greek coins is evidence that the original monetary unit was the ox. Thus we find the forepart of an ox on the early electrum staters of Samos of the Phoenician standard (217 grs.), which was probably equivalent to a pure gold ox-unit of 130 grs. The bull’s head also appears on the electrum coins of Eretria and of other places in Euboea. But it is with the silver currency that we are now especially concerned. Whilst it was extremely likely that silver coins might in process of time bear the impress of an ox, the general unit of currency, it was still more natural that, as pieces of silver supplanted as units not the ox but its sub-multiples, that is the particular series of articles of barter in use in any particular district, so these silver coins should bear some traces in their types of the ancient units thus supplanted. That eminent scholar Colonel Leake many years ago remarked that the types of Greek coins generally related “to the local mythology and fortunes of the place, with symbols referring to the principal productions or to the protecting numina.”
Fig. 31. Coin of Cyrene with Silphium plant.
Modern scholars have more and more lost sight of the doctrine contained in the words which I have italicized, and directed all their efforts to giving a religious signification to everything[374]. The forepart of the Lion and the Bull on the coins of Lydia become symbols of the Sun and Moon, the Tortoise on the didrachm of Aegina is regarded as a symbol of Aphrodite, the Ashtaroth of the Phoenicians, in her capacity of patron divinity of traders; even the silphium plant of Cyrene, which yielded a salubrious but somewhat unpleasant medicine, is regarded not as holding its place on the coins of Cyrene and its sister towns because it formed the chief staple of trade, but because forsooth it may have been the symbol of Aristaeus, “the protector of the corn-field and the vine and all growing crops, and bees and flocks and shepherds, and the averter of the scorching blasts of the Sahara.” There is probably just as much evidence for this as there is for believing that the beaver on some Canadian coins and stamps is symbolical of St Lawrence, after whom the great Canadian river is named, the warm skin of the beaver indicating that the saint of the red-hot gridiron is the averter of the cruel and biting blasts that sweep down from the icy North. I do not for a moment mean that mythological and religious subjects do not play their proper part in Greek coin types. But it is just as wrong to reduce all coin types to this category as it would be to regard them all as merely symbolic of the natural and manufactured products of the various states. If however we can show that certain coins, even in historical times, were regarded as the representations of the objects of barter of more primitive times, we shall have established a firm basis from which to make further advances.
In those now famous Cretan inscriptions found at Gortyn[375] certain sums are counted by kettles (lebetes, λέβητες) and pots (tripods, τρίποδες). Some have thought that these are the same objects which are called staters in later forms of the same documents. But recently M. Svoronos[376] has advanced a very plausible hypothesis that the lebetes and tripods of the inscriptions really refer not to an actual currency in the kettles and pots of the old Homeric times, but to certain Cretan coins which are countermarked with a stamp, which he recognizes in many examples as a lebes, and in at least one case as a tripod. Whether the first hypothesis, that actual kettles and pots were indicated in the earlier inscriptions and that they had been replaced afterwards by coins, or the hypothesis of M. Svoronos, be true, is immaterial for us. In either case there is evidence of a direct and unbroken succession which connects the silver currency of Crete with an earlier currency of manufactured articles. The very fact that a lebes or a tripod stamped upon a coin gave it currency, not merely in the town of issue but among neighbouring states, indicates that in a previous age the common unit of currency corresponding in value to the coin so marked was an actual lebes or tripod. Such is the evidence preserved for us in this remote corner of Hellas where life moved slowly, and where the archaic style of writing known as boustrophedon (the lines going from right to left and left to right alternately, as the plough turns up and down the field) still lingered on long after it had disappeared from every spot on the mainland of Greece. If then amongst the symbols which appear on the earliest coins of Greek communities, which began very early to strike money, we can find some which have not been identified as religious, and which we can show represent objects which actually did or may well have formed a monetary unit in such places, we shall have advanced a step further; and if we succeed in making good this fresh position, we may in turn find a nonreligious explanation for certain types, which at present are regarded as mythological symbols.
The types with which we shall deal must be those found on the most archaic coins, and which therefore date from a time when barter was just being replaced by a monetary currency. Thus in the case of cities like Athens and Corinth, which began to coin at a comparatively late period and which had been long accustomed to use the issues of other states before they struck money of their own, we should hardly expect to find any trace of the old local barter-unit in their coin types, as such a unit had long since been replaced by the foreign coins.
Fig. 32. Coin of Cyzicus with tunny fish.
Let us first turn to the well-known type of the tunny fish (πηλαμύς, θύννος), vast shoals of which were continually passing through the sea of Marmora (Propontis) from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean[377]. This type appears invariably upon the electrum coins of Cyzicus, and a tunny’s head is found upon some very archaic silver coins from the Santorin ‘find’ which Mr Head places at the top of the whole Cyzicene series, but no one has, as far as I am aware, yet hitherto attempted to mythologize it[378], although the fecundity of this fish would make it just as suitable an emblem for Aphrodite as the “lascivious turtle,” and the traders of Cyzicus might quite as well wear the badge of the goddess of the sea as the merchants of Aegina, for there is just as much or just as little evidence for Phoenician influences at Cyzicus as there is at Aegina. From what we have learned in an earlier chapter we know that the articles which form the staple commodities of a community in the age of barter virtually form its money. In a city like Cyzicus whose citizens depended for their wealth on their fisheries and trade, rather than on flocks or herds and agriculture, the tunny fish singly or in certain defined numbers, as by the score or hundred and the like, would naturally form a chief monetary unit, just as we found the stock fish employed in mediaeval Iceland. Are we not then justified in considering the tunny fish, which forms the invariable adjunct of the coins of Cyzicus, as an indication that these coins superseded a primitive system in which the tunny formed a monetary unit, just as the Kettle and Pot counter-marks on the coins of Crete point back to the days when real kettles formed the chief medium of exchange? But far stronger evidence is at hand to show that the tunny fish was used as a monetary unit in some parts of Hellas. We have had occasion to refer to the city of Olbia which lay on the north shore of the Black Sea. It was a Milesian colony, and was the chief Greek emporium in this region. There are bronze coins of this city made in the shape of fishes, and inscribed ΘΥ, which has been identified as the abbreviation θύννος, tunny. Others are inscribed ΑΡΙΧΟ, which Koehler read as τάριχος, salt fish, but which the distinguished German numismatist Von Sallet[379] regards as meaning a basket (ἄρριχος). He holds those marked ΘΥ as the legal price of a tunny fish, those marked ΑΡΙΧΟ as that of a basket of fish[380]. When we recall the Chinese bronze cowries, the Burmese silver shells, the silver fish-hooks of the Indian Ocean, the little hoes and knives of China, and the miniature axes from Africa, we are constrained to believe that in those coins of Olbia, shaped like a fish, we have a distinct proof of the influence on the Greek mind of the same principle which has impelled other peoples to imitate in metal the older object of barter which a metal currency is replacing. The inhabitants of Olbia were largely intermixed with the surrounding barbarians, and may therefore have felt some difficulty in replacing their barter unit by a round piece of metal bearing merely the imprint of a fish, while the pure-blooded Greek of Cyzicus had no hesitation in mentally bridging the gulf between a real fish and a piece of metal merely stamped with a fish, and did not require the intermediate step of first shaping his metal unit into the form of a tunny. We shall find that this tendency to shape metal into the form of the object which it supplants may perhaps be traced in the coins of Aegina and Boeotia.
Fig. 33. Coins of Olbia in the form of tunny fish.
Fig. 34. Coin of Tenedos with double-headed axe.
In the same quarter of Hellas we find another instance of a coin type which may be regarded as evidence that the silver coin which bears it was the representative of an older barter unit. The island of Tenedos, lying off the Troad, struck at a very early date silver coins bearing for device a double-headed axe (the Latin bipennis). This “Axe of Tenedos” (Τενέδιος πέλεκυς) was explained by Aristotle[381] as a reference to a decree of a king of Tenedos which enacted that all who were convicted of adultery should be put to death. This explanation is probably a bit of mere aetiology to explain the existence of an emblem, the true origin of which had been forgotten. However, it yields one important result, for it shows that the emblem was not religious. Had that been its nature, priestly conservatism would have kept an unbroken tradition of its origin. But from another source some light may be obtained: Pausanias[382] in the 2nd century A.D. saw at Delphi axes dedicated according to tradition by Periclytus of Tenedos, and then proceeds to relate the following tale: Tennes, an old King of Tenedos about the time of the Trojan War, cut with an axe the ropes with which his father Cycnus had moored his ship to the shore, when he came to ask pardon of Tennes for having cast him and his sister in a chest into the sea, in a fit of anger caused by the false accusation of a stepmother. We may gather that according to this form of the legend the Janiform head, male and female, on the obverse of the coins of Tenedos alludes to the brother and sister. But Pausanias makes no attempt to connect Periclytus in any way with Tennes except as being a native of Tenedos. This is hardly enough to account for the dedication of the axes at Delphi. Two explanations suggest themselves. It was the custom of kings or communities to send offerings to Delphi of the best products of their land. Thus Croesus sent vast quantities of his Lydian electrum, and, still more to the point, the people of Metapontum in South Italy, whose land was famous for its wheat, after an especially favourable harvest sent to Delphi a wheat-ear (υέρος) of gold. Were the double axes in like fashion an especial product of Tenedos? Or was this dedication analogous to that of Pheidon when he hung up in the temple of the Argive Here the ancient nails and bars? The first explanation is the more probable, for there was no reason why the Tenedians should not have dedicated their cast off currency of axes in some temple at home. I have already mentioned the hoe currency of ancient China, and the axes used as such in Africa. I shall now show that such double-axes as those stamped on the coins of Tenedos formed part of the earliest Greek system of currency. I have already enumerated the various articles used in barter in the Homeric poems. The prizes offered in the Funeral games of Patroclus are of course merely the usual objects of barter and currency, slavewomen, oxen, lebetes, tripods, talents of gold and the like. “But he (Achilles) set for the archers dark iron, and he set down ten axes (πελέκεας), and ten half-axes (ἡμιπέλεκκα)[383].” The axe is undoubtedly of the same kind as that on the coins of Tenedos, the name (pelekys) being the same in each case, and the Homeric one beyond doubt is double-headed like the Tenedian, since the half-axe (hemi-pelekkon) must obviously mean a single-headed axe[384]. The double-axes formed the first prize, the ten half-axes the second, for “Meriones took up all the ten axes, and Teucer bore the ten half-axes to the hollow ships[385].” These axes and half-axes then seem to go in groups of ten as units of value, the half-axes representing half the value of the double-headed. If then the kettle and tripod of Homeric times are found as symbols on the coins of Crete, why may not the axe on those of Tenedos represent the local unit of an earlier epoch? and that such axes were evidently an important article in Tenedos is proved by the dedication at Delphi.
Fig. 35. Coin of Phanes (earliest known inscribed coin).
Fig. 36. Archaic coin of Samos.
Fig. 37. Coin of Cnidus.
But could we only find a contemporary description of the type on one of the earliest coins of Asia Minor, the cradle of the art of coining, we might get our ideas on the nature of the coin types greatly cleared. Fortunately such an opportunity is afforded to us by an unique coin in the British Museum, the oldest as yet known which bears an inscription. It is an oblong electrum coin ([Fig. 35]), the reverse having the usual incuse, but on its obverse it bears a stag feeding, and over it runs (retrograde) in archaic letters I AM THE MARK OF PHANES (Φανος εμι σεμα = Φάνους εἰμὶ σῆμα). There can be no doubt that the mark of Phanes is the stag. If there was no inscription it would have been at once asserted that the stag was the symbol of the goddess Artemis, and who could deny it? But as it stands it is plain that the stag is nothing more than the particular badge adopted by the potentate Phanes, when and where he may have reigned, as a guarantee of the weight of the coin and perhaps the purity of the metal. The Daric itself needs no inscription to tell us that its type is not religious. The figure of the Great King with his spear and bow and quiver can hardly be allegorized even by an Origen[386]. Emboldened by these instances we may even hold up our hands against the host of Heaven, and raise doubts as to whether the foreparts of the lion and bull upon the coins of Lydia represent the Sun-god and the Moon-goddess. May not the lion simply be the royal emblem? I have already suggested this explanation for the lion weights of Assyria. Undoubtedly from the earliest times the king of beasts (as in Aesop’s Fables) was regarded in the East as the true badge of royalty. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah” is familiar to us all, and it is more rational to regard the lions which guarded the steps of Solomon’s throne as emblems of kingship rather than as symbols of the Sun. Is then the Lion on the coins of Lydia nothing more than the kings badge, just as the stag is the badge of Phanes? But what about the bull or cow? Shall I go too far if I regard it as indicating that the coin is the ox-unit? When the Greeks borrowed the art of coining from Lydia it is easy to understand that they would likewise borrow the type either in a complete or modified form, and hence it is that we find the lion or lion’s head on the coins of Miletus[387], the lion’s scalp on those of Samos (on which the cow’s head also is found), the lion’s head on the coins of Cnidus, of Gortyn in Crete, at Rhodes, at Miletus, and at the Phocaean towns of Velia in Lucania, and Massalia in Gaul, and put by the Samian exiles on their coins at Zancle. If the Greeks had been barbarians they would have slavishly copied the lion coins of Lydia, just as the Gauls copied the lion of Massalia, and at a later time the stater of Philip, and as the Himyarites of South Arabia, the “owls” of Athens[388], and as in mediaeval times the Danes of Dublin copied the coins of the Saxon kings[389]. But the artistic genius of the Greeks could submit to no such trammels, and the lion type was varied and diversified according to the fancy of each community. The same holds good of the type of the cow and cow’s head. The Greek genius gave us these beautiful types such as the cow suckling her calf (Dyrrachium), the cow with the bird on her back (Eretria), the cow scratching herself (Eretria), the two calves’ heads seen on the coins of Mytilene, and the magnificent charging bull on the coins of Thurii. The cow or bull’s head on the early gold and electrum coins was the indication of the value. In later times when the connection between ox and coin was only traditional, the ox was put on coins simply as symbolical of money.
Fig. 38. Coin of Thurii.
Fig. 39. Coin of Rhoda in Spain.
Again Phocaea, one of the very earliest Greek towns to issue coins, employed a symbol which cannot be termed religious. Her coins bear a seal (phoca) a type parlant referring to the name of the town. Many examples of the same kind can be quoted, the rose (ῥόδον) on the coins of Rhodes (Ῥόδος) and also on those of Rhoda in Spain, the bee (melitta) on those of Melitaea, perhaps even the owl (χαλκίς) on coins ascribed to Chalcis in Euboea. These considerations will serve to show that we may expect many things on coins besides religious symbols. Thasos was famous for its wine, and accordingly the wine-cup is a regular adjunct of its coins, either standing alone, or held in the hands of old Silenus, who quaffs therefrom a “draught of vintage that hath been cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth.” All who have read Horace remember the fame of the wines of Chios, and accordingly the wine-jar is a regular adjunct of the mintage of that island. Now there is proof that the trade in wine was of extreme antiquity, if not in the islands just mentioned, at least in Lemnos, and that that trade was carried on by barter, for we read in Homer how “many ships stood in from Lemnos bringing wine, which Euneos the son of Jason had sent forward, whom Hypsipyle had borne to Jason shepherd of the folk, but separately for the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the son of Jason gave wine to be fetched, a thousand measures. From thence used the flowing-haired Achaeans to buy their wine, some with copper, some with glittering iron, some with hides, others with the kine themselves, others again with slaves[390].” From what we have seen in an earlier chapter it is clear that a measure of wine would have a known value in relation to the various articles here enumerated. Thus in North America where the beaver skin was the unit, a gallon of brandy = 6 skins, a brass kettle = 1 skin, an ounce of vermilion = 1 skin and so on[391]. In other words, the ordinary currency with which the Lemnians would purchase wares from other people who had no wine of their own would be wine, the unit of which was the measure (which elsewhere I have tried to show was the cup δέπας, Smith’s Dict. Antiq. s.v. Mensura). This measure would be the size of the vessel ordinarily employed for wine, probably much the same as the two-handled vase out of which Silenus is seen drinking on coins of Thasos.
With the introduction of silver currency nothing is more likely than that an effort would be made to equate the new silver unit to that which had formed the principal unit of barter. That the earliest types should indicate the object (or its value) which the coin replaced is in complete accord with the statement of Aristotle (quoted on an earlier page) that “the stamp was put on the coin as an indication of value[392].” As no numerals appear on the early Greek coins, it is evident that Aristotle regarded the symbol, whether ox-head, or tunny, or shield, as the index of the value. If it be said that the putting of a cow, or axe, or tunny on a coin was simply a picturesque way of indicating a single unit, we may reply that it is far easier to understand why a certain people chose a particular symbol, if in their minds the object symbolized was identified with the value of the silver or gold coin. It is at all events certain that Aristotle did not regard the type as religious in origin. But we are not without actual evidence that such an equating of the silver unit to the barter-unit really took place in Greece. It is held by the best numismatists that Solon was the first to coin money at Athens. It is also well known that the highest class in his constitution, called Pentacosiomedimni (Five-hundred-measure-men), were rated at 500 drachms. Thus the Olympic victor received 500 drachms to qualify him to be a Five-hundred-measure-man[393]. Furthermore Plutarch distinctly tells us that Solon reckoned a drachm as equivalent to a measure[394] or a sheep. It is hardly possible to doubt that the first Attic coined silver drachm was equated to the old barter unit of a measure (either of corn or oil). The same may be said in reference to the olive sprig which from the earliest issue is found on the coins of Athens. The sacred olive-trees (μορίαι) which belonged to the state, and for the care of which special officials were appointed, and even the very stumps of which, and the spot on which they had grown, were under a taboo[395], were a source of considerable revenue to the state in the 6th century B.C. The fact that they were all supposed to be scions of the sacred olive-tree on the Acropolis, which was itself supposed to be the gift of Athena, and the religious care bestowed on them, puts it beyond doubt that the olive at an early date formed one of the most important products of Attica. The instances given already of the employment of various kinds of food as money are sufficient to show that there is nothing far-fetched in supposing that olives and olive-oil may have been so employed at Athens.
Fig. 40. Tetradrachm of Athens.
We have already spoken of the silphium or laserpitium plant on the coins of Cyrene, Barca, Euesperides and Teuchira, and mentioned the interpretation which makes it the symbol of the hero Aristaeus. It seems however far more reasonable to treat it on the same principle as the others just discussed. The silphium formed the most important article produced in that region, and it is perfectly in accordance with all analogy that certain quantities of this plant and of the juice extracted from it should be employed as money. We saw above that at the present moment tea is so employed on the borders of Tibet and China, and raw cotton in Darfur. But there is also some positive evidence in favour of this assumption, for Strabo[396] tells us that a traffic was carried on at the port of Charax between the Carthaginians and Cyrenaeans, the former bringing wine wherewith to purchase the silphium of the latter. There must have been a wine-unit, and also an unit for the silphium, or otherwise the barter could not have been carried on; and just as in Gaul[397] a jar of wine purchased a boy fit to serve as a cupbearer, a certain measure of wine being equated to a slave-boy, so we may conclude that some such wine-unit was equated to a packet or bale of silphium, the latter in turn having a certain amount of silver equated to it, which when coinage was introduced was stamped with the silphium device. That the silphium was packed in bales of a fixed weight is proved by a now famous vase-painting which represents the weighing (on ship board?) of the bales of silphium in the presence of Arcesilas the king of Cyrene[398]. The figure who points to the scales is marked silphiomachos (σλιφιομαχος) which is taken to mean silphium-weigher (σλιφιο- being either a mis-spelling of the artist, or the local form of the word, whilst the latter part is connected with the Egyptian mach = to weigh). Close to the silphium packets is the word ΜΑΕΝ, which has not been explained, but which may be simply a form of the word mina (manah, meneh) and denotes that each packet weighed that amount.
Fig. 41. Vase from Cyrene, shewing the weighing of the Silphium.
Fig. 42. Coin of Metapontum.
The ear of corn (wheat) on the coins of Metapontum[399], an old Achaean colony in Magna Graecia, is explained by modern writers as a symbol of Demeter: but the story told by Strabo of how the early settlers dedicated a golden ear at Delphi because they had amassed such great wealth from agriculture, indicates a far simpler solution, that the chief product and chief article of barter of Metapontum was naturally placed on her coins. As the tunny adorns the coins of Cyzicus, so we find the cuttle-fish on the coins of Croton and Eretria. As this creature was devoured with great gusto by the ancients, as it is at the present day at Naples and in Palestine, there is no necessity to regard it as a symbol of Poseidon, or of treating it in any way different from the tunny.
Fig. 43. Coin of Croton with cuttle fish.
Fig. 44. ‘Tortoise’ of Aegina.
I now come to two most important types, the Tortoise of Aegina, and the Shield of Boeotia. I have already mentioned the symbolic interpretation given by E. Curtius to the former. That various natural productions, such as gourds, cocoa-nuts, joints of bamboo, served and still serve as vessels and measures of capacity in various countries we have seen already, and we likewise found that in the ancient Chinese monetary system of shells the shell of the tortoise stood at the top as the unit of highest value, and that down to a comparatively late epoch it was still highly prized in Cochin China for making bowls of great beauty. In both Greek and Latin there is abundant evidence to show that the functions which in a later time were performed by pottery were discharged by natural shells at an earlier period. Thus, if we do not find any actual vessel called a chelône (tortoise) in use amongst the Greeks, we at least find one called a Sea-urchin (Echinus, ἐχῖνος): for not only was the shell of this creature used as a vessel for containing medicines and the like, but vessels of artificial construction of the same shape and name were actually employed; thus the casket in which were deposited and sealed up the documents produced at the preliminary hearing of an Athenian lawsuit was called an Echinus. There was likewise a small vessel called conché (κόγχη), after the shell-fish of that name, the Latin concha, whilst a cognate name, conchylion, was applied to the case placed over the seals of wills.
Nay, ostrakon, the common word for a potsherd, familiar to us from its famous derivative Ostracism, or Voting by Potsherds, so called because the people inscribed their votes on pieces of pottery, meant originally nothing more than an oyster shell. In Latin testa, the ordinary name for an earthenware vessel, means nothing more than the covering of a shell-fish, and from this word testudo, the Latin name for the tortoise, is simply a derivative. Such instances could be multiplied if it were necessary, but those mentioned are sufficient to show the high probability of so valuable a shell as that of the tortoise having been employed. Owing to its beauty it would probably hold its place in Greece as the choicest kind of vessel for centuries after the art of pottery was known, just as it did in Cochin China. It would be only when the art of glazing and embellishing pottery had made some progress that vessels of baked clay could compete with the lustrous, many-hued shell. Nor are we without some direct evidence for the use of tortoise shell among the Greeks. The famous story of the invention of the lyre by the god Hermes is not without significance. According to the Hymn to Hermes, “the precocious divinity on the very day of his birth sallied forth and found a tortoise feeding on the luxuriant grass in front of the palace, as it moved with straddling gait.” His eye was caught by the dappled shell (αἰόλον ὄστρακον), and carrying home his spoil, he made of it a lyre. The legend which thus explains why the sounding-board of the lyre is so called points back to a time when the best form of bowl or hollow vessel for making a sounding board for a musical instrument was that afforded by the shell which was probably one of the common articles of everyday life.
But, in addition to all this indirect evidence, we are able to point to actual Greek vessels made of earthenware, fashioned in the shape of a tortoise. In the second Vase Room of the British Museum (case 48 and 49) there are two terra cotta vases from the island of Melos, wrought in the shape of this creature, and with these before us it is hardly possible to regard as other than wooden bowls carved in the shape of the same animal the wooden tortoises with which the Thessalian women pounded to death Lais the famous courtezan, in the temple of Aphrodite, after she had taken up her residence in their country[400]. We can parallel this development of artificial vessels of wood and earthenware from the use of the actual shell in modern times. Lady Brassey saw in the Museum at Honolulu, amongst the ancient native weapons and swords, “tortoise-shell cups and spoons, calabashes and bowls[401].” Now in the Cambridge Ethnological Museum there is a very fine wooden bowl from the South Seas, carved in the shape of a tortoise, and also earthenware vessels in the shape of tortoises from Fiji, which shows that the islanders of the Pacific not only used the real shells for vessels, but likewise imitated them in wood[402].
On an earlier page I quoted the statement of Ephorus that the Aeginetans took to commerce on account of the barrenness of their island. But they must have had something to give in exchange to other people before they could have developed a carrying trade, and as the island had been the resort of merchants from very early days, it must have had something to attract strangers as well as its position. Let us take the case of an island with barren soil in modern days, and see what it has to export. Thus Dhalac Island in the Red Sea is frequented by the Banyan merchants for the sake of its pearls, and at Massowah tortoise-shell forms an important article of commerce. Just as the Banyans come to Dhalac[403], so the Phoenicians probably came to Aegina, searching for the murex (purple fish) and tortoise. No doubt tortoise-shell must have been the chief article of export from Tortoise Island, described by Strabo (773), as situated in the Arabian Gulf (Red Sea).
The foregoing considerations make it not at all improbable that the tortoise on the coins of Aegina simply indicates that the old monetary unit of that island was the shell of the sea-tortoise (ἡ θαλαττία χελώνη), which was considerably larger, and therefore more valuable for making bowls, than that of the land or “mountain” tortoise (ἡ ὀρεινὴ χελώνη). There was a well-known headland on the Coast of Peloponnesus called “Tortoise Head” (Chelonates), and this creature must have been a peculiar feature of the shores of Aegina, or it would not have been chosen as the type for her coins, whether it be a religious symbol or not. At all events we know from the story of Sciron the robber, slain by Theseus, that the sea-tortoise was a familiar feature on the shores of the Saronic Gulf, as the hapless travellers who were kicked over the rocks by the caitiff were devoured by a large sea-tortoise which frequented the strand below. This creature’s picture is handed down on a well-known vase-painting which commemorates the exploits of Theseus. Finally, it may well be supposed that had not its connection with the invention of the lyre attracted to that instrument the name of “Tortoise” both in Greek and Latin, we should have found the name employed for some sort of vessel, as is the case with the Echinus.
Fig. 45. Coin of Boeotia with shield.
Coming now to Central Greece, we find on the coins of all the Boeotian towns (with the exception of Orchomenus in her earliest issues) the well-known device of the Boeotian shield. This has been confidently pronounced to be a sacred emblem, symbolic of a common worship, conjectured to be that of Athena Itonia, whose temple near Coronea was the meeting-place of the Boeotians[404], whilst at Coronea golden shields were preserved in the Acropolis[405]. This may be so, but it is equally possible that the shield represented a common monetary unit in ancient times. The shield of early Hellas was a simple ox-hide buckler, described in Homeric language simply as an ox-hide[406]. Amongst barbarous peoples, as we saw above, weapons form one of the regular commodities commonly employed as currency; the Achaeans bought wine with hides as well as with oxen from the ships that came from Lemnos, and as there can be no doubt that the hide was a regular sub-multiple of the cow, it is very probable that the ox-hide shield stood in a similar relation to the cow, the chief or most universal unit; and as we find axes and half-axes among the prizes offered by Achilles as well as kettles and caldrons, so we learn from a famous passage[407] that shields were amongst the most usual articles offered as prizes and therefore were regular units of currency: “For they strove neither for an ox to be sacrificed nor yet for an ox-hide shield which are wont to be the prizes for the feet of men, but they strove for the life of the horse-taming Hector.”
Fig. 46. Coin of Lycia.
When silver money was struck, it was natural that the barter-unit which came nearest in value to the silver didrachm would be equated to it, and the piece of silver would accordingly be termed Shield or Tortoise, just as the silver equivalent for the old copper rod was called the Obol, and in due course the corresponding device would be impressed on the silver coinage. The same explanation may probably be applied in other cases, such as that of the boar on the coins of Lycia. On the coins of the Gaulish tribe Sequani who made the best bacon and hams which came into the Roman market, the swine is found[408]. Doubtless this animal was their chief source of wealth, and formed a unit of barter, but we have not space for any more examples.
It is worth noting that it is quite possible that the men who issued the earliest coins of Boeotia and Aegina were influenced in the shape they gave these coins by the actual objects which they were replacing. The coins of Aegina with their high round upper side and flat under side suggest the general outline of a tortoise. As the people of Olbia, like the Chinese, Burmese and Ceylonese, had to make coins in the shape of a fish, so the Aeginetans acting under a like instinct may have wished to give a conventional representation of the tortoise. The earliest coins have the incuse on the reverse divided into eight triangular compartments. Are these the eight plates which form invariably the plastron or under surface of all the tortoise family? Later on the Aeginetan incuse is always in five compartments, but in the two well-known triangular depressions we perhaps find an echo of the tortoise-plastron[409]. The earliest coins seem to represent a sea-tortoise, for the feet are real flippers quite distinct in shape from the legs shown on the later coins. As the plates of the carapace (upper surface) are not fully represented in the archaic coins, this omission may not be merely due to rudeness of work, but rather because in the case of the sea-tortoise the thirteen plates of the carapace are not so prominent as in the land-tortoise. On the later coins where the feet are those of the land-tortoise the coins accurately represent the thirteen plates.
It has to be borne in mind that the shape of the incuse depressions on the reverse of coins is very constant. Thus on the Aeginetan coins we never find what is known as the mill-sail incuse which is the peculiar feature of the reverse of the early Boeotian coins, nor on the other hand do we even find the eight-fold incuse on the coins of Boeotia. Some influences must have determined the choice of form, such as I have just suggested in the case of Aegina. Did the first Boeotian Mintmaster shape his coins with the real buckler in his mind’s eye? On the reverse of these coins we find the incuse forming a rude X, which is bounded by a circle of dots, whilst in the centre of the incuse is the initial letter of the name of the issuing town, such as 𐌈 for Thebes, 𐌇 for Haliartus. Does the X-shaped incuse represent conventionally the cross-bars of the frame of the shield seen at the back, the circle dots indicating the outline? The letters on these coins are the earliest inscriptions on the coins of Greece Proper. We can easily see how they came to be placed on the coins, as soon as we remember that there was a Λ on the Lacedaemonian shields, a Σ on the Sicyonian, a Μ on the Messenian[410]. Why do not we find the initial in the coins placed on the front of the shield, where it must have stood on the real buckler? If as is held by the best authorities the coins of Boeotia formed a federal currency, we see a reason for the practice. As the silver shield replaced the real buckler, the old unit which had been universally employed through Boeotia, no town would have been permitted to put its initial on the shield engraved on the obverse. No doubt the old actual shield of currency was plain, and each purchaser painted the initial of his own country upon it. The Mintmasters accordingly of each town regarding the whole coin as a shield placed the letter of these several states on the reverse. Baumeister (Denkmäler, s.v. Wappen) gives pictures of the back of two shields. The frame of the shield consists of a circular rod, with two cross bars. The idea of making the incuse represent the other side of the object given in relief on the obverse seems to be just the stage between a complete representation of the object as in the tunny of Olbia, and that evinced by the early coins of Magna Graecia, on which the reverse gives in the incuse exactly the same form as that in relief on the obverse.
At first sight the result of this great variety of local units apparently places impassable barriers to trade, but a knowledge of the actual facts of barbarous communities and their monetary systems as they exist in our time easily dispels this impression. I quoted above ([p. 46]) the words of Mohammed Ibn-Omar, wherein he points out that every separate district in the Soudan has its own lower unit or units, whilst everywhere alike the ox and the slave are the higher units; these local units are equated one to the other, so that there is no difficulty in trading. The same holds true of ancient Greece; the tortoise-shell of Aegina may have been reckoned equal to a certain amount of Attic olive oil or to a jar of wine of certain size, which formed the unit of commerce at Thasos and Chios, whilst in its turn a jar of wine was reckoned as equivalent to a package of silphion from Cyrene, a kettle from Crete, or an axe, or certain number of axes, or half-axes from Tenedos, or an ox-hide shield from Boeotia. All were sub-multiples of the ox, and had a fixed value in gold, and later in silver, as weighed against grains of corn. This supposition is in complete accord with the system revealed to us in the Homeric Poems, and is confirmed by the evidence drawn from barbarous races in modern times. It is likewise to be borne in mind that the tendency to place religious and mythological types on Greek coins was one especially developed in the later but not in the earliest period of coinage. No doubt aesthetic considerations played a large part in the adoption of such types, which came especially into prominence when Greek art was at its height. On the early coins one simple type is the rule, whilst at a later stage, besides the old national type, many adjuncts and symbols are added. Contrast the early coins of Athens with the later. The archaic issues have an olive spray and an owl, the later have not merely the owl, but an amphora, and a symbol in the field alluding to the legend of Triptolemus. Again, at Argos the early coins have simply the wolf or half-wolf or wolf’s head, with a large A on the reverse, but in the later times the A is accompanied by symbols, such as a crescent and letters. The hare appears on the coins of Rhegium and Messana, having been chosen as a type, according to Aristotle, by the tyrant Anaxilas in commemoration of the introduction of that animal by him into Sicily; but it also appears on a rare coin of Messana, not as a main type, but as caressed by Pan. This does not prove that the hare was a symbol of Pan, but that for artistic purposes the rustic god in the act of caressing the hare is chosen instead of the more commonplace type of the hare all alone. So at Thasos the coins with old Silenus quaffing from a wine-cup do not signify that Silenus was a principal object of worship, but he is simply added for picturesque effect. We can at all events draw one conclusion from the historical origin assigned to both this type and that of the axe of Tenedos, that in the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. the Greeks did not see any religious significance in them, any more than they did in the representation of the mule-car which had won at Olympia, placed on his coins by Anaxilas. If, as has been so emphatically laid down by the leading modern Greek numismatists, the types on Greek coins are so essentially religious in origin, it is extremely difficult to explain the extraordinary rapidity with which all such notions as regards their origin must have vanished from the minds of the most learned of the Greeks, at so early a date as the 4th cent. B.C. (hardly more than two centuries after the introduction of the art of coining). The Greeks regarded those types from much the same point of view as we regard St George and the Dragon on sovereigns and crowns, or the Lady Godiva riding in puris naturalibus on the Coventry tokens. The effort to turn agonistic into religious types by contending that, as the Olympic festival was of religious origin, so the successful chariot which had won at Olympia was a sacred symbol, can only be regarded as an ingenious effort to attach by even the most slender thread a simple commemorative type to a religious origin.
Fig. 47. Coin of Messana.
There is not the slightest reason for treating with incredulity the statement that Anaxilas introduced the hare into Sicily. Pollux[411] tells us that there were no hares in Ithaca, and from the same source we learn that the islanders of Carpathus, wishing to add the animal to the products of their isle, introduced a single pair, the descendants of which became in a short time so numerous that they ruined the crops, a story which finds a singular parallel in the history of the introduction of the rabbit into Australia in our own days. The hare was to the old Greek sportsman (as we know from the Tracts on Hunting of Xenophon and Arrian) what the stag was to the mediaeval baron, and the fox to the modern English squire. If William the Conqueror, as says the chronicler, “loved the tall deer as though he were their father,” the tyrant Anaxilas may well have prided himself upon the introduction of the hare into Sicily in much the same manner as modern sportsmen have brought the French partridge into England. When once the type was started, the dislike of any change in coin types is so strong that we need not be surprised at the hare appearing for a long period on the coins of Messana and Rhegium. Besides, the hare was considered by the Greek gourmet as the choicest of viands: all readers of Aristophanes are familiar with “jugged hare” as a proverbial expression for “the best of cheer.”
Variation of Silver Standards.
The connection between the types on early silver coins of Greece and the earlier local units of value being probably such as I have indicated, we next approach the question of changes in the weight of the silver coins at various places and at various times. Besides the ordinary Euboic and Aeginetic standards we find others such as the Rhodian, and the Ptolemaic, the former so named because the island of Rhodes from the beginning of the 4th century B.C. ceased to strike tetradrachms of the full Attic weight of 270 grs. and coined instead pieces which range in weight from 240 to 230 grs., the latter getting its name from the dynasty of the Lagidae, who quickly dropped the full weight of the tetradrachm (270 grs.) as struck by Alexander, and reverted to the Phoenician silver of 220 grs., which they used not only for silver, but also for gold; it is to this last fact that the name Ptolemaic as given to the standard is really due, for as a standard for gold it was certainly new. But not merely shall we find coins standing so far apart from the usual standards that we are obliged to give them distinctive appellations, but we likewise find various modifications of the Aeginetic in various places, whilst in some parts of northern Greece and Thrace we shall find the so-called Phoenician and Babylonian standards in occupation. It is hardly possible that mere degradation of weight will account for all the phenomena; accordingly the object of this section will be to show that from first to last the Greek communities were engaged in an endless quest after bimetallism: we shall find, as we have already indicated, that whilst the gold unit never varies in any part of Hellas until a late epoch, the silver coins exhibit differences not merely between one district and another, but even between one period and another in the self-same city or state. There is incontrovertible evidence to prove that the same trouble was caused by the fluctuation in the relative value of gold and silver as arises in modern times. Xenophon[412] in his treatise De Vectigalibus (speaking of the benefit likely to accrue to the state if the silver mines of Laurium were better worked) makes the most interesting remark that “if any one were to allege that gold too is not less useful than silver, that I do not deny, yet this I know that gold, whenever it turns up in quantity, becomes on the one hand cheaper itself, and on the other makes silver dearer.” This passage alone is sufficient to show how sensitive was the old Greek money market in the beginning of the 4th century B.C., and this statement is amply substantiated on Italian soil by a passage quoted by Strabo[413] from Polybius, from which we learn that after the discovery of a rich gold mine in the land of the Taurisci of Noricum, within the space of two months “gold went down one third in value throughout all Italy.” Such being the effect of a discovery of gold, it is evident that either the silver currency must undergo certain modifications in order that a definite round number of silver units may be equal to the gold unit, or on the other hand the gold unit must undergo modification. But as we have shown that the gold unit remained unaltered throughout all Hellas, Asia and Egypt down to the time of the Ptolemies, it follows that whatever changes were necessary must have taken place in the silver standards. Of this we have proof in the case of Rhodes itself. Down to 408 B.C. the three ancient cities of Ialysus, Camirus and Lindus issued each a separate series of coins, Camirus on the Aeginetic standard, the other two on the Phoenician. In 408 B.C. all these united in founding the new city of Rhodes, and henceforward there is a single coinage. At first the Attic standard seems to have been employed for silver, as rare tetradrachms of 260 grs. are found, but it must have very soon given place to the so-called Rhodian, the tetradrachm of which ranges from 240 to 230 grs. About the same time (400 B.C.) the Rhodians began to issue gold staters of the so-called Euboic standard, and for a century this double issue of gold and silver continued unbroken. It is plain, from the case of this famous island, that it is only the silver standards which changed. There can be no doubt that the unit by which gold in bullion was reckoned before that metal was coined was the so-called Euboic or ox-unit, but during the archaic period we find both the so-called Phoenician (220 grs.) and Aeginetic (drachms of 92 grs.) being employed for silver in the island, whilst after 408 B.C. gold is issued on the ox-unit, but silver, although at first on this standard, immediately changes to the Rhodian of 240 grs. Evidently then the fixed element is the gold, the fluctuating the silver. The coinage of Rhodes likewise exemplifies the doctrine already indicated, that the employment of religious and mythological symbols seems to mark not the earlier but rather the later stages of Greek coining. Thus Camirus employed the fig-leaf, Ialysus half a winged boar, and Lindus the lions head with open jaws, but after 408 Helios the Sun-god, from whom all Rhodians alike claimed descent, and to whom the island was sacred[414], becomes the regular type, with the type parlant of the Rose (Rhodon) on the reverse.
Next let us take the money of Macedonia, where there was an abundant coinage of both gold and silver. The Pelasgian tribe of Bisaltae, and the Thracian Edonians and Odomanti, had during the half century which preceded the Persian wars all struck silver on the so-called Phoenician standard. It is commonly supposed that they obtained this standard from the important town of Abdera, which at the same period employed a like standard, and it is suggested that Abdera had borrowed it from her mother Teos, who had borrowed it from Miletus and the other great towns of the Ionian seaboard, among which it was especially employed for electrum. But unfortunately, whilst the types of Teos and Abdera are the same (a seated Griffin), the staters of Teos weigh only 186 grs., which is the Aeginetic, not the Phoenician (220 grs.) standard. Shortly after the overthrow of the Persian host Alexander I. of Macedon acquired the land of the Bisaltae along with the rich silver mines, which were said to produce for him a talent daily, and he adopted both the types and standard of the Bisaltian silver coinage, only substituting his own name for that of the Bisaltae. During the century which elapsed between Alexander I. and the accession of the famous Philip II. the coinage of Macedon and that of Abdera followed the same course in each case; the Phoenician standard of 230 grs. gave way to the so-called Babylonian or Persian of about 170 grs. Again, it has been suggested that Abdera influenced the neighbouring communities in this change. But when Philip came to the throne he returned to the Phoenician standard for silver, and when for the first time in Macedon he issued a bountiful coinage of gold staters, they were struck on the ancient gold unit, the so-called Euboic standard of 130 grs. But hardly had Philip slept with his fathers, and Alexander reigned in his stead, when a need was felt for a change in the silver standard. Accordingly the latter in the early years of his reign began, and continued to his death, to strike his silver on the same standard as his gold. Let us now study the lessons to be learned from this history of currency. There can be no reasonable doubt that the ox-unit or stater was the unit by which gold was estimated from first to last in that region. Unless it already existed Philip would not have employed it for his gold coinage at a time when he was making changes in his silver, but would have assimilated his gold to his silver standard. But, as before remarked, just because gold was not coined anywhere in Greece until the closing years of the 5th century, and in all transactions it passed as bullion, so much the stronger was the reason for keeping its weight-unit unchanged. But was the standard of 220 grs. really an imported Phoenician, or was it not rather one arrived at in that region by the natives themselves owing to the relations then existing between silver and gold? It is evident from the account given of the Bisaltian silver mines that in the time preceding and immediately posterior to the Persian invasion silver was exceedingly abundant in all that region. It is then by no means unlikely that it required ten silver pieces of 220 grs. each to make the equivalent of one gold unit of 130 grs. With the exhaustion of the silver mines, and perhaps a greater output of gold, silver became dearer, and consequently 10 silver pieces of 170 grs. each were now equal to a gold stater. Abdera on the coast would come perfectly within the sphere of such changed conditions, and her standard would consequently likewise undergo modification. With Philip’s accession, fresh conquests and a general development of resources may have temporarily thrown more silver on the market, thus inducing him to revert to the 220 grs. standard, but the exploiting of the famous mines of Crenides increased the supply of gold to such an extent that by the time Alexander mounted his fathers throne gold stood to silver in the relation of 10:1, and it was found extremely convenient to coin this on the same footing as gold, 10 silver pieces of 135 grs. being exactly equal to the gold stater of like weight. A like explanation applies to the coinage of Thrace. Amongst the Thracian tribes who dwelt near Mount Pangaeum and worked the gold and silver mines of that region the art of coining had been known from the 6th century B.C. and they issued silver coins of about 160 grs. This is regarded by some as debased Babylonian or Persic standard. But it is far more rational to suppose that in that region gold was more plentiful in proportion to silver than it was at that time further west in Macedonia, and accordingly a certain number of silver didrachms of 160 grs. were found to represent the gold stater or ox-unit. It seems most unlikely that a people long acquainted with both gold and silver could not devise for themselves a simple method of making some convenient number of silver pieces be equivalent to one gold, and that, on the contrary, having once obtained a certain standard fixed for silver in Asia Minor, at a time when gold was to silver as 13:1, they would blindly cleave to this standard, no matter how great a change took place in the relation of the metals. In face of the statements of Xenophon and Polybius already quoted and the fact that Solon deliberately constructed a new silver standard, it is simply impossible to believe such a doctrine.
On the opposite shore from Thrace lay the flourishing city of Cyzicus. This wealthy community commenced to issue electrum staters and hectae in the 5th century B.C., if not earlier, the former being about 252 grs., the latter 41 grs. These electrum staters have been shown by Professor Gardner to have contained gold and silver in about equal proportions[415]. This most important fact, taken in connection with the literary evidence derived from Xenophon and Demosthenes, makes it probable that the Cyzicene stater of 252 grs. was counted equal to a Daric of 130 grs. of pure gold[416]. “These coins of Cyzicus,” says Mr Head, “together with the Persian Darics formed the staple of the gold currency of the whole ancient world, until such time as they were both superseded by the gold staters of Philip and Alexander the Great[417].”
Not only did they circulate side by side with the Darics, but it is worthy of notice that when the Cyzicenes struck coins of pure gold (circa 413 B.C.) they were of Daric type and standard. The earliest silver coins (430-412 B.C.) were small pieces of 32 and 18 grs., whilst the larger coins which come later are on the Phoenician silver standard of 212 grs. (412 B.C.), whilst from 400 B.C. to 330 B.C. the Rhodian standard of 235 grs. prevailed. From the story of her coinage we learn clearly that at Cyzicus the inferior metals bowed to the sway of gold. The electrum stater of 252 grs. is made equal to the pure gold unit, and whilst the silver standard changes from 212 grs. to 235 grs. the gold and pale gold pieces in currency remain inviolate. Once more, it is almost certain that some displacement in the relative values of the metals had caused the raising of the standard from 212 grs. to 235 grs. One thing certainly is beyond doubt, and that is the utter improbability of the introduction of the 235 grs. standard being in any way due to the influence of Rhodes. This remark likewise applies to Chios, where from a very early period (600-490 B.C.) side by side with electrum staters of 217 grs. we find didrachms of silver of 123-120 grs., “a weight peculiar to Chios,” says Mr Head, “which was probably the Phoenician somewhat raised.” But why was it raised? The real solution is that the relations between gold, electrum and silver at Chios necessitated the striking of silver on a standard a few grains lighter than the gold unit in use (the Persian Daric), and the electrum stater of 217 grs. Space forbids our going through all the cities of the Ionian coast in detail, but the principle which we have laid down and illustrated from the currency systems of several leading states is sufficient to indicate the method by which we would explain the fluctuations in the silver standards employed at different times in various states. The Daric is the universal gold unit of all this region; by its side is the electrum stater usually of 217 grs. and most probably the equivalent in value of the pure gold coin of 130 grs.: along with them we find singular fluctuations in the silver currency; towns that are close neighbours employing different systems contemporaneously.
There is, however, one state which cannot be passed over without more particular reference. At an earlier page I spoke of the gold mines of Thasos, which had attracted the attention of the Phoenicians at a very early time. But, in addition to the mineral wealth of their own island, the Thasians drew a huge annual revenue from their mines on the mainland. Although the first influence in the island was Phoenician, and the Thasians themselves were Ionians from Paros, instead of finding the Phoenician standard employed for its silver coins, we see them striking their archaic coins on the so-called Babylonian system. Under the supremacy of Athens this standard fell so much that it eventually coincided with the Attic (138 grs.) or even was lower. The Thasians, after revolting from Athens in 411 B.C., struck gold coins for the first time; these were on the Euboic or ox-unit standard (consisting of half-staters and thirds). But about the same period they began to coin silver on the so-called Phoenician of 220 grs. It is indeed strange that in the early age, when the Phoenician tradition was still strong, they did not employ the 220 grs. standard, but only resorted to it after employing for a long period the Babylonian and Attic standards. It is evident that in Thasos, as elsewhere, there had existed the same gold unit for untold generations, else at the very time when they revolted from Athens and adopted a new standard for their silver, they would not have struck gold on what is commonly called the Attic or Euboic standard. It is evident that the changes in the silver standards were due to changes in the relation of silver to gold, the fall in standard from 168 grs. to 135 grs. indicating perhaps that silver, which at first was to gold as 1:13, had gradually grown dearer.
Commercial Weight System.
We must now turn to the commercial weight system. As elsewhere, one of the chief commodities to come under such a system was copper, and the history of the weighing of this metal, as far as it can be learned, will be of great importance to us. Now we should naturally expect that at Athens, which had in later days but one standard for gold and silver, copper likewise would have been estimated on this unit. But, as a matter of fact, there were two distinct standards in use at Athens, as is proved by two weights preserved in the British Museum, the inscription on one of which is Mina of the Market (ΜΝΑ ΑΓΟΡ), that on the other is Mina of the State (ΜΝΑ ΔΗΜΟ). This mina of the market is the same as that called the Commercial Mina on an Attic inscription[418], where its weight is given as that of 138 silver drachms, that is, the weight of an Aeginetic mina of silver. Athens had not coined any money of her own up to Solon’s time, but seems to have employed the coins of Aegina. But this standard, although no longer employed for silver, did not fall into desuetude. As already pointed out, all peoples have felt the need of a heavier standard for cheap articles than that which serves for gold. Probably the Aeginetic mina had been used at Athens for copper: accordingly, when Solon made his new silver standard for the weighing of silver, the Aeginetic standard was found convenient for less costly and more bulky wares, and was therefore retained in use as the mercantile or market standard, the name State being given to the silver standard.
We have learned already that in the early stages of society copper and iron are not sold or appraised by weight, but rather by measurement. We have also seen that there is every reason to believe that the Greek obol originally was a spike or rod of copper of a definite length and thickness. If we can believe the statement of Ephorus given by Strabo that Phidon of Argos established a weight as well as a measure system for the Peloponnesians (although Herodotus is silent as regards weights), it is not at all improbable that, taking this story in conjunction with the dedication of the old bar money by Phidon in the temple of Hera, we have here a genuine tradition of the superseding of the bars of metal, the value of which simply depended on their dimensions, by a system based essentially on weight. It is plain that, as copper was weighed both at Aegina and Athens by the Aeginetic silver standard, copper most probably was never estimated by weight until after the forming of the separate silver standard in the way already described.
We have previously noticed the fact that the two principal terms applied to silver coins, drachm and obol, give clear indications that they have been borrowed from an ancient system of copper (just as we shall presently find that the denarius, the special term employed for their silver currency by the Romans, owes its origin to the ancient copper as). If further proof were required, it is afforded by the name employed for the subdivisions of the obol. The latter at Athens was divided into 8 chalci or coppers (χαλκοῖ). The smallest silver coin at Athens was the half-obol, but in some places names, Trichalcum, Tetrachalcum, etc. were given to copper coins. Now, as the Aeginetan obol weighed about 16½ grs. and the Attic 11¼, the former is one-third greater than the latter. But we shall see shortly that as the Attic obol has 8 chalci, the Aeginetan must have had 12, from which it follows that the ancient copper obol or bar used in Aegina, throughout Peloponnesus, and at Athens, and probably throughout Boeotia, was everywhere the same.
The Sicilian System.
In dealing with the Sicilian and Italian systems we must reverse the order of treatment of the metals, and as it is in the copper that we shall find the closest link between the Greek and those other systems, we shall therefore commence with that metal.
On the Italian Peninsula and in Sicily we find a series of weight and monetary terms totally distinct from any found in Greece Proper. From this alone we may infer that, even before the settlement of any Greek Colonies in Magna Graecia and Sicily, there existed a well defined system, if not of weight, at least for the exchange of copper by fixed standards of measurement. In various Sicilian cities we find small silver coins called litrae; these beyond all question are simply the representatives in silver of an ancient copper unit employed by the Sicels, and which they had brought with them into the island. These Sicels were a tribe of the great Italian stock (itself a branch of the Aryan family) closely related to the Umbrians, Latins, and Oscans, had probably formed the van of the Aryan advance into the Peninsula, and had finally crossed the straits and overcome the Sicanians, an Iberic race, who were the earliest inhabitants of the island of whom any historical record exists. The word litra is merely a dialectic form of the same original lidhra[419], from which the Latin libra itself is sprung. But whilst we shall have little difficulty in finding out the weight at which the Latin libra was fixed, we have just as great difficulty in discovering that of the Sicilian litra, as we have lately found in the case of the ancient Greek copper obol. As copper was only coined at a late period, and the copper coins are merely tokens, or money of account, we are unable to arrive at any conclusion as to the original full weight of the litra from any data afforded by the copper coins of the various Sicilian states, although, from the circumstance that many of these coins bear marks of value, at first sight it might seem far otherwise. Thus at Agrigentum in the period preceding 415 B.C. the copper litra weighed about 750 grs., between 415 B.C. and 406 B.C. 613 grs., and from 340 B.C. to 287 B.C. it was about 536 grs. only. At Himera between 472 B.C. and 415 B.C. it was about 990 grs., but within the same period it fell to 200 grs., whilst at Camarina between 415 B.C. and 405 B.C. it was about 221 grs. Not only therefore is it futile to attempt any statement of the reduction of the litra in Sicily in general, but also to arrive at any sound approximation to its full original weight, as far as the weight of the copper coins is concerned. On the other hand, any calculation based on the relative values of copper and silver has been up to the present unsatisfactory, owing to the great uncertainty which still prevails, Mommsen making the relation in the earlier period stand as 288:1, whilst Mr Soutzo thinks it never can have been higher than 120:1.
The latter view I have already proved to be untenable when we apply the test of the value of cattle, and it was made probable that in the 5th century B.C. silver was to copper as 300:1. From this it will be possible to show that the full weight of the copper litra was originally about 4900 grs.
Any effort to determine the original weight of the copper litra by a new method calls for a merciful consideration, even though it too may fail. Whilst the original weight of the litra is still a matter of doubt, we are fortunately completely acquainted with the method of its subdivisions. The litra was divided into 12 parts called Ungiae, Unciae or Onciae, a name which is no other than the Latin Uncia. This at once brings us face to face with the Roman copper system, where the as was the higher unit, and was divided into 12 unciae (ounces). But there are other striking coincidences of nomenclature. Thus ⅙ of the as was called sextans; one-sixth of the litra is called Hexâs (ἑξᾶς), and the Triens and Quadrans are paralleled by the trias (τριᾶς) and tetras (τετρᾶς) although there is a difference in the application of these terms. Then the five-twelfths of the as is Quincunx; the same fraction of the litra is Pentonkion (πετόγκιον). We have plainly therefore a common Italo-Sicilian copper system, the terms of which were adopted and Graecised by the settlers in Italy and Sicily.
Now we have already adverted to the fact that the earliest Sicilian towns which coined money, Naxos, Zancle and Himera, although Chalcidian colonies, yet employed the Aeginetic standard, whereas we might naturally expect them to follow the Euboic. This would give the maximum of 16½ grs. for the silver obol. Now according to Pollux, Aristotle in his lost treatise on the constitution of Agrigentum says that the litra is worth an Aeginetan obol, and Pollux goes on to say that “one would find in him (Aristotle) in his Constitution of the Himeraeans likewise other names of Sicilian coins, such as ungia, which is equivalent to one chalcus, and hexas, which is equivalent to two chalci, and trias, which is equivalent to three chalci, and hemilitron (half litra), which is equivalent to six, and litra which is equivalent to an obol[420].” It is plain from this that Aristotle knew that the Aeginetic obol was divided into twelve chalci. Thus the proposition laid down above, that the ancient Greek copper obol was a rod or spike divided into 12 parts, is thoroughly proved. The reason why the Attic obol had only 8 chalci is now plain; it was, as we saw, only two-thirds of the Aeginetan and consequently only contained two-thirds of the whole number of pieces of copper into which the ancient copper unit was divided. Now, as we find the Chalcidian settlers of Himera and other places not using their native Euboic standard for coining, but employing the Aeginetic, and as the Aeginetic obol was equal to the Sicilian litra, we are justified in the conclusion, that when the Greek settlers reached Italy and Sicily they found their Italic kinsfolk using a copper unit exactly the same as that employed in Greece; and that finally, when they began to coin, they found it more convenient to strike silver on a standard which was both convenient in reference to exchange with gold, as I have shown above, and had the further advantage of corresponding accurately in value to the ancient copper unit in use among the Sicels. If, as I indicated, silver was to copper as 300:1, the Aeginetic silver obol of 16⅔ grs. would be worth 5000 grs. of copper (practically the same as the early Roman libra). It follows then that if we could only discover the weight of the Sicilian litra we should know that of the old Greek copper obol. Is this possible? We have no reason to doubt that the obol was a rod of copper of a certain size, which in the course of time after the introduction of coined money shrank up until the original rod was only represented by what had been its equivalent in silver, or a small copper coin, whose name still survives in the ob used in old account books as the symbol for half-penny[421]. The Greek coinage has preserved for us but faint traces of the various steps in the degradation of the copper obol, but, as we have already seen, we find the Sicilian copper litra in various stages of its decadence from 990 grs. down to 200 grs. Again, whilst no trace has as yet been found of obols at all in the archaic shape of rods, or anything approaching it, we find in Sicily at Agrigentum litrae which are in form distinct survivals of an earlier stage when the litra, like the obol, was a rod or bar of copper. These are very strange looking lumps of bronze made in the shape of a tooth with a flat base, having on one side an eagle or eagle’s head and on the other a crab, while on the base are marks of value ⸬, ⸪, : (tetras, trias, hexas). The uncia is almond-shaped with an eagle’s head on one side, and a crab’s claw on the other[422]. As we found the Chinese knife shrinking up into a shorter and thicker mass until at last it only survives in the round cash, so in all probability we here find the Sicilian litra in its mid course from its original full size and shape to that of the ordinary round copper coin of a later age. That the shape of the original copper unit of the Italians was that of a rod or bar we shall now proceed to demonstrate in the case of the Roman as.
The Italian System. Bronze.
As the cow formed the highest unit in the monetary system of ancient Italy, so the lowest unit employed was a certain amount of copper called an as. We have already found the cow serving the same purpose in Sicily (as late as the time of Dionysius forming the rateable unit at Syracuse). The systems of Further Asia, where the buffalo stands at the head of the scale and the hoe or a piece of raw metal of a certain size stands at the bottom, form a perfect analogy in modern times. As far as its value and divisional system go, we have identified the Sicilian litra with the ancient Hellenic obol or rod, and we have in turn discovered a very close resemblance between the divisions of the litra and that of the as. I now propose to examine into the original nature of this denomination, and the form of the object to which it was applied. This will have been effectually accomplished, if I can succeed in establishing the proposition that the as was primarily a rod or bar of copper, one foot in length, divided into 12 parts, called inches (unciae), thus coinciding with the Greek obol in form, as also in its duodecimal division.
We must, as a preliminary, note carefully several most essential facts connected with the as: (1) The term as (as used in respect of metals) is never employed for either gold or silver, but is appropriated to bronze exclusively; (2) it is not the Roman unit of weight, for that is expressed by the general term libra, a word exactly corresponding to the Greek Talanton, since it means both the weight and the scales; (3) the as is not confined to weight, but is also employed as the unit of linear measure equal to the foot, and also as the unit of land measure equal to the jugerum or acre.
The following table exhibits the subdivisions of the as:
| As (Pes, Jugerum) | ||
| Deunx | = | ¹¹⁄₁₂ |
| Dextans | ¹⁰⁄₁₂ | |
| Dodrans | ¾ | |
| Bes | ⅔ | |
| Septunx | ⁷⁄₁₂ | |
| Semis | ½ | |
| Quincunx | ⁵⁄₁₂ | |
| Triens | ⅓ | |
| Quadrans | ¼ | |
| Sextans | ⅙ | |
| Uncia | ⅟₁₂ | |
| Semuncia | ⅟₂₄ | |
| Sicilicus | ⅟₄₈ | |
| Sextula | ⅟₇₂ | |
| Scriptulum | ⅟₂₈₈ | |
Now it has been hitherto assumed by all writers that the system of division employed in the as as a unit of weight has been transferred to measure. This however is contrary to all experience, for, as we have had occasion constantly before to notice, weight units are derived from measures, e.g. the bushel from the measure of that name, and so on. In the next place as the as is not the unit of Roman weight, if even the measure unit was borrowed from the weight, we ought to expect the foot to be called a libra rather than an as. It is far more likely that a unit originally employed for measure would in time give its name to a weight-unit corresponding in mass to the original measure-unit. There are besides certain pieces of evidence afforded by the nomenclature of the submultiples which point directly to the original as being a measure rather than a weight-unit. The 24th part of the uncia is called the scriptulum, little scratch, or line (scribo), which is exactly translated by the Greeks as gramme (γραμμή, scratch or line)[423]. Now whilst 24 strokes make an excellent method of dividing the uncia in its capacity of inch, they of course have no significance as submultiples of uncia, meaning ounce. Moreover, the forms of several of the best known divisions of the as, such as triens, quadrans, sextans, which are not easy to explain on the hypothesis that the terminology was primarily applied to weight, on the other hand admit of a ready solution when we take the as as originally a unit of measure. For sextans means not a sixth, but that which makes a sixth, triens not a third, but that which divides in three parts, and quadrans not a fourth, but that which makes fourfold, i.e. divides into four, for quadra means not a fourth part, but that which has four parts (hence usually a square). If we regard these words as referring to certain lines drawn across a bar of metal, their meaning is obvious. Whilst sextans uncia, the ounce which makes a sixth, is nonsense, sextans linea, the line which makes a sixth, gives excellent sense, so likewise triens linea fits in admirably with the required meaning, whilst quadrans linea seems to mean the line which divides the whole into four parts.
The etymology of the word as has long been a puzzle. Scholars starting with the assumption that as was the Roman abstract term for unity have accordingly searched for an appropriate derivation. Some have identified it with the Greek heis one (εἶς through a Tarentine ἇς), whilst the most recent attempt connects it with the first syllable of elementum. The same principle has been carried out with regard to uncia, which has been treated simply as meaning unit and connected with unus and unicus.
Now it is notorious that the Roman mind was essentially concrete, and found great difficulty in arriving at abstract ideas, and consequently at abstract terms. This alone would make us hesitate to believe that as had originally begun as an abstract term meaning unit, and rather incline us to believe that it started in life as a name for some common concrete object. But we have seen above that the numerals in all languages seem originally to have meant certain actual physical objects which served as counters, such as the fingers and toes (decem δέκα, digitus δάκτυλος), seeds or pebbles. If such has been the origin of the various names for unit, we can hardly believe that any term for unity can have originated independently of some concrete object. To add to the mists which hang round the origin of the as, its division into 12 parts is taken to indicate a Babylonian source. Now the Roman foot was divided, not merely into 16 fingers like the Greek, but also into 12 unciae or inches like our own. The latter is most probably the true Italian system, as it is that found among their cousins and neighbours the Kelts, as well as amongst the Teutonic peoples. With ourselves still the rustic measures inches by his thumb, just as he measures feet by means of his own natural foot. The ancient Irish foot was divided into 12 thumbs or inches (ordlach, Lat. pollex, the initial p being lost in Irish)[424]. The Romans too (as did likewise the Teutonic peoples, e.g. Icelandic tomme, an inch) used the thumb (pollex) as the ordinary measure in practical life[425]. The division then into 12 unciae is simply the result of the fact that a certain natural relation exists between the breadth of the thumb and the length of the foot, and as the relation held true just as much for the Kelt as the Chaldaean, there was no need for the ancient Italians to borrow their duodecimal system from the East. Now what are we to say as to the origin of the word uncia? Does it mean anything more or less than the breadth of the (thumb) nail? The use of unguis, a nail, as a measure was common in Latin, as we know from the phrases transversum unguem (the thickness of a nail) and latum unguem (a nail’s breadth) side by side with transversum digitum (a fingers thickness) in Plautus. Uncia may be simply a derivative from unguis; there is no phonetic impossibility, and even if there were any linguistic irregularity, false analogy with unicus would amply account for it. The use of a word meaning nail to express the divisions of the foot is completely paralleled by the ancient Hindu system, where the finger-breadth is termed angala, i.e. nail (cognate of unguis and ὄνυξ).
Next we come to the word as itself, which appears in old Latin as assis. It is masculine in gender, which of itself is sufficient to throw doubts on its being a really abstract word. Can it be that we have a close relative of it in asser a rod, bar, pole, which is likewise masculine in gender? Whilst one form of the name was specially confined to a small rod or bar of copper, the other was employed in a wide and general way. These two forms assis and asser,-is are completely analogous to vomis and vomer,-is, a ploughshare. The meaning rod is in complete harmony with what we have said about the Greek obol. All that is now wanting to make our proof complete is some evidence that the primitive Italian as was really in the form of a rod or bar. The most archaic specimens of ancient Italian bronze money as yet described are those found at the Ponte di Badia near Vulci in 1828. These consisted (1) of quadrilaterals broken in pieces, weighing from 2 to 3 pounds each, stamped with an ox and trident, (2) cube-shaped pieces of copper without any mark, weighing from an ounce to a pound, and (3) some ellipse-shaped pieces for the most part weighing two ounces[426]. But in the British Museum are preserved a number of pieces of bronze which are roughly quadrilateral. A cursory examination showed me that, whilst two parallel sides exhibit the marks of a mould, the two remaining sides displayed unmistakable signs of fracture. Several of them are end pieces, showing the voluting of the mould on two sides and at one end, whilst the other end shows marks of having been broken ([Fig. 48]). Several of them bear stamps, or letters. There can be no doubt that these are pieces of short bars of bronze, which were afterwards cut up, as occasion demanded. The imprints on them prove them to be of comparatively recent date. If therefore the asses still retained their bar shape after the art of stamping metal to serve as currency had come into use, à fortiori the primitive as of Italy must certainly have been nothing more than a plain rod or bar of copper, which passed from hand to hand as the obols in Greece, and the bars of iron and copper pass at the present among savages of Africa and Asia[427]. This was what was called by the ancient writers the raw copper (aes rude), as distinguished from the stamped copper (aes signatum) of a later date. The fact that early specimens of aes signatum, such as the decussis, bearing a cow on both obverse and reverse ([Fig. 49]), were still made in the shape of a bar, is a further proof that such was the original form.
Fig. 48. Aes Rude.
Fig. 49. Bronze Decussis.
It will be observed that I can give no positive evidence for the length or breadth of the as. The pieces in the Museum are all fragments, and, even if there were any of them whole, they would not by any means decide the original length, although they would of course represent the weight. For as they are late, they would probably have been made at a time when the original rod was shrinking up into a more compact form, just as the Chinese bronze knives get shorter and thicker. But the fact remains that the as was identified completely with the Roman foot measure, the divisions being the same in each. We therefore may with great probability infer that the as was originally a piece of copper a foot in length, and of a known thickness. We have seen that copper and iron are not weighed in the early stages of society, but are appraised by measurement. Why should not the same hold true for Rome? It may be asked, how came it that the as was taken as the typical unit for weight and superficial measure, and to express even an inheritance? The answer is not far to seek. To express fractional parts has ever been a great difficulty with primitive people. As the Malays cannot conceive abstract numerals, but must append the concrete padi to each of their numbers, so the old Italian found it necessary to employ some concrete object, the subdivisions of which were familiar, to express the fractional parts whether it be of an estate or anything else. The most common unit in use was the rod of copper divided into 12 thumbs. Accordingly, if a Roman wished to say that Balbus was heir to one-twelfth of an estate he expressed this by the homely formula that Balbus had come in for one inch, the denominator 12 being mentally supplied, as everyone knew that there were 12 inches in the copper bar. The same principle of taking some familiar object, the ordinary method of dividing which was known to all men, is seen in the method of expressing one-tenth. The Roman denarius was divided into 10 libellae; accordingly, when Cicero wishes to say that a certain person had come in for a tenth part of an estate he says that he has come in for a libella (heres ex libella). From this the reader will at once see that we might just as well declare that the word denarius is an abstract word meaning unity as make the same assertion about the as. Again, when the Roman land surveyors elaborated their system of mensuration, they found that the simplest method of expressing the fractional parts of the jugerum was to employ the old duodecimal method of the as. Nor is this without a parallel elsewhere. As the yard was the common English unit of linear measure, it was applied to the most common unit of land, the quarter of the hide, which was accordingly termed a yard of land, or a virgate (virga terrae). The English analogy is even still more complete, for as the as or foot-rod became the unit of weight, so in Cambridge the yard of butter is identical with the pound of butter[428].
Our next step will be to trace the process by which the as or rod became the general weight-unit, the pound (libra). The term libra is not the oldest Latin name for weight, for pondus or its cognate verb pendeo, which literally means to hang, is the true claimant for that position. Libra seems properly to mean the balance, as is seen from the legal formula (employed in Mancipatio) per aes et libram, by means of copper and the balance. From the fact that its chief use was to weigh asses of copper, the mass of an as came to be termed the weight par excellence, just as the most usual amount weighed in the Greek talanta (scales) became the talanton par excellence. This process can be illustrated by modern examples. Thus in the south of Ireland potatoes are sold by the unit of 21 lbs., which consequently is termed a weight, and instead of speaking of so many stones or hundredweights, everyone speaks of a weight of potatoes. But, as already remarked, it was only at a comparatively late epoch that the bars of copper were weighed. It would be only with the growth of greater exactitude in commercial dealings that the art of weighing, which was employed for all dealings in gold and silver, would be applied to copper. Just as the Malays and Tibetans have been gradually taught by the careful Chinese to employ weights commercially, so the Italian tribes may have been led to do so under the influence of the astute Greek traders from Magna Graecia and Sicily. The system in vogue for gold was that of our old friend the ox-unit. This is proved from the fact that not only is the oldest gold coinage of the Etruscans, the close neighbours of Latium, based upon this standard, but that also in Sicily and Southern Italy there was the small gold talent, the three-fold of the ox-unit. This three-fold of the stater was also used at Neapolis. Although the earliest Greek colonies in Sicily employed at first the Aeginetic standard for silver, we soon find them reverting to the gold or Euboic standard for that metal, whilst the early silver coinage of the Etruscans (before 350 B.C.) is also of the Euboic standard. We may with high probability assume that when the Sicilians and Italians first essayed to weigh their copper rods, they naturally employed the standard already in use for gold and silver. The highest unit of this was the small talent of 3 staters which weighed about 405 grs. The bar was divided into 12 inches, and it was found that an inch of copper rod closely approximated in weight to the small gold talent. The weight of the bar, which was the ancient unit for copper before weight had been employed, now became the standard weight-unit for that metal. It is to be observed that this ounce of 405 grs., though some 27 grs. less than the full Roman uncia of later times, is only 15 grs. lighter than the Roman ounce prior to 268 B.C., for it is an ascertained fact that the old Roman uncia did not exceed 420 grs.[429] It must be remembered that the weight of the ounce would depend on the standard foot by which the bar was measured. Now, whilst the Roman foot measures 296 millim., there was likewise in use in Campania, and probably in many parts of Southern Italy, a foot of 276 millim. The relation of bars of these lengths and of a given thickness to the Roman libra is not without interest. If we take an ordinary engineer’s table of materials we shall find that a copper rod a Roman foot long, and half a Roman inch in diameter, weighs 5040 grs. Now, as the Roman pound weighs 5184 grs. this approximation seems almost too close to be a mere coincidence. If on the other hand we take a rod of a foot of 276 millim. and with a diameter of the corresponding half-inch, we shall get a pound of 4680 grs. and an ounce of 390 grs, which is certainly not far from the weight of the small gold talent. It follows from this that we may expect pounds of different weights in Italy, according as the foot-unit varies in different districts.
In later times, besides the pound of 12 unciae, there were several commercial pounds on Italian soil, the pound of 16 ounces (from which our own avoirdupois is probably descended), that of 18 unciae, and that of 24. The last two are easy of explanation, since one is simply the double, the other one and a half times the Roman pound. But perhaps a different explanation must be sought for the 16 ounce pound. The foot was divided by Greeks and also by Italians into 16 fingers as well as into 12 thumbs. Was therefore the pound of 16 ounces simply derived from the division of the foot bar into 16 fingers, the weight of the finger being however equated to that of the Roman thumb or inch of copper?
The as, having been once subjected to weight, its hundredfold, the centumpondium or “hundred weight,” became the highest Roman weight-unit. Thus the as and the centumpondium of the Italians correspond to the mina and talent of the Greeks. But it will be observed that the Italians obtained their higher unit by the old decimal system, whereas the Greeks had borrowed the mina and its sixtyfold from Asia. The centumpondium must be regarded as a true-born Italian unit, not one borrowed from Greece or Asia, and of this there is further proof. We saw by the ancient Roman law that the cow was estimated at 100 asses, the sheep at 10 asses. No doubt from time out of mind 100 of the bars of copper, which formed the chief lower unit of barter, made one cow, just as in Annam 280 little hoes make one buffalo ([p. 167]). When copper came to be weighed, the amount of copper which formed the equivalent of the highest unit of barter, the cow, was taken as the highest weight-unit. From what I have said above it is not improbable that the Roman libra and the Sicilian litra of copper were almost equal in weight. The fact that the Greek writers always employed the Sicilian word litra (λίτρα), to translate the Latin libra, likewise indicates that in the Greek mind there was a tradition of their identity. And if the doctrine here put forward of the original nature of the as be right, nothing can be more likely than that the Italians who had crossed into Sicily and their kinsfolk who had remained behind employed rods of similar size, and that when they began to weigh the latter, the “weight” (libra or litra), derived from the standard copper rod, should be the same in each region, until certain modifications occasioned by new monetary conditions according to the needs of different communities had caused some divergency in coin weights, although as a commercial weight the litra remained unchanged. As Aristotle identified the Aeginetic obol and chalcus with the Sicilian litra and onkia, we may with some plausibility suggest that the ancient Greek copper obol or spike and the Italian as or rod were identical in dimensions and in origin.
In Greece the copper obol rapidly fell in weight, for, when once silver currency had been introduced, copper was thrust aside, and it was not till the fourth century B.C. that copper coins came into use. When the copper obol appears as a coin it is but a small piece, being in fact a mere token.
Fig. 50. As (Aes grave). (Before 2nd Punic War.)
The history of the degradation of copper was seen better in Sicily, where we found the litra still weighing 990 grs., but it rapidly sank to only 200 grs., evidently in this case also being mere money of account. For as the silver litra was about 13½ grs., unless the 200 grain copper litra was a mere token, silver would have been to copper as 17:1, which is obviously absurd. In the case of the Italian as the process is still clearer, for we have every stage of the as, from the bars which I have described through the libral as (aes grave), the sextantal as, the uncial and half-uncial, down to the small coin of the empire commonly called “a third brass.”
Fig. 51. As (half uncial standard).
Fig. 52. As, 3rd Cent. A.D. (“Third Brass”).
Fig. 53. Didrachm of Corinth.
Gold and Silver.
Whilst in the infancy of coining the Sicilian silver litra was probably the same as the Aeginetic obol, that is about 16⅔ grs., the Aeginetic didrachm being probably treated as a decalitron (ten-litra piece), nevertheless after no long time the common Euboic standard of 135 grs. was employed at Syracuse and elsewhere, and we have the authority of Aristotle for the statement that the Corinthian stater was called a decalitron. Corinth, as we saw above, used the 135 grain unit for her famous Pegasi, commonly known as “Colts” (πῶλοι), and therefore the litra was by this time 13½ grs. Now, in Etruria we find about 400-350 B.C. a silver currency struck on this same 135 grs. standard. These coins bear marks of value, 𐌢 on coins of 131 grs., 𐌡 on those of 65 grs., 𐌠𐌠' on those of 32 grs., and 𐌠 on those of 14 and 13 grs. It is plain therefore that the stater of 135 grs. was considered to consist of 10 units of 13½ grs. each. In other words, whatever the Etruscans may have called their stater, it was exactly the same in weight and method of subdivision as the decalitron of Syracuse. At a later period (350-268 B.C.) we find on coins of like weight the symbols 𐌢𐌢 instead of 𐌢, 𐌢 instead of 𐌡, 𐌡 instead of 𐌠𐌠'. The unit now is exactly half of what it was at an earlier stage, 6¾ grs. instead of 13½ grs.
Not till 268 B.C., just on the eve of the First Punic War, did Rome first coin silver. This coin, called denarius, as its name implies, represented 10 asses. It was divided into four parts, each of which was called a sestertius or 2½, and was marked with the symbol 𐆘 representing that number.
Fig. 54. Sesterce of first Roman silver coinage.
It is very remarkable that the Etruscan coin of the second series, marked 2½, is only very slightly heavier than the Roman sesterce (sestertius) which bears a similar mark. Hence it has been very reasonably inferred that when the Romans set about the coinage of silver, they simply adopted with slight modification the silver system employed by their neighbours across the Tiber. This is all the more probable, as it is almost certain that, though Rome did not strike silver she like Athens before the time of Solon, and like Syracuse, used freely the coins of other communities for a long time previously. The Etruscan coins would therefore serve as silver currency at Rome. We may then assume that the monetary system must have been much the same on both sides of the river. Accordingly, since in 268 B.C. we find the Romans striking a coin in silver representing 10 copper asses, which is almost the same in weight as the Etruscan coin marked 𐌢, we may reasonably infer that, if the Romans had commenced coining silver a century earlier, their denarius or 10-as piece would have been the same weight as the Etruscan.
Fig. 55. Didrachm of Tarentum.
Now besides the litra, which we found to be both a copper-unit and a silver coin in Sicily, there is another term of great interest, especially as it plays an important part in the history of Roman money. The general Latin name for a coin is numus, which in the later days of the Republic usually meant a denarius when used in the more restricted sense, but in the earlier period it was the term specially applied to the silver sesterce (sestertius). This is almost certainly a loan-word, for Pollux is most explicit in warning us that, although the word seems Roman, it is in reality Greek and belongs to the Dorians of Sicily and Italy[430]. It is always a name of a coin of silver in Sicily, being so used by Epicharmus. The coin meant by this poet cannot have been one of great value, for he says: “Buy me a fine heifer calf for ten nomi.” It was in all probability the Aeginetan obol, for Apollodorus in his comments on Sophron set it down at three half (Attic) obols, that is, almost 17 grs. This is confirmed by the fact that an Homeric scholiast makes the small talent weigh 24 nomi, which gives nearly 17 grs. as the weight of that unit. Crossing into Italy, we find that according to Aristotle[431] there was a coin called a noummos at Tarentum, on which was the device of Taras riding on a dolphin. This is the familiar type of the Tarentine didrachms which, from their first issue down to the invasion of Pyrrhus (450-280 B.C.), weigh normally 123-120 grs., although one specimen weighs 128 grs. This coin Mommsen recognized as the noummos of Aristotle. Professor Gardner afterwards suggested that the diobol, on which occasionally the same type is found, was rather the coin meant. Recently Mr A. J. Evans has almost proved this hypothesis impossible by showing that all the diobols yet known are probably later than the time of Aristotle[432]. As, however, this rests on negative evidence, and is liable to be overthrown at any moment by the discovery of an archaic diobol, it is advisable to cast about for some more positive criterion. Heraclea of Lucania, the daughter-city and close neighbor of Tarentum, as we know from the famous Heraclean Tables (which scholars are agreed in regarding as written about the end of the 4th cent. B.C.), employed as a unit of account a silver nomos. It is so probable that the nomos employed at Heraclea (circ. 325 B.C.) would be the same in value as that employed at Tarentum in the time of Aristotle (ob. 322 B.C.), that if we can prove the nomos of Heraclea to be a didrachm and not a diobol, we may henceforth hold with certainty that the nomos of Tarentum was the larger coin.
On the Heraclean Tables it is enacted that those who held certain public land should pay certain fines in case they had failed to plant their holdings properly; four olive trees were to be planted on each schoenus of land, and for each olive tree not so planted a penalty of 10 nomi of silver was to be exacted, and for each schoenus of land not planted with vines the penalty was two minae of silver[433]. The schoenus is identical with the Roman actus (half a jugerum), being the square of 120 feet. Four olive trees were the allowance for each schoenus. Now if we can determine the number of vines which were planted on a schoenus, we shall be able to get a test of the value of a nomos. Two minae of silver contained in round numbers 110 Tarentine didrachms of 123 grs. each, or 675 diobols of about 20 grs. each. Olives were many times more valuable than the vine, so that any result which will make the vine about the same value as the obol will be absurd.
Now Mr A. J. Evans, when in Southern Italy, at my request kindly ascertained that vines, when trained on poles on vineyard slopes, are usually about 3 yards apart, whilst when trained on pollard poplars (as is much more usual in Campagna), they stand about 6 yards apart. In the case of the former about 150 vines would go to a schoenus (1600 sq. yards), whilst in the latter case barely 50. We cannot doubt that the distance between the vines must have been much the same in ancient as in modern times.
If now we take the nomos to be a diobol, each vine is worth 4⅔ nomi, or 14 nomi, according as there are 50 or 150 vines to the schoenus. Now, as the valuable and slow growing olive is only worth 10 nomi, and it is impossible to believe that the relative values of olive and vine could have ever been such as those arrived at on the assumption that the nomos is a diobol, we must turn to the alternative course and take the nomos as a didrachm. The penalty for a schoenus of vines is two minae or 110 didrachms. If 150 vines go to a schoenus, each will be worth about ⅔ didrachm, 15 vines being equal to one olive, or taking 50 vines to the schoenus, each vine will be worth about two didrachms, 5 vines being worth one olive. This result is so rational that we need hesitate no longer to regard the well-known Tarentine didrachm as the nomos (noummos) of Aristotle.
There is such a difference between the nomos of Sicily, identical with the Aeginetan obol, and that of Tarentum that we are forced to conclude that the term nomos is not specially applied to any particular coin unit. In Sicily we found the native unit, the litra, identified in certain cases, at least in earlier times, with the Aeginetan obol as well as with the nomos. Why two names nomos and litra for the same unit? Is one Sicilian and the other Greek? This at least gives a reasonable explanation. The Dorians then in Sicily gave the name to their earliest coins, nomos, with them indicating the unit of currency established by law just as did nomisma among other Greeks. As in Sicily the Aeginetic obol was the legal coin (nomos) par excellence, so at Tarentum, where didrachms were the first coins to be struck, the term (nomos) was applied to that unit. We may therefore expect to find the term nomos applied to various kinds of coins among the Italiotes and Italians, according to the particular coin chosen by each state as its own unit of account.
Accordingly we find the term nomos applied to certain bronze coins struck on the sextantal (two ounce) and uncial standards, at Arpi and other towns, which are inscribed N II (the double nummus), N I (nummus), ..... (quincunx), .... (triens), ... (quadrans), .. (sextans), . S (sescuncia), . (uncia), and Σ (semuncia). The divisions being those of the as, it is clear that the nomos, or current coin in those places, was the reduced as. Finally, when the Romans first use the term nummus, it means the silver sestertius (2½ asses), the one-fourth of the denarius or ten-as piece, which weighed a scruple (i.e. 18½ grs.) at the time of the first Roman coinage of silver. Here we have all our positive evidence for the nomos. As diobols of 18 to 17 grs. are found in the coinages of various towns in Magna Graecia, such as Arpi, Caelia, Canusium, Rubi, and Teate, it has been plausibly held that such a diobol was the nomos par excellence of these states, and that it was from contact with them that the Romans learned both the use and the name of such a monetary unit. But Rome may have been influenced by her Etruscan neighbours, for, as we have seen, the smallest denomination in the second silver series of Etruscan coins (of which the coins weigh 129 grs., 32 grs. and 17 grs. respectively) is just the weight of the Roman sestertius, and bears the symbol 𐌡𐌠𐌠 (2½), just as the latter bears 𐆘 (2½). Taking into consideration these facts, it looks as if the Romans and Etruscans grafted on to a native system the diobol, or current silver coin of Southern Italy, the Romans (and for all we can tell the Etruscans likewise) adopting at the same time the name nummus. Finally, we observe that this nummus is identical with the Sicilian nomos, which in turn was found to be none other than the Aeginetic obol. The Roman sestertius being a scriptulum (17⁷⁄₁₂ grs.) in weight, we thus find a direct connection between the latter and the Aeginetic obol (16⅔ grs.). This need not surprise us, for it is most natural that in the welding of a weight system (partly foreign, and on the native side only employed for gold and silver) and of a system of measurement employed for bronze, certain features derived from the special silver units in use would be introduced into the new system, which afterwards became universal for weighing all commodities. The term Sicilicus[434] employed for the quarter-ounce is good evidence for this hypothesis. Its name seems to mean simply Sicilian. In weight it was about 108 grs. Now, didrachms struck on such a foot are found in the Greek cities of south-western Italy, at Velia, Neapolis and at Tarentum, after the time of Pyrrhus. Did the Romans, who must have carried on by weight all dealings in silver up to 268 B.C., treat such coins as quarter-ounces, and ultimately take the name of the coin (wrongly connecting it with Sicily) to designate the quarter-ounce? In like fashion it was probably discovered that the Aeginetic obol of the Greek colonists was about equal in weight to the line (scriptulum) which is one-twenty-fourth of the inch (uncia) of copper. Thus as there are 24 nomi in the Sicilian talent, so there are 24 scriptula in the Roman uncia. These considerations help to explain the relations which existed between the nomos (Aeginetic obol), sestertius, and scruple.
Mr Soutzo[435] gives a very different account of the nomos. Starting with the Egyptian hypothesis he makes all the Italian weight systems of foreign origin. He thus makes the Roman libra the ⅟₁₀₀ of a Roman talent, which he seems to identify with a light Asiatic talent[436]. Starting with the talent he supposes that on Italian soil it was divided into 100 librae instead of 60 heavy or 120 light minae, as in the East. Each of these librae or pounds was divided into 12 ounces, and each ounce into 24 fractions. He holds likewise that the Italians adopted from the East the use of bronze “comme matière première de leurs échanges,” at the same time as they obtained the first germs of civilization and their first weight standards. The centumpondium or 100 weight therefore he takes as his prime unit. But besides the talent and the mina and the centumpondium and libra or as, according to Mr Soutzo, “all the Italian peoples availed themselves of an intermediate weight unit: this was the nomos or decussis[437]. This unit was the libral nomos, the twelfth of the heavy talent, being worth ten minae or librae, and the libral decussis, the tenth of the centumpondium, weighing 10 librae.” The monetary nomos and decussis, he thinks, played an important part in the history of Italian coinage. He admits however that no specimen of either nomos or decussis of libral standard is known, the heaviest being a decussis of the Roman triental (one-third) standard, whilst the pieces from Venusia and Teanum Apulum marked N I and N II (nomos and double nomos), representing 10 and 20 minas respectively, belong to a still much more reduced standard. The simple multiples of the as (libra) and litra, such as the tripondius and dupondius, were just as rarely cast in the libral epoch. The mina or the as with their fractions, on the contrary, were the kinds most employed: originally the series was ordinarily composed of the as (marked I or sometimes ............), the semis (S), the triens (....), the quadrans (...), the sextans (..), the uncia (.) and semuncia (Σ). In some series the as is rare and the semis is wanting, but in addition to the other denominations here given the quincunx (:·:) and the dextans (S...., 1 semis + 4 unciae) are found. The presence or absence of these pieces characterizes certain Italian and Sicilian monetary systems[438]. All the evidence virtually which can be produced by Soutzo for this hypothetical nomos is that at Syracuse the Corinthian stater of 135 grs. was called a decalitron, that the Tarentine didrachm of 128 grs. (max.) was similarly divided into 10 litras, that the Romans employed the tenfold of the as (decussis) and when they coined silver called their silver unit a denarius as representing 10 copper asses, and the fact that certain copper coins such as those of Arpi, called nomi, were evidently regarded as containing 10 units, the half being the quincunx. But, as we have already seen, the real explanation of these coins seems to be that they represent reduced asses. We must remember that the heaviest Roman as yet known is only 11 ounces, whilst the great proportion of the earliest specimens are only 10 unciae or (dextantals). When the idea of a real copper currency for local purposes gained ground, and it was found that it was not necessary to have the as of account of full weight, and at the same time to enable the state to make a profit of this copper currency which was solely for home use (just as our Mint makes a large profit of our silver coins), the first stage in reduction was to take off an ounce, or much more frequently two full ounces. I have already pointed out the vitality and universality of the uncia as an unit, and have given the reasons for this. Hence arose asses or bars of 10 ounces. The number 10 had of course great advantages, and presently, when further reductions in the copper currency took place, certain communities clave fast to the decimal system and, instead of taking off some more whole ounces, simply reduced the ounce itself, and retained the denomination, continuing to place the marks of value as before. In those Hellenized states of Apulia just referred to this reduced copper as or litra was the legal unit, and therefore denominated a nomos, especially as it probably corresponded in value (at least as money of account) to the silver unit or nomos in circulation in each district. But whilst Mr Soutzo seems wrong in his view of the nomos, there can be no doubt that there was a consensus among the Sicilians and Italians in favour of making an intermediate unit between 1 and 100, the tenfold of the litra and as, into a higher unit. The Syracusan decalitron and the Roman decussis and denarius are incontrovertible facts. For the latter at least a most interesting connection with a unit of barter can be proved. We saw that by the Lex Tarpeia (451 B.C.) a cow was counted at one hundred asses (centussis, centumpondium) whilst a sheep was estimated at 10 asses (decussis). The reader will observe that, even if the theory were true that the Roman centumpondium is the starting-point of the Roman weight system, and that it was borrowed from the East, the cow all the same plays a most important part in the founding of the system. It would be another instance to prove the impossibility of framing a weight standard independent of the unit of barter, just as we have already seen that the Irish, when borrowing a ready-made weight system from Rome, found it absolutely necessary to equate the cow to the ounce of silver, and as Charlemagne had to adjust the solidus by the value of the same animal. If again the centumpondium and as grew up independently as weight units on Italian soil, and copper was weighed there before gold, the cow is evidently the basis of the system; whilst again, on my hypothesis that copper went by bulk in bars of given dimensions, and was not weighed until long after the scales had been employed for gold, the cow is directly connected with that unit of weight (the gold ox-unit of 135 grs.) which ultimately forms the basis of the uncia (as weight) and libra. On every hypothesis alike the cow must be retained as the chief factor in the origin of the Roman weight system. It will be observed that Mr Soutzo offers no explanation why the Romans, instead of retaining the sexagesimal division of the talent which they are supposed to have imported, subdivided it according to the decimal scale. It cannot be alleged that they had any deep-rooted antipathy to the duodecimal system, seeing that the as was divided into 12 unciae, and the ounce into 24 scruples. The fact that the Romans resisted in this respect the Greek influences, which were so potent a factor in their civilization, is strong evidence that the employment of the tenfold and hundredfold of the as was of immemorial native origin, and most intimately connected with the animal units, which must certainly be held to be autochthonous. As we found in Further Asia and Africa hoes or bars of metal as the lowest unit of currency, so many hoes being worth a kettle, so many kettles a buffalo, so in ancient Italy 10 bars (asses) of copper made a sheep, and 10 sheep made a cow. It is exceedingly probable that the same system prevailed among the Sicels and Sicilian Greeks, 10 litras going to the sheep, 10 sheep to the cow. For we saw on an earlier page that at Syracuse down to the time of Dionysius the cow remained the unit of assessment, just as at the present moment the buffalo is the unit of assessment among the villages of Annam; and, just as with the latter the buffalo is the unit of value, so we may well infer that with the Sicilians the cow played the same rôle. It may therefore be assumed with considerable probability that the employment of the decalitron and decussis as monetary units was originally due to their connection with the value of the sheep.
As Soutzo has observed, the degradation of the local copper series moved on most unequal lines, and no doubt in some places the decussis did not represent perhaps one half the value of its archetype, the sheep, whilst at the same moment the copper unit in another community stood at almost its original weight and value. Where silver was coined the degradation of copper went on all the quicker; there was a tendency more and more to get rid of the old cumbrous copper coins, and to employ those of a lighter and more portable size. Moreover the inter-relations between copper and silver made the coinages in these metals act and react upon each other. Thus the state after reducing the copper would reduce likewise the silver, so as to make the two series correspond. This was probably facilitated in some cases at least by the change in the relative value of these metals. Italy was not a silver-producing region, whilst it was rich in copper. Naturally with the increase of commerce and the development of silver mines in neighbouring countries such as Spain, silver became more abundant and the price of copper rose accordingly. We have had occasion already to remark that the abundance or scarcity of gold or silver is indicated by its being employed or not for coinage. In the case of gold we know that it is only when the supply of that metal is in excess of its demand for purposes of ornament that it is or can be employed in the form of coined money. The history of the coinage of Persia, Lydia, Macedonia, Rhodes and elsewhere in ancient times, as well as the history of mediaeval gold coining, make this evident, whilst modern Hindustan teaches us the same lesson. Of course in times of great financial straits under the pressure of war a gold coinage was sometimes issued, as perhaps at Athens[439] in 407 B.C. and as at Rome during the second Punic war in 206 B.C. Backwardness in the coinage of silver among certain peoples is probably to be accounted for in the same way. The employment of iron money at Sparta (and Byzantium) was probably due to the dearth of precious metals rather than to any ordinance of Lycurgus against the employment of the latter. If accordingly we find that Rome did not coin silver until 268 B.C. we are justified in concluding that it was from want of silver she had been so long in following the example of the Etruscans and the Greeks.
It is certainly most significant that within four years after the capture of Tarentum (272 B.C.) and the subjugation of all Southern Italy we find her issuing a well-matured silver currency. Doubtless by her conquests she obtained a vast supply of the precious metal, for we know from the records of Livy and Pliny that great masses of foreign coins and bullion flowed into the treasury after every fresh conquest. We may therefore reasonably assume that previous to 272 B.C. silver had been much dearer in relation to copper.
But to return. We have seen that with the imprinting of some device on the primitive bars of copper, the tendency to reduce their weight would quickly evince itself. Accordingly it was possible that in certain places when the coinage of silver began, and there was still a desire to make the silver unit equal to the copper, the latter having been already reduced, the silver would be proportioned thereto. Thus when silver was first coined in some towns in Sicily, the silver Aeginetic obol of 16½ grs. was regarded as the equivalent of the copper litra, but when Syracuse started a coinage of Corinthian staters, a piece of silver of 13½ grs. was accounted as the litra.
But in other parts of Italy the process was somewhat different. For we find the silver unit when once fixed remaining the same in weight, but simply having its denomination altered to meet the requirements of certain changes in the bronze series. Thus the Etruscan silver staters of the period prior to 350 B.C., which weigh 130 grs., are marked 𐌢, whilst the coins of the same weight at a later epoch are marked 𐌢𐌢, showing that the copper unit had undergone a change. This Soutzo thinks was simply a reduction from the triental to the sextantal foot, and in no wise due to any change in the relative value of silver and copper. That however both influences may have aided in the change will be made clear from the history of the reduction of the Roman denarius and as in the second Punic war. Finally when the Romans coined their first denarii in 268 B.C., the libella or tenth of the denarius, which represented in silver the copper libra, was only 7 grs., an indubitable proof that the as was but then a mere fraction of its former self. Yet all the same it is clear that this silver denarius, which represented a reduced decussis of bronze, had its ultimate source in nothing else than the 10 libral asses which represented the value of a sheep. Are we not then justified in suggesting that the Etruscan stater of 135 grs. marked 𐌢 had a like origin, that the 10 litra piece or noummos of Tarentum of almost the same weight, and the Syracusan 10 litra piece of 135 grs., had also a similar origin, whilst at an earlier period 10 Aeginetic obols (the nomi of the poems of Epicharmus and Sophron) were the equivalent of the same animal? Ten nomi were the price of a calf in the time of Epicharmus, and as we have seen already the value of a sheep and a young calf is always about the same, even down to the present day.
Roman System.
Although it is not our concern to go into the history of Roman money, it is nevertheless necessary to give the reader a short sketch of its principal features in order to make the history of the Roman weight standards intelligible.
First came oxen and sheep, which according to their age and sex bore definite relations to each other, and by which all other values were measured. From an early period (at least 1000 B.C.) copper was in use, not yet however weighed, but estimated by the bulk, as I have already described. Side by side with it ingots of gold and silver passed from hand to hand. Such ingots are mentioned by Varro under the name of bricks (lateres)[440]. Though this mention refers to a later period, we can yet infer from it with certainty that the practice of trafficking in small ingots of gold and silver prevailed in Italy as elsewhere. With gold came the art of weighing, which was also applied to silver. We have given reasons for believing that the weight-unit employed was the same as that which I have termed the ox-unit. We found the Etruscans, the close neighbours of the Romans, and who had access to the gold fields of Upper Italy, employing this unit as their standard from the commencement of their coinage in the 5th century for both gold and silver. Any of the towns of Southern Italy which struck gold, such as Metapontum, coined on the same standard, which was likewise employed for silver, sometimes a little reduced, by many communities, such as Tarentum. The standard ingot of gold would bear a known relation to that of silver, to the bar of bronze, the cow, and the sheep. We have given absolute proof of the relation between cattle and bronze in the 5th cent. B.C., and we may well infer similar constant relations between cattle and bronze, and the other metals. With greater exactness in commercial dealings the bronze rod was next weighed by the standard already in use for gold, and it was found that each of the 12 parts or unciae into which it was divided weighed just three times the ox-unit, that is, the weight of the small talent which we have found likewise in Macedon, Sicily, and Lower Italy, and which may have itself represented originally the conventional value of a slave, which was three cows among the Celts, the close kinsfolk of the Italians, and probably about the same among the early Greeks. As soon as the rods or asses were exchanged by weighing, they would quickly lose their original form, which was only required so long as it was necessary that they should be of certain fixed dimensions. Under the new system it mattered not whether an as was ·8 inches long, and three inches thick, provided only it was of full weight when placed in the scale. These are the pieces which are known as aes rude; as yet they are mere lumps of metal, without any stamp or device. Gaius well describes this stage: “For this reason bronze and the balance are employed (in mancipatio) because formerly they only employed bronze coins, and there were bars (asses), double bars (dupondii), half-bars (semisses) and quarters (quadrantes), nor was there any gold or silver coin in use, as we can learn from a law of the Twelve Tables, and the force and power of these coins depended not on their number but on weight. For as there were bars (asses) of a pound weight, there were also two pound bars (dupondii), whence even still the term dupondius is used, as if two in weight[441]. And the name is still retained in use.” The half-bars likewise and quarters were no doubt proportionately adjusted to weight. It will be observed that the omission of all mention of the decussis as a standard seems to throw additional doubt on Mr Soutzo’s hypothesis. The plain fact is that a mass of bronze ten pounds in weight would have been extremely cumbrous and unhandy for purposes of manufacture into the implements of everyday life.
Fig. 56. Romano-Campanian Coin.
Fig. 57. Victoriatus
When and by whom a stamp was first placed on the bars, it is of course impossible to say. Tradition however seems unanimous in assigning it to the Regal period. Pliny’s account of the Roman coinage is as follows[442]: “King Servius first stamped bronze. Timaeus hands down the tradition that aforetime they employed it in a rough state at Rome. It was stamped with the impressions of animals (nota pecudum), whence it was termed pecunia. The highest rating in the reign of that king (Servius) was 120,000 asses, and accordingly this was the first class. Silver was struck A.U.C. 485 (B.C. 268) in the Consulship of Q. Ogulnius and C. Fabius, five years before the first Punic war, and it was enacted that the denarius should pass for ten pounds of bronze, the quinarius for five, and the sestertius for two and a half. Now the libral weight was reduced in the First Punic war, as the state could not stand the expenditure, and it was appointed that asses of the weight of a sextans (2 unciae) should be struck. Thus there was a gain of five-sixths, and the debt was cleared off. The type of that bronze coin was on the one side a double Janus, on the other a ship’s beak, whilst on the triens and quadrans there was a ship. The quadrans was previously termed a teruncius from tres unciae (three ounces). Afterwards under the pressure of the Hannibalic wars in the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus, asses the weight of an ounce were coined, and it was enacted that the denarius should be exchanged for sixteen asses, the quinarius for eight, the sestertius for four; thus the state gained one half. Nevertheless in the soldiers’ pay the denarius was always given for ten asses. The types of the silver were bigae and quadrigae (two-horse and four-horse chariots), hence they were termed bigati and quadrigati[443]. By and by in accordance with the Papirian law half-ounce asses were struck. Livius Drusus when tribune of the Plebs alloyed the silver with an eighth part of bronze. The Victoriatus was struck in accordance with a law of Clodius, for previously this coin brought from Illyria was treated as merchandize. It was stamped with a Victory and hence its name. The gold piece was struck sixty-two years after the silver on such a standard that a scruple was worth twenty sesterces, and this on the scale of the then value of the sesterce made 900 go to the pound. Afterwards it was enacted that 1040 should be coined from gold pounds, and gradually the emperors reduced the weight, most recently Nero reduced it to 45.”
This statement of Pliny is supported in various details by several disjointed passages of Varro and Festus. Thus the former says that “the most ancient bronze which was cast was marked with an animal (pecore notatum)[444], and elsewhere he says that the ancient money has as its device either an ox, or a sheep, or a swine[445],” a statement repeated by Plutarch and other later writers. Festus (s.v. grave aes) says “aes grave was so called from its weight because ten asses, each a pound in weight, made a denarius, which was so named from the very number (i.e. deni). But in the Punic war, the Roman people being burdened with debt, made out of every as which weighed a pound (ex singulis assibus librariis) six asses, which were to have the same value as the former.” We have also a statement in the fragment of Festus (4, p. 347, Müller) that afterwards the asses in the sestertius were increased (i.e. to 4 from 2½), and that with the ancients the denarii were of ten asses, and were worth a decussis, and that the amount of bronze (in the denarius) was reckoned at XVI asses by the Lex Flaminia when the Roman people were put to straits by Hannibal[446]. Again, Festus says: “Asses of the weight of a sextans (two ounces) began to be in use from that time, when on account of the Second Punic war which was waged with Hannibal, the Senate decreed that out of the asses which were then libral (a pound in weight) should be made those of a sextans in weight, by means of which when payments began to be made, both the Roman people would be freed from debt, and private persons, to whom a debt had to be paid by the state, would not suffer much loss[447].” Varro likewise is worth hearing: “In the case of silver the term nummi is used: that is borrowed from the Sicilians. Denarii (were so named) because they were worth ten (coins) of bronze each, quinarii because they were worth five each, sestertius, because a half was added to two (for the ancient sestertius was a dupondius and a semis). The tenth part of a denarius nummus is a libella, because it was worth a libra of bronze in weight, and being made of silver was small. The sembella is half the libella, just as the semis is of the as. Teruncius is from tres unciae; as this is the fourth part of the libella so the quadrans is the fourth part of the as.”
Fig. 58. Sextans (Aes Grave). (The two globules mark the value.)
As so much difficulty and controversy surround the various questions connected with the beginnings of Roman currency, I have thought it best to give at full length the scanty data afforded by the ancient authorities. Let us now state the principal facts revealed by those extracts. (1) The Romans in the Regal epoch employed aes rude, but according to the testimony of Timaeus (an Italian Greek historian who wrote about B.C. 300), they had already before the days of the Republic stamped bronze with figures of cattle. (2) Silver was first coined five years before the beginning of the First Punic war: (3) Some time during that war the as was reduced from a pound to two ounces; (4) In the Second Punic war under like circumstances the as was reduced from two ounces to one ounce; (5) The denarius when first struck represented ten libral asses, or a decussis; (6) In the Second Punic war when the as was reduced, the denarius was ordered to pass for 16 instead of 10 asses; (7) In spite of this reduction, the denarius continued to be regarded as containing only 10 asses when employed in paying the soldiers.
Considerable numbers of asses and the parts of asses have come down to us, many of them bearing marks of value as before described. There is undoubted evidence of a constant reduction of the as. The question arises, did the reduction take place per saltum or by a gradual process? Mommsen thinks that the as continued to be of libral weight until shortly before 264 B.C. and that it was then without any intermediate steps reduced to the triens (4 ounces). Mr Soutzo on the other hand maintains with vigour that from 338 B.C., the date at which he fixes the first coinage of asses at Rome, to 264 B.C., the degradation was a gradual process, and he arraigns Mommsen on a charge of disregarding the ancient authorities, who state, as we have seen, that the change was from libral to sextantal asses. Mr Soutzo is thus compelled to state that all the asses within that period (338-264 B.C.) although they have a range from almost full libral weight to only 3 ounces were treated as libral asses. Now this of course is a very reasonable hypothesis on the principle which I have adopted that bronze money was in fact merely token currency, used only for local circulation and not for extraneous trade. But Mr Soutzo is precluded from adopting such a position unless he gives up the basis of his whole work. He has laid down that the bronze money was not a mere conventional currency, but always was actual value for the amount which it represented. On this assumption he obtains his relation of 1:120 between copper and silver. Assuming that the sextantal reduction was contemporaneous with the issue of the first denarius (which is in direct defiance of the historians), he found that the denarius of 70 grs. = 2 ounces (840 grs.) of bronze; therefore silver was to bronze as 120:1. Again, when the financial crisis took place during the Second Punic war and the denarius was reduced (as we learn from the actual coin weights) to 62 grs., and it was made to pass for 16 asses instead of 10 asses, he finds that since 62 grs. of silver = 16 asses of 432 grs. (unciae) silver was to bronze as 112:1. But in the latter case he omits to explain why it was that the denarius in paying the troops only counted for ten asses. It is evident that if the relation between copper and silver was really as 1:112, there could have been no need for making this difference. But as the soldiers were serving outside Rome, and Roman local token currency would not be taken in payment, it was necessary to pay them according to the market value of bronze. At Rome the denarius was made to pass for 16 asses, or three-fifths more than its actual value. It appears therefore that the data given us by Pliny are not sufficient to allow us to come to any definite conclusion as regards the relative value of silver and bronze at that time. Moreover there is no evidence to show that the denarius was reduced from 70 grs. to 62 grs. by the Lex Flaminia. It is on the whole more likely that this reduction took place when the first gold coinage was issued (62 years after the first silver) in 206 B.C., since there was every inducement to make such a change in the silver as would admit of a convenient relation between the gold scruple and 20 sestertii. This again raises just doubts as regards the accuracy of Mr Soutzo’s calculation. With reference to the reduction of the as to the sextantal standard we have seen that the truth of his deductions rests entirely on the assumption that the degradation took place before the First Punic war at the same time as the issue of the first silver coinage. This of course is directly contradicted by the historians. But even granting that it was correct, it is difficult to see why we should assume that the Roman as, which according to Soutzo’s own principles had been nothing more than a token, should suddenly have been treated as though it really was of the actual value which it represented. There was no reason why, even though the unit of account was the sextantal as, the as should have been anything else than a token in its relation to the silver currency: certainly it is strange that, if the Romans after treating the as as a token down to 268 B.C. then suddenly gave it its full monetary value, they did not continue to carry out their new principle. For as a matter of fact there are very great differences in the weight of the sextantal asses, and after the reduction to the uncial standard, the same process of degradation went on without ceasing, as Soutzo himself has shown[448]. All these facts point to the conclusion that the bronze coinage at Rome was only a local token currency, such as is our own silver and bronze series at the present day.
Let us now see if we can give a consistent explanation of the statements of the ancient writers which I have quoted above. Aes rude or bronze in an unstamped or unmanufactured state was originally in use at Rome, according to Timaeus. This period corresponds to that time when, as I have endeavoured to show, asses or bars of given dimensions intended to be made into articles for use or ornament passed from hand to hand, as do the brass rods mentioned above at the present moment in the Congo region of Africa. Then came the stamping of the asses towards the close of the regal period (according to Timaeus), when figures of animals were placed thereon. We have seen above ([p. 354]) that such figures are actually found on certain rough quadrilateral pieces of bronze found in some parts of central Italy. With the use of weight instead of measure for appraising their value, the shape of the asses would become modified, getting shorter and thicker. Finally, they assume the round shape of ordinary coins, and bear certain well-defined symbols on both sides, such as the Janus head and Rostrum on the as, that of Mercury on the sextans. But as few of these round asses are found to weigh more than 10 unciae, it would seem that the process of degradation had already set in before their issue. Gold and silver at the same epoch passed by weight either after the ancient fashion in ingots, or as the coined money of the Greek cities of the South or of the Etruscans. The unit of account continues to be the as of full weight. Thus all penalties due to the state would be paid not in reduced asses of only 5 or 4 ounces, but in full libral asses as weighed in the balance. On the other hand although reduced asses were used by the state in paying debts to private individuals, they were only received as tokens, and no doubt the state was bound if called upon to pay a full pound of bronze for every stamped reduced as presented to it, but in ordinary times this made no practical difference, for the bronze currency was purely local all over Italy and Sicily, as we have seen above. It was far too cumbrous to be used as a medium of international trade.
When the Romans after defeating Pyrrhus and taking Tarentum had reduced all Southern Italy and hence obtained great quantities of silver, they proceeded five years before the beginning of the First Punic war to issue silver denarii or ten as pieces. Are these pieces real representatives of the as of account, or do they rather simply represent the value of the then normal as of currency, which was probably not more than a triens or four ounces or perhaps not more than a quadrans or three ounces? The latter is the more likely hypothesis. They had been long accustomed to a bronze token currency, and it was most likely that the new silver currency would be adapted to it. It is then likely that the denarius equalled ten asses of at least 3 ounces each, in which case silver was to bronze as 180:1. In transactions inside the state the balance would be commonly, and in dealing with strangers invariably, employed in all monetary transactions, ancient states being very jealous of alien mintages. This is exemplified by Pliny’s statement that the Victoriates brought from Illyria were treated simply as merchandize. Then came the First Punic war, which lasted for two-and-twenty weary years, during which the resources of the Republic were almost drained dry. The state became virtually a bankrupt and simply paid in modern phraseology 3s. 4d. in the pound. It was effected thus: up to the present the as of full weight was the unit of account, although the coined asses had by this time come to be simply tokens of about 2 ounces each. The state accordingly enacted that the as of currency should become the unit of account, and paid the state debt by these coins, and at the same time made it legal for private individuals, who were bound under the old order of things to pay their debts in libral asses to discharge their obligations by sextantal asses. Thus Pliny is perfectly right in saying that the state made a profit of five-sixths. The influx of silver after the conquest of Southern Italy and the requirements of large quantities of bronze for the building of fleet after fleet, and for military equipment, may have very well tended to appreciate the value of bronze at this period. As the reduction in the size of the as continued, though the unit of account was two ounces, under the pressure of the Second Punic war they repeated the same process. The as was now not more than an ounce, so they decreed that the as of currency should again be the as of account, and the state thus gained a half, this time paying ten shillings in the pound.
The ounce and libra had been long well defined at Rome before the silver coinage first appeared, and whilst we saw that the sextula or one-sixth of the uncia was the lowest weight employed for bronze, the fourth part of this weight, the scriptulum, had been regularly employed in weighing silver and gold; as we have seen it owed its origin to the fact that the Aeginetan silver obol was found to be about the weight of the 24th part of an uncia or inch of bronze. The first denarii were the weight of a sextula or 4 scriptula (70 grs.) of the older weight. The scriptulum and sestertius were thus identical, and hence in later days the unit of account was the sestertius and not the as. Accordingly when the gold coinage of 206 B.C. was issued, it was based on the scruple, and consisted of pieces of 1, 2, and 3 scruples.
Fig. 59. Gold Solidus of Julian II. (the Apostate).
We have now traced the origin of Roman currency sufficiently for the purposes of this work. After various fluctuations in the weight of the gold pieces under Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar and others, Constantine the Great finally fixed the weight of the aureus or solidus at 4 scruples in 312 A.D., and so it remained until the final downfall of the Empire of the East in 1453. From this famous coin the various mintages of mediaeval and consequently of modern Europe may be said to trace their pedigrees. The solidus was divided into thirds or tremisses, for the scrupular system had been abandoned, the solidus being regarded simply as a sextula or one-sixth of the uncia, and not as a multiple of the scruple. The tremissis therefore weighed 24 grs. Troy, or 32 wheat grains. When the barbarian conquerors of the Roman Empire began to coin silver they took as their model the gold tremissis. In the earliest stage of the Anglo-Saxon mintage we find so-called gold pennies of 24 grs. occasionally appearing. These are nothing else than tremisses. But silver henceforward was to form for centuries the staple currency of Western Europe, and the silver penny of 24 grs. (whence comes our own penny-weight) became virtually the unit of account. As its weight shows, the penny was based on the gold tremissis.
Fig. 60. Gold Tremissis of Leo I.
The first regular coinage of gold in Western Europe began with the famous gold pieces of Florence in the beginning of the 14th century. These weighed 48 grs. or 2 tremisses. From their place of mintage the name florin (fiorino) became a generic term for gold coins. Accordingly when Edward III. issued his first gold coins of 108 grs. each, although differing so completely in weight from their prototype, they too were called florins. In reality however Edward’s coin was 1½ solidus (72 + 36). The first attempt did not prove satisfactory, and with the issue of the famous noble, first of 136½ grs., and afterwards of 129 grs., the series of English gold coins may be said to begin, of which the latest stage is the sovereign of 120¼ grs. Troy.
I have already explained at an earlier stage the origin of the Troy grain; before we end let me add a word on the origin of the Troy ounce. The Troy pound like the Roman has 12 ounces, but whereas the Roman ounce had 432 grs. Troy or 576 grs. wheat, the Troy ounce has 480 grs. Troy or 640 grs. wheat. How came this augmentation of the ounce?
It is in Apothecaries’ weight that we find the key. This standard runs thus
| 20 grs. | = | 1 scruple, |
| 3 scruples | = | 1 drachm, |
| 8 drachms | = | 1 ounce, |
| 12 ounces | = | 1 pound. |
Now note that there are 24 scruples in the ounce, and 288 scruples in the pound, exactly as in the Roman system. But there is an element foreign to the old Roman system as seen in the drachm of 60 grs. Now Galen and the medical writers of the Empire used the post-Neronian denarius of 60 grs. as a medicine weight. What more convenient weight unit could be employed than the most common coin in circulation? The drachma and denarius had long since been used synonymously in common parlance. But as there were 18 grs. (Troy, 24 wheat grs.) in the old scruple, and there were 60 grs. in the drachm or denarius, they were not commensurable, and accordingly to obviate this difficulty the physicians for practical purposes raised the scruple to 20 grs., in order that it might be one-third of the drachm. The number of scruples in the ounce remaining 24 as before, the ounce became augmented by 48 grs. (24 × 2) and accordingly rose to 480 grs. We saw above that the Troy grain is the barley-corn. Why is the latter so closely connected with ‘Troy weight’? When the scruple was raised from 18 grs. Troy, 24 grs. of wheat, to 20 grs. Troy, it no longer contained an even number of wheat grains, for the new scruple contained 26⅔ grs. wheat. As this was inconvenient, and on the other hand the new scruple weighed exactly 20 barley-corns, the latter henceforth became the lowest unit of this system.
Conclusion.
It now simply remains to sum up the results of our enquiry. Starting with the Homeric Poems we found that although certain pieces of gold called talents were in circulation among the early Greeks, yet all values were still expressed in terms of cows. We then found that the gold talent was nothing else than the equivalent of the cow, the older unit of barter, and we found that the talent was the same unit as that known in historical times under the names of Euboic stater or Attic stater, and commonly described by metrologists as the light Babylonian shekel. Our next stage was to enquire into the systems of currency used by primitive peoples in both ancient and modern times, and everywhere alike we found systems closely analogous to that depicted in the Homeric Poems, and we found that in the regions of Asia, Europe and Africa, where the system of weight standards which has given birth to all the systems of modern Europe had its origin, the cow was universally the chief unit of barter. Furthermore gold was distributed with great impartiality over the same area, and known and employed for purposes of decoration from an early period by the various races which inhabited it. We then found that practically all over that area there was but one unit for gold, and that unit was the same weight as the Homeric Talanton. Next we proved that gold was the first object for which mankind employed the art of weighing, and we then found that over the area in question there was strong evidence to show that everywhere from India to the shores of the Atlantic the cow originally had the same value as the universally distributed gold unit.
From this we drew the conclusion that the gold unit, which was certainly later in date than the employment of the cow as a unit of value, was based on the latter; and finally we showed that man everywhere made his earliest essays in weighing by means of the seeds of plants, which nature had placed ready to his hand as counters and as weights. Then we surveyed the theories which derive all weight standards from the scientific investigations of the Chaldeans or Egyptians, and having found that they were directly in contradiction to the facts of both ancient history and modern researches into the systems of primitive peoples, we concluded that the theories of Boeckh and his school must be abandoned.
Next we proceeded to explain the development of the various systems of antiquity from our ox-unit, taking in turn the Egyptian, Assyrio-Babylonian, Hebrew, Lydian, Greek and Italian. New explanations of the origin of the Talent and Mina and also of the earlier types on Greek coins and of the varieties of standard employed for silver by the Greeks were offered, and finally in dealing with the systems of Sicily and Italy arguments were advanced to show that the Roman as was originally nothing more than a rod or bar of copper of definite measurements, and was in weight and method of division the same as the Sicilian Litra and the Greek Obol.
In how far the propositions here put forward have been proved, it must remain for others to decide.
Laus Deo, Pax Vibis,
Requies Mortuis.
APPENDIX A
The Homeric Trial Scene.
Κεῖτο δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι δύω χρυσοῖο τάλαντα,
Τῷ δόμεν, ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.
Il. XVIII. 507-8.
I would not return to so well-worn a theme, were it not that editors like Dr Leaf (ad loc.) still state that there is nothing in the language of the last line to hinder us from taking it either of the litigant or of the judge.
Scholars have fixed their attention so closely on the words δίκην εἴποι that they have completely overlooked the qualifying ἰθύντατα. In modern courts of law we do not expect to hear the straightest statement of a case from advocates, but rather from the judge. The ancient Greek would never dream of expecting a litigant to give a straight statement of his case. The following passages will show that ἰθύς, ἰθύνειν, εὐθύνειν, ὀρθός are always applied to a judge (the converse σκολιός being used of unjust judges). The metaphor is from the carpenter’s rule (cf. ἐπὶ στάθμην ἰθύνειν Od. V. 245).
Pind. Pyth. IV. 152 καὶ θρόνος, ᾦ ποτε ἐγκαθίζων Κρηθεΐδας ἱππόταις εὔθυνε λαοῖς δίκας.
Solon 3. 36 εὐθύνων σκολιὰς δίκας.
Il. XVI. 387 οἳ βίῃ εἰν ἀγορῇ σκολιὰς κρίνωσι θέμιστας.
Hesiod Opp. 221 σκολιῇς δε δίκῃς κρίνωσι θέμιστας.
Hes. Opp. 222
(Δίκη) κακὸν ἀνθρώποισι φέρουσα
οἵ τέ μιν ἐξελάσωσι καὶ οὐκ ἰθεῖαν ἔνειμαν.
Arist. Rhet. I. 1 οὐ γὰρ δεῖ τὸν δικαστὴν διαστρέφειν εἰς ὀργὴν προάγοντας ἢ φθόνον ἢ ἔλεον· ὅμοιον γάρ κἂν εἴ τις, ᾧ μέλλει χρῆσθαι κανόνι, τοῦτον ποιήσειε στρεβλόν.
Pind. Pyth. XI. 15 ὀρθοδίκαν γᾶς ὀμφαλόν.
Aesch. Persae 764 εὐθυντήριον σκῆπτρον.
No one can then doubt that the words δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι can only refer to the judge.
The following account of a trial on the Gold Coast so well illustrates the principle of payment having to be made to the judges that I think it worth quoting. (Eighteen years on the Gold Coast of Africa, by Brodie Crookshank, Vol. I. p. 279, London, 1853.)
“When the day arrived for the hearing of Quansah’s charge, a large space was cleanly swept in the market-place for the accommodation of the assembly; for this a charge of ten shillings was made and paid. When the Pynins (elders) had taken their seats, surrounded by their followers, who squatted upon the ground, a consultation took place as to the amount which they ought to charge for the occupation of their valuable time, and after duly considering the plaintiff’s means, with the view of extracting from him as much as they could, they valued their intended services at £6. 15s., which he was in like manner called upon to pay. Another charge of £2. 5s. was made in the name of tribute to the chief, and as an acknowledgment of gratitude for his presence upon the occasion. £1. 10s. was then ordered to be paid to purchase rum for the judges, £1 for the gratification of the followers, ten shillings to the men who took the trouble to weigh out the different sums, and five shillings for the court criers. Thus Quansah had to pay £12. 15s. to bring his case before this august court, the members of which during the trial carried on a pleasant course of rum and palm wine.”
APPENDIX B.
What was the Unit of Assessment in the Constitution of Servius Tullius?
Th. Mommsen in his Roman History (I. 95-96 English Trans.) has laid down that land was the basis of assessment, on the analogy of the Teutonic hide. He makes the members of the First Class those who held a whole hide; and the remaining four classes were made up of those who held proportionally smaller freeholds. When Mommsen has once spoken, it is presumptuous to raise doubts. If however it can be shown that the Italians rather based their assessments on cattle, and that furthermore the statements of the later historians point to an original rating which harmonizes well with such an original condition, it may have been worth while to start enquiry once again in a case where the data are so scanty and obscure.
Pliny H. N. XXXIII. 3. 13. Maximus census CXX. assium fuit illo rege, ideo haec prima classis. This is confirmed by Festus (s.v. infra censum, p. 113 Müller) infra classem significantur qui minore summa quam centum et viginti millia aeris censi sunt.
Livy I. 42 says the rating of the prima classis was Centum millia aeris, of the secunda classis was infra centum assium ad quinque et septuaginta millia. Tertia classis quinquaginta millia, Quarta classis, quinque et viginti millia. Quinta classis, undecim millia.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (IV. 16-17) puts the rating of the 1st class at 100 minae (of silver) or 10,000 drachms; of the 2nd at 75 minae, of the 3rd at 50 minae, of the 4th at 25 minae, and that of the 5th at 12 minae.
All are agreed that it is absolutely incredible that the original rating of the first class was 120,000 libral asses of bronze. The cow was worth 100 libral asses at Rome in 451 B.C. Therefore the rating of 120,000 asses would have been equivalent to 1200 cows. It is impossible to believe that there could have been a numerous body of men in early Rome possessed of such vast capital. Boeckh’s explanation is that with the reduction of the as from its original weight of a libra to two ounces, and one ounce, there was a corresponding raising of the amount of the rating of the several classes.
Mommsen on the other hand thinks that the rating was originally on land, and that the change in the method of rating from land to bronze took place at a time when land had greatly risen in value, and that accordingly 120,000 asses of the First Class are libral asses. Such a change as Mommsen supposes must have taken place before 260-241 B.C., for the as was reduced to two ounces during the first Punic War. Yet we cannot easily suggest any period before that date when there was likely to have been so great a rise in the value of land, as is necessary to account for the large rating of 120,000 asses, which according to Mommsen’s reckoning would be worth about 400 lbs. of silver (or according to Soutzo 1000 lbs. of silver).
Boeckh’s hypothesis seems to fit better the conditions of the problem. Much of the importance of the rating of the various classes passed away when Marius (104 B.C.) changed the whole military system and chose the troops from the Capite censi, as well as from the five property classes.
The as had been reduced to a single uncia in the 2nd Punic War (cf. [p. 377]). Thus 12 asses of the uncial standard were required to make up the weight of the old libral as. Accordingly 120,000 asses of the 2nd century B.C. would be equal to 10,000 libral asses of the earlier days. But as by the Lex Tarpeia 100 asses is the value of a cow, 10,000 libral asses = 100 cows. This would be by no means an unlikely number of cows, to form the minimum of the wealthiest class of a pastoral community. There is another curious piece of evidence which seems to confirm my hypothesis. One of the provisions of the Licinian Rogations (367 B.C.) was that no one should hold more than 500 jugera of the Public Land, or should be allowed to feed more than one hundred large cattle or 500 small cattle on public pastures. μηδένα ἔχειν τῆσδε τῆς γῆς πλέθρα πεντακοσίων πλείονα, μηδὲ προβατεύειν ἑκατὸν πλείω τὰ μείζονα καὶ πεντακοσίων τὰ ἐλάσσονα. Appian, Bell. Civ. I. 8. If 100 large cattle were the number which qualified a Roman for the first class, there was every reason why Licinius and Sextus should have taken 100 as the maximum number of cows which a citizen could keep on the public pastures.
Next I shall show that the method of rating by cattle and not by land was that actually practised in Sicily. That island stood in such close relations to the Italian Peninsula both geographically and ethnologically that we may reasonably infer that the method of rating in use there was also in use in Italy.
Now we learn from Aristotle’s Oeconomica (II. 21) that when the tyrant Dionysius oppressed the Syracusans with excessive exactions, they ceased to keep cattle:
Τὼν δὲ πολιτῶν διὰ τὰς εἰσφορὰς οὐ τρεφόντων βοσκήματα, εἶπεν ὅτι ἱκανὰ ἦν αὐτῷ πρὸς τοσοῦτον· τοὺς οὖν νῦν κτησαμένους ἀτελεῖς ἔσεσθαι, πολλῶν δὲ ταχὺ κτησαμένων πολλὰ βοσκήματα, ὡς ἀτελῆ ἑξόντων, ἐπεὶ ᾤετο καιρὸν εἶναι, τιμήσασθαι κελεύσας ἐπέβαλε τέλος, κ.τ.λ.
If the citizens of Syracuse, a great Greek trading city, were still rated in cattle in the time of Dionysius (405-367 B.C.), à fortiori we may expect the same primitive method of assessment to prevail among the pastoral peoples of Central Italy in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.
Among the Kelts, the close kinsfolk of the Italians, the same system probably prevailed. Thus in the ancient Irish laws, where the various classes of freemen are described, there are a number of them called Bo-aires[449], cow-freemen.
As modern research has shown that everywhere among the Aryans land was originally held in common, and that separate property in land sprung up only at a comparatively late period, we may with some confidence infer that in Italy likewise in early days a man’s wealth was reckoned in his cattle, and not in lands, such as I have shown to have been the practice among the Greeks of the ‘Homeric times’ (‘The Homeric Land System,’ Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1885).
APPENDIX C.
Keltic and Scandinavian Weight Systems.
It is always dangerous to deal with things Keltic. So much difficulty is there in getting at any facts amidst masses of wild assertions and loose conclusions, that a prudent man may well shrink back. However, as it is worth while to give some facts respecting the actual weights of gold rings and other ornaments, I have thought it best to print the following pages.
Attempts have long ago been made to find the standard of the so-called ring money. Sir William Betham, followed by John Lindsay[450], after weighing many examples, arrived at the conclusion that they are based on the ounce Troy. Now as the ounce Troy is entirely unknown to the Brehon Laws, and was only brought into Ireland by the English settlers, it is needless to argue further against that doctrine. Dr Petrie’s[451] discussions about Irish coins are similarly vitiated by his treating as Troy grains the grains of wheat mentioned by the authorities.
1. Irish. Let us work back from the known to the unknown.
The system in the Brehon Laws is as follows:
| 1 Cumhal (ancilla) | = | 3 Cows. |
| 1 Cow | = | 1 Unga (uncia of silver). |
| 1 Unga | = | 24 Screapalls. |
| 1 Screapall | = | 3 Pinginns. |
| 1 Pinginn | = | 8 grs. of wheat. |
Unga = 576 grs. of wheat.
The ounce seems to be the highest unit of weight, and just as in the Brehon Laws an unga of silver is equated to a cow, so in early times an unga of gold seems to have been the regular value of a slave, the most valuable of living chattels. At least we may so infer from a curious story of St Finnian of Clonard:
Life of St Finnian (of Clonard, Co. Meath).
(Book of Lismore, fol. 24 b, c.)
Tainic iar sin Finnen cu Cilldara co Brighit, cu m-bui ic tiachtuin leiginn ocus proicepta fri re. Ceilebrais iar sin do Brigit ocus dobreth Brighit fainne oir dho. Nir ’bho santach som imon saegul: ni roghabh in fainne. “Ce no optha,” ar Brigit, “roricfea a leas.” Tainic Finnen iar sin cu Fotharta Airbrech. Dorala uisce do. Roinnail a lamha asin usci[452]: tuc lais for a bhais asan uisci in fáinne targaidh Brighit dó.
Táinic iar sin Caisin, mac Naemain, co faelti moir fri Finden. Ocus coneadhbair fein dó ocus roacain fris ró Fotharta ic cuinghidh oir fair ar a shaeire. “Cia mét,” ar Finnen, “conaidheas?” “Noghebhudh uingi n-oir,” ar Caisin. Rothomthuis sé iar sin in fainne [ocus frith uingi oir[453]] ann. Dorat Caisin hi ar a shaeriri.
Translation.
“After that came Finnian to Kildare to Brigit and he was engaged in teaching and preaching for a time. He takes leave afterwards of Brigit and Brigit gave a ring of gold to him. He was not covetous regarding the world: he accepted not the ring. “Though thou refusest,” said Brigit, “thou wilt require it.” Finnian came after that to Fotharta Airbrech[454]. [On his way] he met water. He washed his hands with the water [and] brought on his palm from out the water the ring that Brigit offered to him.
“After that came Caisin, son of Naeman, with great joy to [visit] Finnian. And he offered himself to him and complained to him that the king of Fotharta was demanding gold from him for his liberation. “How much,” said Finnian, “asketh he?” “He would accept an ounce of gold,” said Caisin. He [Finnian] weighed after that the ring (and there was found an ounce of gold[455]) in it. Caisin gave it for his liberation.”
I am indebted for this valuable reference, which also enables us to form an idea of the relative value of gold and silver in early Ireland, to the Rev. B. Mac Carthy, D.D., of Youghal.
But there is another weight called crosoch (crosóg or crosach), found in the most ancient poems. For instance in Cuchulaind the brooch of Queen Medbh, “My spear brooch of gold which weighs thirty ungas, and thirty half ungas, and thirty crossachs and thirty quarter [crossachs].” (O’Curry, Manners and Customs, Vol. III. p. 102.) The weight of a crosoch we learn from a gloss quoted by O’Donovan (Supplement to O’Reilly’s Dictionary) from MS. R. I. A., No. 35, 5. 49.
da pinginn agas cetrime pinginne isin lacht caerach i, crosóg[456].
“Two pinginns and a fourth of a pinginn are a milk of a sheep, i.e. a crosóg.” Since 1 pinginn = 8 grs. wheat therefore a crosóg = 18 grs. wheat or 13·5 grs. Troy.
There are accordingly 32 crosochs in the unga of the Brehon Laws.
Inspection at once shows that the crosoch must have belonged to a different system, on which either the system of ungas and screapalls was grafted or vice versa. The expulsion of the crosoch from the later Irish shows that the first alternative is the true one.
Again, it is certain that the unga and screapall were borrowed from the Roman system, probably before the time of Constantine, as after his time the solidus became universal throughout the Empire, and has left its impress everywhere.
The crosoch therefore must be non-Roman, i.e. belong to the native population.
Above we saw that it was used along with ungas and half ungas in describing Medbh’s Fibula. Here is historical evidence of its use in the weighing of gold ornaments.
There were certainly 32 crosochs in the ounce of the Brehon Laws, but if we can show in another system of north-western Europe a weight exactly the same as the crosoch, with an ounce which is its thirty-fold, we may hesitate to lay down that the full Roman ounce with its 432 grs. Troy (576 grs. wheat) was the earliest form of Irish unga.
There is no mention of screapalls in the weight of Medbh’s brooch. It is quite possible that under ecclesiastical influences the full Roman ounce and its division into screapalls may have been introduced at a comparatively late period. The contact between Kelts and Scandinavians in early times has of late excited much interest.
2. Let us now turn to the old Norse system. It is as follows:
| 1 pening | = | 13·5 grs. Troy |
| 10 penings | = | 1 örtug = 136·7 grs. |
| 3 örtugs | = | 1 öre = 410 grs. |
| 8 öres | = | 1 mark = 3280 grs. |
Let us deal first with the mark. As its name signifies, it in all probability was originally not a weight, but a measure. The use of mark as a land measure is well known in the Teutonic languages. It is also used as a measure of length. Thus a mark of cloth consists of 448 alen or ells. After what we have learned about the history of the Roman as ([p. 354]) we need not be surprised if a term originally used as a measure of some article which was not as yet sold by weight, came in similar fashion to be incorporated at a later period into the weight system as a higher unit. If the mark was originally a given measure of bronze or iron, we can readily see how it came later on to be used as a weight, and ultimately to be the chief unit of account among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, until it was at last driven out by the pound.
That silver was cast into bars which weighed a mark is rendered highly probable by the fact that three of the silver bars found at Cuerdale weigh respectively 3960, 3954, and 3950 grs. Troy; that is, just the weight of 160 pennies of the reign of Alfred. 160 pennies are two-thirds of a pound of 240 pennies, or in other words a mark.
The practice of running silver into ingots of such a weight may well have arisen from an earlier practice of employing bronze or iron bars of such a weight. It is at all events certain that the mark is native Teutonic and is not borrowed from Rome. That the Kelts at least used bars of iron as money is made not unlikely by a famous passage of Caesar which I shall quote later on. A various reading states that the Britons used iron rods as money (ferreis taleis). Even without this we may reasonably infer from what we have learned of the practice of primitive peoples in dealing with iron or copper, that the Teutons and Kelts must have used these by measure. It is well known that the Swedes used ingots of copper as currency down to comparatively recent times. It is then most likely that the öre or ounce of 410 grs. was the highest original weight unit, just as the unga is in the ancient Irish system. The weight of this öre is of great interest. If we found the Roman pound of 12 ounces in Scandinavia, we should at once say that the öre of 410 grs. was the reduced Roman ounce (432 grs.). But as the native mark evidently got its position before the influence of Rome was felt in the North, we may well consider the öre to be pre-Roman. The reader will remember that I identified the ancient Roman uncia with the small talent of Sicily and Macedonia. The latter weighed 3 ox-units or about 405 grs. I also suggested that it originally represented the value of a slave, and was thus the original highest unit used for gold or silver. I showed on an earlier page ([141]) that the Norse örtug, the one-third of the öre, was the price of a cow. If three cows were the price of a slave in Scandinavia as they were in Ireland, and probably in Homeric Greece, an öre of gold was the price of a slave. The passage from the life of St Finnian given at once shows that an ounce of gold was the regular price of a slave in early Ireland, and probably a good Scandinavian scholar could soon find similar evidence for the value of the old Norse slave.
The meaning and derivation of the term örtug have been much discussed. It occurs in the forms örtog, örtug, ertog, œrtug. Cleasby’s Lexicon makes nothing out of the first part of the word, but takes the second part (-tog -tug = tugr = 20), because örtug had the value of 20 penningar, though tugr means 10. But as a matter of fact there were, as we saw above, 240 penningar in the mark, and therefore there were 10 penningar in the örtug. Holmboe[457] goes more deeply into the origin of örtug. He says, “As á, pl. œr, signifies a ewe, and tug-r as a derivative of ten both by itself and in compounds signifies ten, ertug seems originally to have signified 10 ewes, just as the weight ertug betokens the weight of 10 peningar, and peningr itself also means a sheep. It may be regarded as questionable to assume the plural œr to form the first part of the compound, yet œr must at an early period have been used in the formation of compounds, since both the folkspeech of Norway has the form œr-saud-ewe, sheep, technically a ewe-with-lamb, and the folkspeech of Denmark has œr lam in the sense of ewe-lamb[458].” Another suggestion is that örtug comes from arta = a pea-formed knob, so that örtug = örtu-vog, the weight of a pea.
The objection to this would be that the pea would weigh 13·5 grs. Troy, which seems far too much.
In spite of the philological difficulty in making örtug = 10 ewes, it is very remarkable that this value corresponds so accurately with the value of a cow, which I independently found for it. I have already pointed out that 10 sheep were the usual value of a cow. So it was at Rome in 451 B.C. and so it is with the Modern Ossetes. The ox fit for the yoke was probably worth 20 lambs or 5 sheep in Lusitania[459], and as we saw that in the Welsh Laws the ox when fit for the yoke was worth half a full-grown cow, the Lusitanian cow was worth 10 sheep. So also at Athens, when Plutarch[460] says an ox was worth 5 sheep, he probably means an ox fit for the yoke, the cow being worth 10 sheep. In the Brehon Laws 8 sheep go to the cow, but as I have already pointed out the insulated position of Ireland would tend to cause a variation in prices from those on the mainland of Europe. Thus we see from the story of St Finnian that gold must have been worth only three times its weight in silver in Ireland in the early centuries of our era. For the price of a slave was an ounce of gold, whilst in the Brehon Laws it is 3 ounces of silver. It might be said that we cannot prove that this was the value of a slave in gold and silver at any one time, and that silver may have been much cheaper at an earlier date. When we recollect that silver has never existed in any quantity in Ireland, and that where it does exist it can only be obtained by systematic mining, a thing impossible in the eternal turmoil of Ireland, and also bear in mind that when Japan was opened to Europeans in this century gold was exchanged for three times its weight in silver, we need not think such a relation at all unlikely in ancient Ireland. The paucity of silver ornaments in the Royal Irish Academy Museum confirms this opinion. But the evidence from the Penitentials shows that silver was scarce at a comparatively still early date in Ireland[461]. Thus XII altilia vel XIII sicli praetium unius cuiusque ancillae.
I have already shown the universality of making gold ornaments after a fixed weight. The passages given above show that a similar practice existed among the ancient Irish.
Let us turn to the numerous gold rings, commonly called Ring Money, of which there are some 50 in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy of various weights and sizes. I give these weights. Let us examine them, and see if we can find any indications gained inductively of a weight standard.
As by inspection we see that the smallest rings weigh 13 and 14 grs. Troy, and the next three 29, 31, 32 respectively, which look like the double of the smaller, I shall group the rings according as they approximate to the multiples of 15.
| Multiples of 15 | Actual Ring Weights (Royal Irish Acad.) | Multiples of 15 | Actual | Rings | Weights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | 13, 14 | 180 | 179 | 345 | |
| 30 | 29, 31, 32, 36 | 195 | 199, 203 | 360 | |
| 45 | 40, 46 | 210 | 206, 209 | 375 | 372 |
| 60 | 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 65, 65 | 225 | 220 | 370 | |
| 75 | 69, 73 | 240 | 247 | ||
| 90 | 84, 84, 88, 96 | 255 | 259 | ||
| 105 | 98, 104, 111 | 270 | |||
| 120 | 121, 124 | 285 | 283, 283 | ||
| 135 | 300 | ||||
| 150 | 144, 144, 147, 147, 150, 151 | 315 | 322 | ||
| 165 | 171,172 | 330 | 332 |
A glance at the foregoing table shows that the most numerous group of rings occurs at the fourfold (60), no less than seven specimens ranging themselves at that point, next we find six specimens at the tenfold (150), whilst next in order comes the sixfold with four examples. There are three cases of the double (30). On the other hand it is worth noticing the absence of the ninefold, whilst there are three instances of the sevenfold, and the absence of the eighteenfold (2 × 9) likewise, whilst we have the elevenfold, twelvefold, thirteenfold, fourteenfold. However from the absence of the twentyfold (2 × 10) we cannot lay great stress on this. The heaviest specimen (372) closely approximates to the twenty-five fold (375).
I add the weights of the ancient Irish gold rings preserved in the British Museum.
Irish small plain ring money. Some are without localities but may be assumed to be Irish. Marked thus *.
*103, 563, *389, *121, *29½, 218, 224, 323, 295 injured, 218, 122, 90, 28, 56, 215 copper plated with gold (injured), 299, 148, 98, 366, 89 piece cut from a larger bracelet?, 48½ hollow and open? plating of bronze ring? (banded), 422, 410 (ounces), 288 (injured).
Irish fluted ring money. * No precise locality, but presumably Irish.
*106, *123 (worn), 30, 59, 90, 66, 59½.
With disks, 249, 806 (2 oz.), 595, 283, 169, 665, 139, 119.
Dots, no lines, 32.
The weights of these rings show many points of agreement with those in the Irish Museum. Thus we get 28, 29½, 30, and 32 grs. corresponding to 29, 31, and 32 grs. of the second group in the Irish Table. Again, 56 and 59½ where we get 54, 56, 58, 59, 61 in the Irish, and 66 corresponding to 65, 65; 98 to 96 and 98; and 89 corresponding to 88 and 90; 119, 121, 122 and 123 to 121 and 124; 139 to 144, and 144 and 148 to 147 and 147; then 169 to 171 and 172. Then comes a break, and we get 215, 218, 218, 224 corresponding to 220, and 249 to 247, and 283 to 283 and 283; and 323 to 322, and 360 to 366. But the British Museum gives us in the higher weights three very important specimens: for 410 grs. is the ounce corresponding exactly to the old Norse öre of 410 grs., and the ring of 422 grs. looks like the later ounce rising towards the full weight of 432. The ring of 806 grs. is plainly 2 ounces of the standard of 410 (806 ÷ 2 = 403).
The occurrence of several specimens so constantly all of the same weight, as for instance those about 220 grs., points beyond doubt to the conclusion that when the rings were being made a given quantity of gold was weighed out for the purpose. The story of St Finnian proves that for any transaction in which rings were employed as money, the scales were employed.
There is a set of leaden weights in the Royal Irish Academy Collection, found at Island Bridge, Dublin, in 1869, when Ancient Irish and Scandinavian remains were found together. As they are more or less corroded, it is not advisable to lay much stress on their present weights.
| grs. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Semicircular weight | 1852 | |
| 2. | Animal’s head | 1550 | |
| 3. | Circular | 1221 | |
| 4. | 958 | ||
| 5. | 634 | ||
| 6. | Oblong | 539 | |
| 7. | 459 | ||
| 8. | Quadrangular | 414 | (oz.) |
| 9. | 395 | (oz.) | |
| 10. | 220 |
There are certainly some interesting points of agreement between the weights and the gold ornaments, e.g. the weights of 220, 390, 414, 630, have corresponding weights in gold. The largest weight may be 4½ oz. of 410 grs.
Let us now return to the Irish monetary system, and see if we can determine more accurately its relation to that of Rome.
| 8 | grains of wheat | = | 1 | pinginn. | |||||
| 24 | ” ” | = | 3 | pinginns | = | 1 | screapall. | ||
| 576 | ” ” | = | 72 | ” | = | 24 | screapalls | = | 1 unga. |
As regards unga and screapall we have spoken already. Of their origin there is no doubt. The pinginn on the other hand is not so easy. The name is certainly Teutonic, said to be ultimately a loan word formed from pecunia. It seems to have been employed as a general term for the smallest form of currency. Hence we find the Saxon form (pendinga) applied to the 240th part of the lb., and of about 32 grs. wheat, and the Norse peningr used for the 240th part of the mark, whilst in Ireland the cognate form is applied to the 72nd part of the ounce, and is of the weight of 8 grains wheat.
The Irish employed the system of Uncia and Scripula. Shall we say then that this system was in vogue in Britain likewise before the time of Constantine and yielded slowly before the later one?
Since then it was common to the Kelts on both sides of the Irish Sea, and we find that in Ireland it was grafted upon an earlier system, of which the crosoch is a survival, we may reasonably infer that the Kelts of Britain had likewise a native system analogous to the crosoch. But further, of this we have strong evidence of two kinds. Caesar B. G. v. 12, when describing the British Kelts and their manners, says; pecorum magnus numerus. Utuntur aut aere aut nummo aureo aut annulis ferreis ad certum pondus examinatis pro nummo[462]. The passage has been mutilated by Editors, but this is the reading of the best MSS. Caesar thus tells us that they had a system of weights of their own. Secondly the evidence of the actual British Coins (cf. Evans, Coins of Ancient Britons) which are of a standard not Roman.
Now we have seen above that the Irish gold rings were weighed on a standard of almost 13·5 grs. Troy. Let us now see if the larger gold ornaments preserved in our Museums confirm or disprove the evidence of the rings. I shall first give the weights of those in the Royal Irish Academy[463]:
Crescent shaped ornaments: 1539, 434 (ounce of Brehon Laws?), 733, 1008, 255, 2013, 489, 552, 660, 1081, 98, 432 (ounce of Brehon Laws), 339, 400 (early ounce = Norse öre?), 187, 390 (old ounce?), 797 (2 ounces, 2 × 398½).
The following are not in Wilde’s Catalogue: 472, 505, 542, 540, 630, 647, 667, 687, 720, 722, 737, 1092, 4331.
Torques: 476, 1013, 1527, 3126, 3168, 4722, 5941, 6007, 10268.
Not in Wilde: 154, 342, 1946, 2715, 4172, 5207, 5275, 6012, 6881.
Armlets: 144, 158, 182, 329, 401 (small pre-Roman ounce), 421 (ounce), 487, 510, 684, 757, 894, 989, 1037, 1369, 1630 (4 ounces of 407 grs.?), 1716 (4 ounces of 426 grs.?), 2089 (5 oz. of 418 grs.?), 5635 (14 oz. of 402 grs.?), 6265 (15 oz. of 417 grs.).
Not in Wilde: 130, 145 (⅓ of oz. of 432 grs.?), 178, 184, 187, 199, 208, 215 (half oz. of 432 grs.?), 241, 289, 301, 303 (¾ oz. of 405 grs.?), 345, 396 (oz.?), 487, 509 (1¼ oz.?), 547 (1⅓ of oz.), 606 (1½ oz. of 405 grs.?), 630 (1⅓ oz. of 420 grs.?), 740, 753 (1¾ oz.), 1093 (2½ oz.?), 1190, 1210 (3 oz. of 405 grs.), 1267 (3 oz. of 422 grs.?), 1322, 1641 (4 oz. of 410 grs.), 1730 (4 oz. of 432 grs.?), 1836, 1836 (4½ oz. of 410 grs.?), 1940 (5 oz. of 388 grs.? or 4¾ oz. of 410 grs.?), 1980 (5 oz. of 396 grs. or 4¾ oz. of 410 grs.?), 2201, 6144 (15 oz. of 410 grs.?), 13557 (33 oz. of 410 grs.?).
Fibulae: 56 (4 crosachs), 179, 180 (⅖ oz. of 400 grs.?), 415 (oz.), 600 (1½ oz. of 400 grs.?), 1231 (3 oz. of 410 grs.), 1345 (3½ oz. of 432 grs.), 1596 (4 oz. of 399 grs.?), 2301 (5¼ oz. of 400 grs.), 2536 (6 oz. of 422 grs.), 17200 (43 oz. of 400 grs.?), 8092 (20 oz. of 404 grs.), 19440 (48 oz. of 405 grs.).
Not in Wilde: 61, 106 (¼ oz.), 170, 170 (⅖ oz. of 425 gr.), 191, 196 (½ oz.?), 207, 209 (½ oz.), 248, 275 (⅔ oz. of 411 grs.), 315 (¾ oz.?), 379 (oz.), 542 (1⅓ oz.?), 557 (1⅓ oz.?), 586 (1½ oz.?), 649 (1½ oz. of 432 grs.?), 1187 (3 oz. of 396 grs.?).
Gorgets: 1160 (3 oz. of 387 grs.?), 2020 (5 oz. of 404 grs.?), 3091 (8 oz. of 386 grs.?), 3444 (8 oz. of 430 grs.?).
The result of an examination of the foregoing weights is to show that in all probability the vast majority of them were made on a standard much lighter than the Roman ounce of 432 grs., which was in full use in mediaeval Ireland. We saw that the Roman ounce had been only 420 grs. down to the Second Punic war, and I suggested that originally it was of the same weight as the Sicilian talent 390-405 grs. Can we observe a similar increase in the Irish ounce? The ounce of 400-410 seems to point to a time when Kelt and Scandinavian had a common higher unit of similar weight corresponding to the value of a slave[464], just as the Sicilian and Macedonian talent of three ox units represented the same slave unit.
I shall now give the weights of the various ornaments of gold found in England, Wales and Scotland which are preserved in the British Museum. For these I am indebted to the great kindness of Mr F. L. Griffith of the Anthropological department.
Torques with rings.
Boxton, Suffolk, torque band twisted. 1·038 (2½ oz. of 415 grs.) with double ring. Weight 24·8 grs.
(A ring of 8 parallel sections, bronze plated with gold, injured, weighs 111 grs.; the locality is not known, but it seems connected with this class. Probably Irish, one in Wilde’s catalogue of 7 sections.)
Another double ring, Devonshire, weighs 563 grs. (1⅓ oz. of 420 grs.).
Lincolnshire torques; 1454 grs. (3½ oz. of 415 grs.), coiled band 119½. Quadruple ring, 93½ (¼ oz.?), another similar 93.
Cambridgeshire torques (not in B. M.) 1944 (5 oz. of 387? or 4¾ oz. of 410), rest in B. M. viz.:—bracelet 613 (1½ oz. of 412 grs.), two treble rings linked together, combined weight 358, double ring, weight 132 (⅓ oz.), another 131½, two others similar but smaller are each 68 (⅙ oz.).
Wales. Two plain bracelets, near Beaumaris, Anglesea, 1028 (2½ oz. of 410 grs.); 420 (1 oz.), crescent-shaped gorget, Caernarvon, 2861 (7 oz. of 410 grs.).
Scotland. Noard, near Elgin, torques formed of a plain twisted band, 207 (½ oz.): 215 (½ oz.): 192 (½ oz.): 119 grains.
The evidence points to an ounce of 420 grs. It is worth noting that this is just 5 times the weight of the latest British coins, 84-82 grs.
Whence then did the Britons obtain this pre-Roman standard? Was it of native development or borrowed from some other people? By Britons we must be careful to express not all the natives of Britain. They fall most certainly into at least two groups. I. The Kelts in the East and South East. II. The barbarous inhabitants of the interior, who subsisted by hunting and fishing, and who were probably of that Iberic race, which spread over all Western Europe before the advance of the Aryans. It is only with the first group that we are immediately concerned. They almost exclusively possessed the art of coining, as is shown by the area over which British coins are found. Furthermore Caesar tells us of the close relationship of the first group to the Gauls, as is shown by their tribal names, language and customs. In addition their coinage is similar. Now there can be no doubt as regards the source from whence the Gauls derived their coinage. As they got the art of writing from the Phocaeans of Massilia (founded circ. 600 B.C.), so likewise did they gain the art of money-stamping from the same famous town, as has been completely demonstrated long since. People are inclined at once to assume that the Gauls and Britons got their weight standards also from Marseilles. There is certainly some evidence to support this belief. Thus the gold torque lately found in Jersey weighs 11500 grs., which is exactly the mina of the Phocaic system at a time when 57½ grs. went to the drachm. Again we have seen that there were a considerable number of gold ornaments in Ireland and Britain which weigh 224-216 grs. This is the Phocaic (or Phoenician) stater. But the question is not so simple as it might appear at first sight in relation to the weight system, as will appear most readily by a short survey of the history of the monetary system of Massilia.
I. The earliest coinage consists of silver, small divisions of the Phocaic drachm (58-54 grains Troy). These have various symbols on the obverse, but have uniformly the incuse square on the reverse. These may be placed after 500 B.C. “Notwithstanding their archaic appearance, it does not seem that these little coins are much earlier than the middle of the 5th century.”
II. Next comes a series, chiefly obols for the most part with head of Apollo on obverse, and a wheel on reverse, the latter probably a development of the earlier incuse square. They are mostly obols of 13-8 grains.
III. About the middle of the 4th century the drachm first appears with the head of Artemis on obverse and a lion on the reverse, weighing 58-55 grains.
Now over all Gaul, and far into Northern Italy, and the valleys of the Alps, as far as the Tyrol, the coinage of Massilia made its way and was abundantly imitated. In fact these imitations formed the entire medium of those regions until the Roman conquest. The imitations of the little coins with Apollo and the wheel as reverse are found right into the north of France, and in England.
Did the Kelts borrow their 13½ grain unit from the 13 grain obol of Massilia, or is it of far earlier growth? The Etruscans used a unit of 13½ grs. in the 4th century B.C., and we find the Massaliotes having almost the same. Is the true answer this? All over Western Europe the ox unit of 135 grs. of gold was subdivided into 10 parts each of 13½ grs. These 10 parts corresponded to 10 sheep, the regular value of a cow. There was also a higher unit from Greece to Gaul and Britain corresponding to the slave. There were fluctuations in their worth in various times and places, but on the whole there was a tendency to raise the weight of the higher unit (ounce). But it is natural that the Kelts may have taken over into their system certain units from the Phocaic system which they used as multiples of their own smaller units, just as the Teutonic peoples took the Roman pound into their own system, and the natives of West Africa made the Spanish dollar the multiple of their own native weights, based on seeds. Some idea of the relative ages of Keltic gold ornaments may perhaps be got from applying the criterion of weight standard to them.