Iliad, XXI. 39. ‘And at that time he sold him into well-peopled Lemnos, sending him on shipboard, and the son of Jason gave a price for him and thence a guest-friend freed him with a great ransom, Eetion of Imbros, and sent him to goodly Arisbe; whence flying secretly he came to his father’s house (at Troy). Eleven days he rejoiced among his friends after he was come from Lemnos, but on the twelfth once more God brought him into the hands of Achilles again.’
71. ‘Then Lykaon besought him.… At thy table first I tasted meal of Demeter on the day when thou didst take me captive in the well-ordered orchard, and didst sell me away from my father (Priam) and my friends unto goodly Lemnos, and I fetched thee the price of an hundred oxen. And now I have been ransomed for thrice that, and this is my twelfth morn since I came to Ilios after much pain.’
The normal wergeld equated with the gold mina of 100 staters.
Now if a herd of 100 head of cattle had come to be a common normal wergeld in the Eastern world, and if the gold stater had come to be regarded as the ox-unit, it follows that the heavy gold mina of 100 staters would easily come to be adopted as a common equivalent for the wergeld of 100 head of cattle.
Nor are we without examples which show that this connection of the wergeld with the gold mina was not altogether foreign to traditional modes of thought.
In the laws of Gortyn[6] a man whose life was forfeit for crime might be redeemed by his kindred for 100 staters, i.e. the heavy gold mina.
The ransom of prisoners between certain Greek tribes or states according to Herodotus was two minas, i.e. one heavy mina.[7]
There is a curious instance in the Mosaic law of the connection of something like a wergeld with the mina of silver. In the last chapter of Leviticus the price to be paid for the redemption of a man dedicated by a vow to the service of the Sanctuary was 50 shekels of silver: that is, the light mina of silver.
II. THE SAME EQUATION REPEATED BETWEEN THE WERGELDS OF WESTERN TRIBES AND 200 GOLD SOLIDI OF CONSTANTINE.
The gold solidus of Constantine a half-stater.