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,