The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards

by William Ridgeway

At this point it will be well to remind the reader that the area occupied by the cattle-keeping races whom we have enumerated was continuous. There was no insuperable barrier between Indian and Persian, Persian and Mede, Mede and the dweller in Mesopotamia, or again, between Persian and Armenian, Armenian and the Scythian who lived in his ox-waggon on the plains of what is now Southern Russia: the Scythian was in contact with the tribes of the Balkan Peninsula, who in turn were in contact with the Greeks and the dwellers along the valley of the Danube, who in their turn joined hands with the peoples of Italy, Helvetia and Gaul. Hence the value of cattle would be more or less constant from one end of this entire region to the other. The purchasing power of the cow might be greater in some parts than in others, just as with ourselves a sovereign has the same value from Land’s End to John o’Groats, although the purchasing power of the sovereign as regards the necessaries of life may differ widely in different places within the limits of Great Britain.

It is only when some impassable natural barrier intervenes that there will be a difference in the value of the unit of barter. Thus, in the case of Britain we cannot suppose that the value of oxen was necessarily the same there as it was on the Continent. If it was it would be merely a coincidence. The difficulty of transporting live cattle in such ships as the Gauls or Britons possessed would have been too great to permit of such a free circulation of the unit as would have kept its value exactly even on both sides of the Straits. In fact it was only with the invention of steam that facilities for transmarine cattle-trading came in which could tend to level the value on both sides of an arm of the sea. In the earlier half of this century cattle were extraordinarily cheap in Ireland in proportion to the prices which they fetched in England, but yet the difficulty and expense entailed in sending them across in sailing ships effectually prevented the export. When the first steamers began to convey cattle from Ireland to England the profits were enormous, although the freight of a single cow cost, I believe, several pounds. Steam-power has done much to equalize prices, but still there is a considerable difference in the value of cattle on both sides of the Irish Sea. But where no impassable barrier of sea or forest intervened, we may fairly assume the ox carried much the same value from Northern India to the Atlantic Ocean.

We have already proved in the case of most of the peoples with which we have to deal that the ox was the unit of value. We have likewise found that these primitive peoples, whilst employing a cow or ox of a certain age as their standard of value, had adjusted accurately to this unit their other possessions: for instance, the heifer of the second year bore a distinct value relatively to the cow of the third year, so likewise the calf of the first year and the milk of a cow for a certain period. These thus acted as submultiples of the standard unit, and as they were the same in kind and only differed in degree, the various sub-units of the cow remained in constant proportion to the chief unit and to one another. On the other hand, when there was a distinction in kind between animals, as between oxen and sheep, the relative value would probably differ according to the scarcity or abundance of either kind of animal, which difference would probably arise from a difference in the nature of the pastures and climate. Thus we have found in some places ten sheep regarded as the equivalent of an ox, in others again eight. The same holds good of goats. In the case of these smaller animals we have seen the same fixed scale of values according to age, and the same method of rating the value of the milk of an ewe or the goat as we find in the case of the cow. Amongst people who possessed horses, camels and asses, the same principle holds good, horses and camels on account of their great value being treated as higher units for occasional use, just as the elephant is regarded at present in parts of Further India. The slave, as we have before remarked, played an important part as a higher unit or multiple of the ox, the average slave having a fixed value, whilst of course in the case of female captives of unusual beauty a fancy price would be paid. As climate and pasture would not affect the keeping of slaves, and as human beings were fairly universally spread over the area of the ox, the probabilities are that it was almost as easy proportionally to get slaves as oxen, and to keep the one as to keep the other from being stolen. Thus there would be more or less of a constant ratio between slaves and oxen. There would be a tendency likewise to regulate the number of slaves by the amount of work to be done, and as this work in the pastoral stage is almost entirely that of the neatherd, the shepherd, the swineherd and the goatherd, the number of male slaves at least would be to a certain extent conditioned by the extent of the flocks and herds. Such we may infer from the picture of the household of Ulysses in the Odyssey was the practice in early Greece. The faithful swineherd Eumaeus, and his fellow the good neatherd, with the rascally goatherd Melanthius, and their underlings, seem, with the addition perhaps of a few house slaves who would assist in tilling the chieftain’s demesne (temenos), to have comprised all the menservants. The master of the house worked hard himself in his field and at various handicrafts, as we find Ulysses boasting of his expertness both as a ploughman and mower; he was also a skilled carpenter, having with his own hands built the chamber of Penelope and constructed a cunningly wrought bedstead[86]. Hence the amount of help to be required from male slaves, exclusive of their duties as herdsmen, would be but insignificant. When we come to deal with the question of female slaves, the conditions of their number seem at first sight entirely different. The question of polygamy here comes in, and we must bear in mind that they were acquired not merely as servants to perform menial duties, but likewise to be wives and concubines. It is evident then that the number of such attendants will depend on the inclination and wealth of the house-master. But here again the problem is simplified, for inasmuch as his wealth consisted in cattle, a man’s power to purchase handmaidens depended on the amount of his kine. Thus at the present day the number of women owned by a Zulu depends entirely on the number of cattle he possesses. Hence there was likely to be a fairly universal ratio in value between female slaves and oxen, over such a region as we have sketched above. The facility too in transporting human chattels from one place to another would be an important element in keeping the price almost the same over all parts of the area. It is a very ancient principle with the slave captor and slave dealer to sell their captives far away from their original home. Among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers the slave from beyond the sea was always worth more than a captive from close at hand[87]. The explanation of this fact was suggested by Dr Cunningham, and the proof of it was found by Mr Frazer in Further India; for there the slave brought from a great distance is always more valuable than one who comes only a short way from his native land, as the possibility of the former’s running away and succeeding in escaping is so much less than that of the latter. This too seems to be the true explanation of the fact that in Homer we regularly find persons sold into slavery beyond the sea. Achilles sold the son of Priam to Euneos the son of Jason of Lesbos[88], the nurse Eurycleia had been brought from the mainland, Eumaeus the swineherd had been sold to Laertes by the Phoenicians who had captured him with his nurse in his distant home[89]. This constant tendency to sell in one country the captives taken from another would do much to equalize prices everywhere, and the price being paid in oxen the ratio in value between oxen and female as well as male slaves would tend to be constant.

We have now reviewed the ordinary kinds of wealth amongst primitive pastoral people, but we have touched but lightly as yet on the subject of the metals.

We saw above that the two earliest kinds of currency consisted either of some article of absolute necessity, such as the skins of animals in the colder climates, or of some form of personal ornament, which being both universally esteemed as well as durable and portable will be readily accepted by all members of the community. It is of pre-eminent importance that it be universally esteemed. Travellers who have ignored this principle have found out its truth to their cost in Central Africa in modern times. As the chief currency consists of glass and porcelain beads, which the traveller must carry with him or starve, the European is too apt to assume that provided the beads are bright and gaudy in colour all sorts will be taken with like readiness by the natives. Sir Richard Burton in a valuable appendix to his Lake Regions of Central Africa warns travellers against this dangerous error. The African has his own firmly rooted canons of aesthetics, and will take as payment only those sorts of beads which he considers suitable and becoming. Again, some explorers brought supplies of cheap Birmingham trinkets, thinking that they would captivate the negro eye, but they proved a complete commercial failure, for the natives much prefer trinkets and jewellery of their own manufacture, and which are more in keeping with their standard of good taste. Again, the Arabs of the Soudan will not take gold as payment, in consequence of which our army in the late expedition had to take with them large and inconvenient supplies of silver dollars, coined for the purpose. The Maria Theresa dollar is the recognised currency in that region, not because of any notions as regards currency properly speaking, but because the Arab’s taste lies in silver ornaments for himself, his weapons and his horse. He values then the silver because of its utility as an ornament, whilst gold he cannot employ to the same advantage.

I have thus digressed in order that it may be clearly seen that mankind were not seized with the sacra fames auri from the very first moment when the eye of some wild hunter or nomad first lighted on a gold nugget as it glistened under the sunlight in the stream.

A considerable period may have elapsed after mankind became acquainted with gold or silver before man cast away his necklets or bracelets of shells such as have been found along with the most ancient remains of the human race yet discovered in Europe, and put on his person in their stead similar ornaments beaten out of the gold from the brook. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the primitive Aryan or primitive Semite, who wore ornaments of shells, used these as instruments of barter, or even currency, in the same way as we have found the peoples of Asia and Africa using their strings of cowries, the aborigines of North America their wampum belts, and the Fijians their whales’ teeth.

In what particular region mankind first employed the precious metals to adorn his person, it is of course impossible for us to say. But beyond all doubt already in Egypt at the very dawn of history gold was playing an important part. The question of the relative dates at which the metals were first employed by man is one of great interest and importance in studying the history of human development. Of the four chief metals, gold, silver, copper and iron, we have no difficulty in deciding that iron is most certainly the latest to come into use. It is only within historical time that implements and weapons of iron have superseded those of copper and bronze, at least within the area occupied by the great civilized races. The reason for this is obvious: iron is not found native, but must be obtained by a difficult process of smelting, and even when obtained requires great skill to make it available for use. The Greeks of the Homeric Poems were still in the later bronze age, although iron was known and employed for weapons and implements. But as we have no immediate need to discuss the date of the introduction of iron, we may pass on to the three remaining metals.

It is obvious that if a metal is found naturally in such a condition that it can be immediately wrought into various forms for ornament or utility, such a metal is likely to have been employed at a much earlier period than one which is rarely if ever found in a native condition. Now silver is a metal which is rarely found pure, and considerable metallurgical skill is needed to render it fit for use. On the other hand gold and copper are both found in a pure state. We may then on this ground alone infer that mankind was acquainted with gold and copper before they as yet had learned the art of working silver ore. It next comes to be a question of the priority of gold or copper. The probabilities will undoubtedly be in favour of that metal which is most universally found native, and which is the most likely by its hue to attract the eye, and which is the most easily worked. On all these counts gold can claim priority over copper. Still copper is found native in various countries, Hungary, Saxony, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Cornwall.