Fig. 19. Egyptian Wall Painting showing the Weighing of Gold Rings[173].
The wall paintings which still survive the inroads of time, and the still ruder hands of Arabs or tourist, constantly exhibit representations of the payment of tribute. Again and again we see the tribute money in the form of rings being weighed in scales, “on which solid images of animals in stone or brass in the shape of recumbent oxen took the place of our weights[174].” Erman gives several representations of such weighing scenes (pp. 611-12), and infers from the fact that the weigh-master and his scales are always present at such payments, that the scales were the ordinary medium of such payments. Mere pictures however do not tell us anything about the weight of the rings therein pourtrayed. Fortunately however we have examples of such rings. Brandis[175], who was the first to seek for the unit on which these rings were fashioned, thought that they followed the heavy shekel (260 grs.), the double of our common unit. On the other hand F. Lenormant[176] thinks that they are really based on the light shekel, or rather on a lighter variety of the light shekel, of about 127 grains, and he is followed in this by Hultsch[177]. For our purpose it matters not whether the rings were made on the simple unit or its double, for there are not really two separate standards but simply one and the same. It is hardly likely that the Pharaohs would have done otherwise than the kings of Persia at a later time, who made their subject countries pay their tribute in the recognized currency of the kingdom, the gold being reckoned (as Herodotus says) by the Euboic talent, the silver by the Babylonian talent. There can then be but little doubt that these gold rings give us either actually the old Egyptian standard, or a standard so closely related to it that there was to all intents and purposes no material distinction between them.
Schliemann noticed a resemblance between some of the rings found at Mycenae and those represented in Egyptian paintings. It is not preposterous to suppose that the rings of Mycenae represent a kind of ring both in form and weight which was employed by the peoples of Asia Minor and Egypt, as well as in Greece. The contact between Egypt and Asia Minor is so close, communication so free, that it would be in itself most unlikely that any wide divergence of currency would exist in earlier times, whilst on the other hand her relations with the people of Ethiopia and Libya were likewise so close that they forbid any other conclusion. This is proved by the statement of Horapollo that the Monad (μονάς), which the Egyptians held to be the basis of all numeration, was equal to two drachms, that is, to 135 grs.[178]
Passing westward let us try and learn something from the early coinage of Italy. Unfortunately, with the exception of the Greek cities of Magna Graecia, all Italian mintages are of a comparatively late date. The Etruscans were probably the first of the non-Hellenic inhabitants to coin money, but unhappily their gold coins are of rather uncertain date. However, it is worth noticing that these coins are probably thirds, sixths and twelfths of the unit 130-5 grains, the weights respectively being 44 grs., 22 grs., 11 grs. This view borrows considerable additional probability from the fact that the silver coins with plain reverses, which very possibly belong to the same age as the earlier gold, are struck on the standard of 135 grains. Whilst in the latter case the Etruscans can be said to have struck their coins on the Euboic-Syracusan, or Attic-Syracusan, or Euboic-Attic standard which was in use at Syracuse, it cannot be so alleged with respect to their gold. For not only are the subdivisions of the unit unknown to the Attic or Syracusan gold, but the coins bear numerals, 𐌣 = 50, 𐌡𐌢𐌢 = 25, 𐌢𐌠𐌠< = 12½, 𐌢 = 10, which are found respectively on the coins of 44, 22, 11 and 9 grains, while on others again which weigh 18 grains we find the numeral 𐌡 = 5 grains[179]. Here then we have clear indications of a native Etruscan gold currency, existing prior to Greek influence and able to hold its own when the art of coining, and the very coin types themselves, were borrowed from the Greeks.
The Carthaginians were the close allies of the Etruscans in the struggle for the maritime supremacy of the Western Mediterranean against the Greeks, especially the bold Phocaeans, who gained over the fleet of both peoples a “Cadmean victory” at Alalia in Corsica (537 B.C.).
The first Carthaginian coinage was issued in the Sicilian cities, especially Panormus, at a comparatively late date, certainly not earlier than 410 B.C. As this coinage was entirely under Greek influences of comparatively late date, we cannot of course get any direct evidence from it as regards the original Phoenician standard. Carthage herself did not issue coins until about a century later, B.C. 310[180]. Hence we have no data of an early date. The gold coins struck in Sicily are didrachms of about 120 grains troy, with various subdivisions. This is usually described as the Phoenician standard, or rather the Phoenician gold standard of 260 grains considerably reduced. But the full unit of 240 is never found in the coins, and although we get coins of 2½ drachms (= 147 grains), it is more natural to regard the didrachm of about 120 grains as the real unit, in other words the slightly lowered common unit, which we already found fixed at about 127 grains in the Egyptian rings. In Sicily and Magna Graecia we are fairly certain that the unit was in early times that of 130 grains. But whether this was native or brought in by the Greek colonists, it is impossible to prove. All that we know for certain is that there was in Sicily and Magna Graecia, a small talent used only for gold; which was equivalent to three Attic gold staters, or in other words the threefold of our Homeric ox-unit. Thus an ancient writer says “the Sicilian talent had a very small weight; the ancient one, as Aristotle says, 24 nummi, the later 12 nummi. But the nummus weighs three half obols[181].” From this it is plain that the ancient form of this talent weighed 36 obols, that is, six drachms, or three staters.
Lastly, let us glance at those peoples who lay between Northern Italy and the Bay of Biscay. Although we have no direct evidence as to the unit by which the Gauls reckoned that gold of which, as we saw above, they had great store, before they came under the influence of either Phoenician, Greek, or Italian, we can perhaps make a justifiable inference from the fact that when the Gauls proceeded to strike gold coins in imitation of the gold stater of Philip of Macedon, they did not, as might have been expected, follow also the weight unit (135 grs.) of that coin. For as a matter of fact scarcely any of the Gaulish imitations exceed 120 grains troy[182]. It would appear then that the Gauls had already at that time a gold unit in use, somewhat lighter than the usual weight of our “ox-unit,” although we cannot of course ignore the possibility of its being the form of the Phoenician gold standard, which we found above was employed by the Carthaginians both in Sicily and Africa; in other words it may be maintained that the Gauls followed the standard on which the Phocaeans of Massalia struck their silver coinage. As, however, the coins of Massalia were drachms of about 55 grains the probability is not very high that the Gauls had no gold standard of their own for gold until they got one from the silver of Marseilles.
The Teutonic tribes who likewise issued imitations of the Philippus also followed a standard of 120 grs. for coins, from which it is likely that they as well as the Gauls employed a unit of 120 grs. for gold before they ever began to strike money.
We have now taken a survey of the most ancient gold standards we can find throughout the wide regions through which the common system of weights of after years prevailed, extending in our range from the heart of Asia to the shores of the Atlantic.
Our results will best be seen in the following table: