“Concerning the calf without horns, concerning an animal which is not castrated, or a ram, whether it is a whole burnt offering, or a peace offering, or a thank offering, there shall be to the priests five shekels of silver, and if it be a whole burnt offering in addition to the fee this weight of flesh, one hundred and fifty.
“Concerning a he-goat or a she-goat, whether it is a whole burnt offering, etc. there shall be to the priest one shekel of silver two zer.
“Concerning a sheep or kid or goat, whether it is etc., there shall be etc. ¾ shekel one [zer] of silver.
“Concerning a tame bird, or wild bird, ¾ shekel and two zer.”
Let me here remark that in Leviticus there is no mention whatsoever made of any fees to the priest, also that whilst according to the above version the giver of the victim gets the skin, in Leviticus (vii. 8) it is the priest who gets it as his perquisite, as seems also to have been the practice in Greece. For we know that the Spartan kings, who in their capacity of priests offered all sacrifices at Sparta, always got the skins as their payment[198]. That the sums mentioned are really the prices of the victims is made almost certain by the fact that at the famous Phoenician temple of Aphrodite at Eryx in Sicily the victims were kept ready by the priests to be sold to worshippers who wished to sacrifice, as we know from a curious story told by Aelian[199].
Whilst it would be of great importance for my purpose to have been able to regard the sums mentioned in the inscription as the actual value set upon the animals, even if we simply regard them as fees they still give us some aid. For as it is most unlikely that the fee for sacrificing would exceed the value of the victim to be sacrificed, we thus can obtain a minimum limit of value. We may then safely assume that the value of the ox was not less than 10 shekels of silver. On the other hand we shall find from Exodus what must have been the maximum value among the Hebrews at a comparatively late date. As the Punic ox cannot have been worth less than 1350 grs. of silver, and the Hebrew not more than 1760 grs., it is almost certain that the value of the ox at Carthage lay between these limits.
The pieces of silver mentioned in the inscription are probably ordinary silver didrachms of the Attic standard. The Carthaginians had coined silver in Sicily on the Attic standard from about 410 B.C., but issued no silver coins at Carthage itself until after the acquisition of the Spanish Silver Mines (241 B.C.), although gold, electrum, and bronze coins were minted. In Greece Proper in the 4th century B.C. gold was to silver as 10:1; we may therefore not be far wrong if we assume a similar ratio between the metals to have held at Carthage about the same period. That silver was scarce is shown by the fact that they did not coin it, although issuing gold, electrum and bronze. Ten silver didrachms would therefore = 1 gold didrachm of 135 grs., which is of course our ox-unit. This is a remarkable result, and of itself would make one believe that the sum represents the real value of an ox, which the practice at Eryx puts beyond doubt. We know that at Athens the people who were bound to provide the public sacrifices supplied very wretched oxen, so we need not be surprised to find precautions taken by the priests of Baal to ensure that proper animals should be provided for the altar, especially as they themselves got a share of the flesh.
Next let us see if that most ancient of all known civilized lands, Egypt, can produce from her store of monumental records any evidence for our purpose. Professor Brugsch[200], in his History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, gives from inscriptions a list of the prices of various commodities about 1000 B.C.: a slave cost 3 ten 1 ket of silver; an ox 1 ket of silver (= 8 ten of copper); a goat cost 2 ten of copper; 1 pair of fowls (geese?) cost ⅓ ten of copper; 1 hotep of wheat cost 2 ten of copper; 1 tena of corn of Upper Egypt cost 5-7 ten of copper; 1 hotep of spelt 2 ten of copper; 1 hin of honey 8 ket of copper; 50 acres of arable land 5 ten of silver. Of course there must be more or less uncertainty about some of these statements owing to the imperfect knowledge which we as yet possess. At first sight the reader naturally wonders how it is possible to calculate the value of the ox as here given, which is only 1 ket of silver, that is, the Egyptian ox of 1000 B.C. was only worth 140 grains of silver, whilst an ox hitherto has been worth about the same amount in gold. At first sight this is enough to stagger us, but a moment’s reflection makes the matter very intelligible. We have already noticed ([p. 59]) that at a certain stage in the history of the metals silver was far scarcer than gold, and that its rarity combined with its beauty no doubt made it to be eagerly sought and held in great esteem. We saw that the Arabs of the Soudan down to the present day prefer silver to gold; whilst in the earlier part of the present century when Japan was opened to European commerce the Japanese eagerly exchanged gold for silver at the rate of one to three, and even less, as they possessed no native silver, and were charmed with the beauty of the little known metal[201]. Marco Polo also tells us that “in the province of Carajan (the modern Yunnan) gold is so plenty that they give a saggio of gold for only six of the same weight of silver;” and of the province of Zardandan, five days west of Carajan, he says, “I can tell you they give one weight of gold for only five of silver[202].”
It is almost certain that in all countries at one stage silver must have been of higher value than gold; afterwards as its production became greater, it became equal in value, and finally, little by little, much less valuable, until at last the relation between the metals is 1:22. Of course we must add that there must have been always certain fluctuations, according as a sudden increase of output of one or other of the metals altered temporarily their relations. We have evidence that silver in early times in Egypt was held in higher esteem than gold. Thus Erman[203] says that according to ancient Egyptian notions silver was the most costly of the precious metals; for they always in an enumeration mention it before gold, and in the tombs ornaments of silver are of far rarer occurrence than those of gold. This circumstance is simply and sufficiently explained (thinks Erman) by the fact that Egypt herself possesses no deposits of silver, but must have obtained the metal from Cilicia. Under the 18th dynasty (1400 B.C.), the Phoenicians supplied Egypt with silver and under the new empire the supply had so increased that it was now evidently cheaper than gold, for the later texts always name silver after gold, just as we do. We have previously noticed the paucity of silver articles in the tombs at Mycenae which are commonly dated 1400 B.C.
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that towards the end of the Second Millennium B.C. gold and silver were almost of equal value, not alone in Egypt, but in other parts likewise of the ancient world. The great supply of silver had not yet been obtained which in the 10th century B.C. made silver at Jerusalem like stones. “As for silver,” says the sacred writer, “it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon” (900 B.C.)[204], who had “made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones[205].” By this time silver had become very cheap in Egypt likewise. At least if we can at all rely on the author of the books of Chronicles. For the king’s merchants “fetched up and brought forth out of Egypt a chariot for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for one hundred and fifty: and so brought they out horses for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria[206].”