On looking at the table, we find that all our authorities are in complete harmony as to the amounts of the last five; Aredûs is 30 stirs, Khôr = 60, Bâzâî = 90, Yât = 180, and Tanâpûhar = 300 stirs. Let us first consider these. We must remember that on the third night after death the soul is judged by having its sins and good works weighed, and according as the one or other predominates, is the ultimate destiny of the soul foul or fair. It is thus essentially a scale of weights, not of coins. The arrangement of the numbers at once speaks for itself. 30 stirs = ½ mina on the Babylonian system, as will be seen on p. 251. 60 stirs (Khôr) = 1 mina, 90 stirs (Bâzâî) = 1½ minae, 180 (Yât) = 3 minae, and finally we get 300 stirs (Tanâpûhar) = 5 minae. What then is the weight of the stir? It is none other than the light Babylonian shekel (130 grains Troy).
Now let us approach the bewildering tangle of the first four degrees. It is evident that there are mistakes of numerals in some cases, e.g. in Column I., where the Agerept and Avoîrîst are made equal, both being only ⅟₁₆ of the first degree or Farmân, and also in Col. II. we have the Agerept greater than the Avoîrîst and Aredûs. But in Columns III. IV. and V. we get some elements of regularity. Two of them at least introduce coined money, thus giving us an indication that it is owing to the constant effort to make the lower weight conform to the monetary units of the various periods at which the Commentaries were written that the confusion has in great part arisen. We find the Farmân = 3 dirhams of 4 mads, to 3 coins of 5 annas, and to 3½ coins. Dr West, calculating the anna on the basis of the old rupee of Guzarat (Pt. III., p. 180), makes the coin of Col. IV. = 50 grains Troy, the old rupee being less than its present weight (180 grains). The Farmân in this case is 150 grains. The 3 dirhams of 4 mads each probably are the same in amount. So too are the three coins and a half of Col. IV. In which case each coin must weigh 43 grains (150 ÷ 3½ = 42⁶⁄₇), that is the regular weight of the dirhams struck by the Arab conquerors of Persia. Comparing Cols. III. and IV., we shall find the Agerept worth respectively 53 dirhams and 16 stirs, the Avoîrîst set at 73 dirhams and 25 stirs. We find then a very close approximation in comparative values. The same proportion for all practical purposes exists between the coin of 5 annas (50 grains) and the coin of 43 grains, as between the 53 dirhams, and 16 stirs and 73 dirhams and 25 stirs. But it is evident that in Col. III. the coin of 5 annas is a thing quite distinct from the dirhams mentioned in the same table, or else why is there a difference in nomenclature? The dirham is probably the usual dirham of 43-40 grains. But as we find 53 of these dirhams = 16 stirs of Col. IV. accordingly the stir of Col. IV. = 132 grains Troy, which is plainly the Babylonian shekel, and 73 dirhams = 25 stirs. This gives an average for the stir of 126 grains Troy, which again points directly to the light shekel of 130 grains Troy, or in other words to the weight of the Daric. Another piece of evidence in the same direction is the fact that the Sassanide kings struck their silver coins on the so-called Attic standard, which of course was identical with that in use from the earliest times in Asia, as the standard of the Daric. The founder of the Sassanide Dynasty, Ardeshir, struck his first gold coins on this standard (staters of 135-0), whilst all the silver coins of this dynasty are half-staters (65 grains) of the same standard. The statement in Col. I. that each stir has four dirhams probably refers to a later period, when 4 dirhams of the ordinary Muhammedan standard (43 grains Troy) were equivalent to a rupee (180-170 grains).
If it should be objected that the istir of the Avesta is the old Persic silver standard of 172 grains, my reply is that as it is evident from what we have seen above that in this weight system there were sixty staters in the mina, this must be the weight, not the silver coin, as there were only fifty staters in the money mina.
The ox of the Zend-Avesta according to tradition is therefore rated at 12 stirs or staters of 130 grains of silver each. From the time of Alexander right down to the third century after Christ it is probable that all through the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor gold was to silver as 12:1. If this were so, the ox of the Avesta was worth 130 grs. of gold, that is the weight of a Daric, and of the Homeric ox-unit.
Such then are the approximate results that we have been able to obtain regarding the value in gold of an ox in various parts of the ancient world. Of course I do not pretend that they have the same force as if they represented the value of the ox everywhere in one particular epoch, or as if we had found the ox directly equated to gold in every case. But on the other hand the persistency of prices in semi-civilized countries is a fact well known: for example, prices have changed but very slightly in India[208] during a long course of years, for although the silver rupee has sunk to about two-thirds of its nominal value in exchanges for gold, it purchases as much as ever in India. It is likely therefore that the conventional value of the ox would have remained unchanged for a long period of time, and the fact that our approximate values taken from various countries and from various centuries so closely coincide is a strong indication that such was the case.
Savages are still more conservative in their ideas of the relative value of certain articles; and when once a standard price has been fixed for certain commodities, it is almost impossible to get them to change.
Thus I am told by Mr W. H. Caldwell that, when he gave half-a-crown to a Queensland black for the first specimen of a certain kind of animal brought into camp, henceforth he had to pay the same amount for every specimen, even when they came in considerable numbers. So with the early men of Asia and Europe who first possessed cattle, and later on gold. Once a certain amount of gold was taken as the recognized value of a cow of certain age, the idea would become strongly rooted that so much gold was the proper equivalent of a cow. And it would only be in the lapse of centuries and with the development of cities and general commerce that the price of cattle would begin to fluctuate.
But even when such variation in price arose, it made no difference as regards the weight standard. The unit had already long been fixed and it remained unaltered, just as the beaver skin of account still means only two shillings, although a real beaver skin is now worth many times that amount.
Another reason why the price of cattle would remain stationary would be that in early times as all the cows were kept under more or less similar conditions of food, and there was no attempt at the development of superior breeds, there would be little difference in the value of animals of the same age.
The connection between the cow and the gold unit is rendered all the more probable not merely by the fact so often noticed that the words for money in different languages originally meant cattle, but by the remarkable fact that the earliest known weights are in the form of cattle. The relation between weight and money must always be close, but it comes still more prominently into view, when as yet there is no coinage, but gold and silver pass by weight alone. If then the value of a cow formed the first gold unit, we can at once understand why the first weights took the form of oxen and sheep.