Let us briefly state the peculiar doctrines of two leading continental metrologists. The veteran Dr Hultsch derives all standards of weight thus: The royal Babylonian cubit was based on the sun’s apparent diameter; the cube of this measure gave the maris, the weight in water of one-fifth of which was the royal Babylonian talent, which was divided into 60 manehs (minae) and each mina in turn into 60 shekels. For silver and gold however they formed their standard by taking fifty shekels to form a mina[253]: thus after elaborating with such care a scientific system, they abandoned it as soon as they came to deal with the precious metals.
M. Soutzo[254] in a clever essay has maintained that all the weight systems both monetary and commercial of Asia, Egypt, Greece, come from one primordial weight the Egyptian uten (96 grammes), or from its tenth, the kat (9·60 grammes). He ascribes the origin of these weights to an extremely remote epoch not far perhaps from the time of the discovery of bronze in Asia, and the invention of the first instruments for weighing: he considers also that bronze by weight was the first money employed in Asia, Egypt, and Italy, and that everywhere the decimal system of numeration has preceded the sexagesimal.
The evidence which we have produced in the earlier part of this work has I trust convinced the reader that gold, not copper, was the first object to be weighed; M. Soutzo’s assumption that the uten is the primordial unit is upset even for the Egyptians themselves by the passage already cited from Horapollo (p. 129).
The invention of coinage.
The evidence of both history and numismatics coincides in making the Lydians the inventors of the art of coining money. At first sight it may seem surprising that none of the great peoples of the East, whose civilization had its first beginning long ages before the periods at which our very oldest records begin, should have developed coined money, acquainted as they indubitably were with the precious metals, both for ornament and exchange. But a little reflection shews us that it has been quite possible for peoples to attain a high degree of civilization without feeling any need of what are properly termed coins. Transactions by means of the scales are comparatively simple, and as a matter of fact we shall find hereafter that even after a coinage had been for centuries established, men constantly had recourse to the balance in monetary transactions, just as down to the present moment the Chinese, who have enjoyed a high degree of culture for several thousand years, still have no native currency but their copper cash, foreign silver dollars being the only medium in the precious metals, whilst all important monetary transactions are carried on by the scales and weights. I may here likewise point out incidentally that where the supply of the precious metals is only sufficient to meet the demand for personal adornment, the establishment of a coinage in those metals will naturally be slow, whilst on the other hand where there is so abundant a supply of the metals, that there is more than sufficient for purposes of personal use, the tendency to produce a coinage will be much greater. If we enquire what were the metalliferous regions of Asia Minor, we at once find that Lydia above all other countries was especially rich in gold, or rather a natural alloy of gold and silver. The wealth of two Lydian kings, Gyges and Croesus, which has been through the ages a proverb consisted of vast quantities of this metal, which the Greeks called electron (ἤλεκτρον) or white gold (λευκὸς χρυσός, Herodotus, I. 50). The ancients regarded it as almost a distinct metal, doubtless because from their imperfect methods they experienced the greatest difficulty in extracting the pure metal. The pure gold in circulation in Asia Minor must have come from the valley of the Oxus, or the Ural mountains. Thus Sophocles speaks of “the electron of Sardis and the gold of Ind[255].” Even in the time of Strabo (A.D. 21), the process was regarded as so difficult that the great geographer thinks it worth while to quote from Posidonius (flor. 90 B.C.), the description of how the separation of the metals was effected (III. 146). It is therefore natural to find in Lydia, the land of gold, the first attempts at coined money.
“So far as we have knowledge,” says Herodotus[256], “the Lydians were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin.”
This statement is fully borne out by the evidence of Xenophanes[257], and also by the coins themselves, although some writers, e.g. Th. Mommsen[258], have held that it was in the great cities of Ionia, Phocaea and Miletus that money was first coined. “From the little we know of the character of this people (the Lydians) we gather that their commercial instinct must have been greatly developed by their geographical position and surroundings, both conducive to frequent intercourse with the peoples of Asia Minor, Orientals as well as Greeks.”
About the time when the mighty Assyrian empire was falling into decay, Lydia, under a new dynasty called the Mermnadae, was entering upon a new phase of national life.
“The policy of these new rulers of the country was to extend the power of Lydia towards the West, and to obtain possession of towns on the coast. With this object Gyges (who, according to the story told by Plato, was a shepherd who owed his good fortune to the finding of a magic ring in an ancient tomb, and who was the founder of the dynasty of the Mermnadae, circ. B.C. 700) established a firm footing on the Hellespont, and endeavoured to extend his dominions along the whole Ionian coast. This brought the Lydians into direct contact with the Asiatic Greeks.
“These Ionian Greeks had been from very early times in constant intercourse, not always friendly, with the Phoenicians, with whom they had long before come to an understanding about numbers, weights, measures, the alphabet, and such like matters, and from whom, there is reason to think, they had received the 60th part of the heavy Assyrio-Babylonian mina as their unit of weight or stater. The Lydians on the other hand had received, probably from Carchemish, the 60th of the light mina.