Fig. 55. Didrachm of Tarentum.
Now besides the litra, which we found to be both a copper-unit and a silver coin in Sicily, there is another term of great interest, especially as it plays an important part in the history of Roman money. The general Latin name for a coin is numus, which in the later days of the Republic usually meant a denarius when used in the more restricted sense, but in the earlier period it was the term specially applied to the silver sesterce (sestertius). This is almost certainly a loan-word, for Pollux is most explicit in warning us that, although the word seems Roman, it is in reality Greek and belongs to the Dorians of Sicily and Italy[430]. It is always a name of a coin of silver in Sicily, being so used by Epicharmus. The coin meant by this poet cannot have been one of great value, for he says: “Buy me a fine heifer calf for ten nomi.” It was in all probability the Aeginetan obol, for Apollodorus in his comments on Sophron set it down at three half (Attic) obols, that is, almost 17 grs. This is confirmed by the fact that an Homeric scholiast makes the small talent weigh 24 nomi, which gives nearly 17 grs. as the weight of that unit. Crossing into Italy, we find that according to Aristotle[431] there was a coin called a noummos at Tarentum, on which was the device of Taras riding on a dolphin. This is the familiar type of the Tarentine didrachms which, from their first issue down to the invasion of Pyrrhus (450-280 B.C.), weigh normally 123-120 grs., although one specimen weighs 128 grs. This coin Mommsen recognized as the noummos of Aristotle. Professor Gardner afterwards suggested that the diobol, on which occasionally the same type is found, was rather the coin meant. Recently Mr A. J. Evans has almost proved this hypothesis impossible by showing that all the diobols yet known are probably later than the time of Aristotle[432]. As, however, this rests on negative evidence, and is liable to be overthrown at any moment by the discovery of an archaic diobol, it is advisable to cast about for some more positive criterion. Heraclea of Lucania, the daughter-city and close neighbor of Tarentum, as we know from the famous Heraclean Tables (which scholars are agreed in regarding as written about the end of the 4th cent. B.C.), employed as a unit of account a silver nomos. It is so probable that the nomos employed at Heraclea (circ. 325 B.C.) would be the same in value as that employed at Tarentum in the time of Aristotle (ob. 322 B.C.), that if we can prove the nomos of Heraclea to be a didrachm and not a diobol, we may henceforth hold with certainty that the nomos of Tarentum was the larger coin.
On the Heraclean Tables it is enacted that those who held certain public land should pay certain fines in case they had failed to plant their holdings properly; four olive trees were to be planted on each schoenus of land, and for each olive tree not so planted a penalty of 10 nomi of silver was to be exacted, and for each schoenus of land not planted with vines the penalty was two minae of silver[433]. The schoenus is identical with the Roman actus (half a jugerum), being the square of 120 feet. Four olive trees were the allowance for each schoenus. Now if we can determine the number of vines which were planted on a schoenus, we shall be able to get a test of the value of a nomos. Two minae of silver contained in round numbers 110 Tarentine didrachms of 123 grs. each, or 675 diobols of about 20 grs. each. Olives were many times more valuable than the vine, so that any result which will make the vine about the same value as the obol will be absurd.
Now Mr A. J. Evans, when in Southern Italy, at my request kindly ascertained that vines, when trained on poles on vineyard slopes, are usually about 3 yards apart, whilst when trained on pollard poplars (as is much more usual in Campagna), they stand about 6 yards apart. In the case of the former about 150 vines would go to a schoenus (1600 sq. yards), whilst in the latter case barely 50. We cannot doubt that the distance between the vines must have been much the same in ancient as in modern times.
If now we take the nomos to be a diobol, each vine is worth 4⅔ nomi, or 14 nomi, according as there are 50 or 150 vines to the schoenus. Now, as the valuable and slow growing olive is only worth 10 nomi, and it is impossible to believe that the relative values of olive and vine could have ever been such as those arrived at on the assumption that the nomos is a diobol, we must turn to the alternative course and take the nomos as a didrachm. The penalty for a schoenus of vines is two minae or 110 didrachms. If 150 vines go to a schoenus, each will be worth about ⅔ didrachm, 15 vines being equal to one olive, or taking 50 vines to the schoenus, each vine will be worth about two didrachms, 5 vines being worth one olive. This result is so rational that we need hesitate no longer to regard the well-known Tarentine didrachm as the nomos (noummos) of Aristotle.
There is such a difference between the nomos of Sicily, identical with the Aeginetan obol, and that of Tarentum that we are forced to conclude that the term nomos is not specially applied to any particular coin unit. In Sicily we found the native unit, the litra, identified in certain cases, at least in earlier times, with the Aeginetan obol as well as with the nomos. Why two names nomos and litra for the same unit? Is one Sicilian and the other Greek? This at least gives a reasonable explanation. The Dorians then in Sicily gave the name to their earliest coins, nomos, with them indicating the unit of currency established by law just as did nomisma among other Greeks. As in Sicily the Aeginetic obol was the legal coin (nomos) par excellence, so at Tarentum, where didrachms were the first coins to be struck, the term (nomos) was applied to that unit. We may therefore expect to find the term nomos applied to various kinds of coins among the Italiotes and Italians, according to the particular coin chosen by each state as its own unit of account.
Accordingly we find the term nomos applied to certain bronze coins struck on the sextantal (two ounce) and uncial standards, at Arpi and other towns, which are inscribed N II (the double nummus), N I (nummus), ..... (quincunx), .... (triens), ... (quadrans), .. (sextans), . S (sescuncia), . (uncia), and Σ (semuncia). The divisions being those of the as, it is clear that the nomos, or current coin in those places, was the reduced as. Finally, when the Romans first use the term nummus, it means the silver sestertius (2½ asses), the one-fourth of the denarius or ten-as piece, which weighed a scruple (i.e. 18½ grs.) at the time of the first Roman coinage of silver. Here we have all our positive evidence for the nomos. As diobols of 18 to 17 grs. are found in the coinages of various towns in Magna Graecia, such as Arpi, Caelia, Canusium, Rubi, and Teate, it has been plausibly held that such a diobol was the nomos par excellence of these states, and that it was from contact with them that the Romans learned both the use and the name of such a monetary unit. But Rome may have been influenced by her Etruscan neighbours, for, as we have seen, the smallest denomination in the second silver series of Etruscan coins (of which the coins weigh 129 grs., 32 grs. and 17 grs. respectively) is just the weight of the Roman sestertius, and bears the symbol 𐌡𐌠𐌠 (2½), just as the latter bears 𐆘 (2½). Taking into consideration these facts, it looks as if the Romans and Etruscans grafted on to a native system the diobol, or current silver coin of Southern Italy, the Romans (and for all we can tell the Etruscans likewise) adopting at the same time the name nummus. Finally, we observe that this nummus is identical with the Sicilian nomos, which in turn was found to be none other than the Aeginetic obol. The Roman sestertius being a scriptulum (17⁷⁄₁₂ grs.) in weight, we thus find a direct connection between the latter and the Aeginetic obol (16⅔ grs.). This need not surprise us, for it is most natural that in the welding of a weight system (partly foreign, and on the native side only employed for gold and silver) and of a system of measurement employed for bronze, certain features derived from the special silver units in use would be introduced into the new system, which afterwards became universal for weighing all commodities. The term Sicilicus[434] employed for the quarter-ounce is good evidence for this hypothesis. Its name seems to mean simply Sicilian. In weight it was about 108 grs. Now, didrachms struck on such a foot are found in the Greek cities of south-western Italy, at Velia, Neapolis and at Tarentum, after the time of Pyrrhus. Did the Romans, who must have carried on by weight all dealings in silver up to 268 B.C., treat such coins as quarter-ounces, and ultimately take the name of the coin (wrongly connecting it with Sicily) to designate the quarter-ounce? In like fashion it was probably discovered that the Aeginetic obol of the Greek colonists was about equal in weight to the line (scriptulum) which is one-twenty-fourth of the inch (uncia) of copper. Thus as there are 24 nomi in the Sicilian talent, so there are 24 scriptula in the Roman uncia. These considerations help to explain the relations which existed between the nomos (Aeginetic obol), sestertius, and scruple.
Mr Soutzo[435] gives a very different account of the nomos. Starting with the Egyptian hypothesis he makes all the Italian weight systems of foreign origin. He thus makes the Roman libra the ⅟₁₀₀ of a Roman talent, which he seems to identify with a light Asiatic talent[436]. Starting with the talent he supposes that on Italian soil it was divided into 100 librae instead of 60 heavy or 120 light minae, as in the East. Each of these librae or pounds was divided into 12 ounces, and each ounce into 24 fractions. He holds likewise that the Italians adopted from the East the use of bronze “comme matière première de leurs échanges,” at the same time as they obtained the first germs of civilization and their first weight standards. The centumpondium or 100 weight therefore he takes as his prime unit. But besides the talent and the mina and the centumpondium and libra or as, according to Mr Soutzo, “all the Italian peoples availed themselves of an intermediate weight unit: this was the nomos or decussis[437]. This unit was the libral nomos, the twelfth of the heavy talent, being worth ten minae or librae, and the libral decussis, the tenth of the centumpondium, weighing 10 librae.” The monetary nomos and decussis, he thinks, played an important part in the history of Italian coinage. He admits however that no specimen of either nomos or decussis of libral standard is known, the heaviest being a decussis of the Roman triental (one-third) standard, whilst the pieces from Venusia and Teanum Apulum marked N I and N II (nomos and double nomos), representing 10 and 20 minas respectively, belong to a still much more reduced standard. The simple multiples of the as (libra) and litra, such as the tripondius and dupondius, were just as rarely cast in the libral epoch. The mina or the as with their fractions, on the contrary, were the kinds most employed: originally the series was ordinarily composed of the as (marked I or sometimes ............), the semis (S), the triens (....), the quadrans (...), the sextans (..), the uncia (.) and semuncia (Σ). In some series the as is rare and the semis is wanting, but in addition to the other denominations here given the quincunx (:·:) and the dextans (S...., 1 semis + 4 unciae) are found. The presence or absence of these pieces characterizes certain Italian and Sicilian monetary systems[438]. All the evidence virtually which can be produced by Soutzo for this hypothetical nomos is that at Syracuse the Corinthian stater of 135 grs. was called a decalitron, that the Tarentine didrachm of 128 grs. (max.) was similarly divided into 10 litras, that the Romans employed the tenfold of the as (decussis) and when they coined silver called their silver unit a denarius as representing 10 copper asses, and the fact that certain copper coins such as those of Arpi, called nomi, were evidently regarded as containing 10 units, the half being the quincunx. But, as we have already seen, the real explanation of these coins seems to be that they represent reduced asses. We must remember that the heaviest Roman as yet known is only 11 ounces, whilst the great proportion of the earliest specimens are only 10 unciae or (dextantals). When the idea of a real copper currency for local purposes gained ground, and it was found that it was not necessary to have the as of account of full weight, and at the same time to enable the state to make a profit of this copper currency which was solely for home use (just as our Mint makes a large profit of our silver coins), the first stage in reduction was to take off an ounce, or much more frequently two full ounces. I have already pointed out the vitality and universality of the uncia as an unit, and have given the reasons for this. Hence arose asses or bars of 10 ounces. The number 10 had of course great advantages, and presently, when further reductions in the copper currency took place, certain communities clave fast to the decimal system and, instead of taking off some more whole ounces, simply reduced the ounce itself, and retained the denomination, continuing to place the marks of value as before. In those Hellenized states of Apulia just referred to this reduced copper as or litra was the legal unit, and therefore denominated a nomos, especially as it probably corresponded in value (at least as money of account) to the silver unit or nomos in circulation in each district. But whilst Mr Soutzo seems wrong in his view of the nomos, there can be no doubt that there was a consensus among the Sicilians and Italians in favour of making an intermediate unit between 1 and 100, the tenfold of the litra and as, into a higher unit. The Syracusan decalitron and the Roman decussis and denarius are incontrovertible facts. For the latter at least a most interesting connection with a unit of barter can be proved. We saw that by the Lex Tarpeia (451 B.C.) a cow was counted at one hundred asses (centussis, centumpondium) whilst a sheep was estimated at 10 asses (decussis). The reader will observe that, even if the theory were true that the Roman centumpondium is the starting-point of the Roman weight system, and that it was borrowed from the East, the cow all the same plays a most important part in the founding of the system. It would be another instance to prove the impossibility of framing a weight standard independent of the unit of barter, just as we have already seen that the Irish, when borrowing a ready-made weight system from Rome, found it absolutely necessary to equate the cow to the ounce of silver, and as Charlemagne had to adjust the solidus by the value of the same animal. If again the centumpondium and as grew up independently as weight units on Italian soil, and copper was weighed there before gold, the cow is evidently the basis of the system; whilst again, on my hypothesis that copper went by bulk in bars of given dimensions, and was not weighed until long after the scales had been employed for gold, the cow is directly connected with that unit of weight (the gold ox-unit of 135 grs.) which ultimately forms the basis of the uncia (as weight) and libra. On every hypothesis alike the cow must be retained as the chief factor in the origin of the Roman weight system. It will be observed that Mr Soutzo offers no explanation why the Romans, instead of retaining the sexagesimal division of the talent which they are supposed to have imported, subdivided it according to the decimal scale. It cannot be alleged that they had any deep-rooted antipathy to the duodecimal system, seeing that the as was divided into 12 unciae, and the ounce into 24 scruples. The fact that the Romans resisted in this respect the Greek influences, which were so potent a factor in their civilization, is strong evidence that the employment of the tenfold and hundredfold of the as was of immemorial native origin, and most intimately connected with the animal units, which must certainly be held to be autochthonous. As we found in Further Asia and Africa hoes or bars of metal as the lowest unit of currency, so many hoes being worth a kettle, so many kettles a buffalo, so in ancient Italy 10 bars (asses) of copper made a sheep, and 10 sheep made a cow. It is exceedingly probable that the same system prevailed among the Sicels and Sicilian Greeks, 10 litras going to the sheep, 10 sheep to the cow. For we saw on an earlier page that at Syracuse down to the time of Dionysius the cow remained the unit of assessment, just as at the present moment the buffalo is the unit of assessment among the villages of Annam; and, just as with the latter the buffalo is the unit of value, so we may well infer that with the Sicilians the cow played the same rôle. It may therefore be assumed with considerable probability that the employment of the decalitron and decussis as monetary units was originally due to their connection with the value of the sheep.