We have now proved four things: (1) the general distribution of the ox throughout our area, (2) its universal employment as the unit of value throughout the same region, (3) the equable distribution of gold throughout the same countries, and (4) that gold is the first of all commodities to be weighed. Our next step will be to show that gold was weighed universally by the same standard, and that this standard unit in all cases where we can find record was regarded as the equivalent of the ox or the cow.

We have already seen that the gold talent of the Homeric Poems, which was in use among the Greeks before the art of stamping money had yet become known, weighed about 130 grains troy (8·4 grammes). In historical times gold was always weighed on what was called the Euboic (or Euboic-Attic) standard. Thus when Thasos began to strike gold coins in 411 B.C. after her revolt from Athens they weighed 135 grs. Unless this had been the time-honoured unit employed for gold in that island so famous for its mines the Thasians would hardly have employed it. Certainly they would not adopt it simply because it was the standard of the hated Athenians, especially as they had a different standard for silver.

The gold coins of Athens struck a few years later are on the same standard of 135 grs, and when Rhodes at the beginning of the fourth century B.C. began to coin gold, she used the same unit, although she employed for silver the unit of 240 grs. Cyzicus also, although coining her well-known electrum Cyzicenes on the Phoenician standard, used the unit of 130 grs for pure gold.

This standard, as we shall presently see, virtually remained unchanged for gold down to the latest days of Greek independence. It likewise prevailed in Macedonia and Thrace. For when Philip II. coined the gold from the mines of Crenides into staters on the so-called Attic standard of 135 grains, he did nothing else than employ for the first gold coinage of his country the unit which had there, as in Greece Proper, prevailed for many ages for the weighing of gold. For since gold was first coined in that region about 350 B.C., and yet silver coins had been current in Thrace and Macedon since about 500 B.C., it would be absurd to suppose that there was no unit by which gold in ingots or rings could be appraised.

I have shown elsewhere that the rings found by Dr Schliemann at Mycenae were probably made on a standard of 135 grains troy. It is natural to suppose that if within the area of Greece Proper gold rings were fixed according to a definite standard, and that standard the Homeric talent, the Macedonians and Thracians would possess a similar unit in the fifth century B.C. But there is a small piece of literary evidence to show that the Macedonians were acquainted with the gold unit, which we already know as the Homeric ox unit. Eustathius tells us that “three gold staters formed the Macedonian talent[170].” Whether Mommsen is right in thinking that this name was given to the talent in Egypt in consequence of its having been introduced by the Lagidae (themselves Macedonians) or not, it equally indicates that from of old such a talent, confined in use to gold, and the threefold of the Homeric ox-unit, had existed in Macedonia. Hence Philip II. did not require to go to Athens to seek for a standard for his new gold coinage. Passing into Asia we find there the shekel as the Daric (Δαρεικός), the normal weight of which is 130 grains troy. This standard prevailed all through the Persian empire, thus extending into the countries now represented by Afghanistan and Northern India. Numismatists have pointed out the fact that Philip coined his staters some five grains heavier than the rival gold currency of the Persian empire, as if to enhance the estimation of his new coinage. This explanation is perhaps over subtle; at all events it is interesting to find the successors of Alexander the Great in the Far East, the kings of Bactria, coining their staters not on the standard of 135 grains, but rather on that of 130, in other words following the native standard which the Daric simply represented as a coin. Thus Dr Gardner[171] in his Table of Normal Weights makes the Bactrian stater of what he calls the Attic standard weigh 132 grains and the drachm 66 grains, and it is also admitted that from the time of Eucratides the Greek kings of Bactria adopted a native standard.

This new standard seems to be identical with that called by metrologists the Persian, on which [silver] coins were struck in all parts of the Persian empire, notably the Sigli stamped with the figure of the Persian king, which must have freely circulated in the northern parts of India that paid tribute to the king. Whether the reason given for the use of this standard is right or not, we may see hereafter, when a different explanation will be offered to the reader. That great Indian archaeologist, General Cunningham[172], goes further, and maintains “that the earliest Greek coins of India, those of Sophytes, are struck, not on the Attic standard, but on a native standard which is based on the rati or grain of abrus precatorius.” Whatever may be the ultimate decision of this dispute, it is enough for our purpose that whilst undoubtedly a native silver standard sooner or later replaced the Attic, so likewise the Attic standard, if used for gold, did not remain at its full weight of 135 grains, but rather approximated to that of the native standard of the Daric (130 grains). It is almost certainly a native standard which appears as the weight of the gold piece (suvarṇa) in the tables of weights given in the Hindu treatise called Līlāvati, written in the seventh century A.D., before the Muhammadan conquest of India, and which we shall notice presently at greater length. This suvarṇa is the only unit for gold mentioned in the tables, and its weight can be demonstrated to be about 140 grs troy. That the gold unit only varied 10 grains in the course of 10 centuries is very remarkable.

Let us now return to the ancient peoples of Further Asia Minor and Northern Africa. The Phoenicians and their neighbours in historical times seem to have used the double of the unit of 130 grains. It is quite possible that this doubling of the unit can be explained by a simple principle, which will likewise fit in with the threefold of the same unit, which we have just now had to deal with under its name of Macedonian Talent. But how far this double unit prevailed in earlier times among the Semites it is not easy to tell. However, the evidence to be derived from the Old Testament is in favour of the priority of the unit of 130 grains. But this is not all our evidence. The Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions give us considerable information regarding the currency not simply of Egypt itself but likewise of neighbouring countries. For when Egypt was at the zenith of her glory great conquerors like Thothmes III. and Rameses II. (the Sesostris of Herodotus) carried their arms into all the surrounding lands and reduced them to the position of tributary vassals. Many of the tablets which recount their exploits contain the tale of the spoil, and describe it as consisting amongst other things of gold rings.

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:

A glance at the table will suffice to show the truth of the proposition which we laid down as the object of this chapter, viz., that over the whole of the area with which we are dealing, the same unit with but little variations and fluctuations was employed for the weighing of gold.

Having proved the universal employment of the ox as a chief unit of barter, the universal distribution of gold, the priority of that metal both in discovery and in being weighed, and finally, in the preceding pages, the remarkable fact that to all intents and purposes the same unit of weight during many centuries was employed in its appraising, we advance to our next proposition, that this uniformity of the gold unit is due to the fact that in all the various countries where we have found it, it originally represented the value in gold of the cow, the universal unit of barter in the same regions.

It will of course be hardly possible for us to find data for a direct proof that in all the countries given in our table as employing the gold unit, that unit really represented the value of the ox. In some cases we shall be able to produce a fair amount of evidence more or less direct, whilst in others owing to the necessity of the case the evidence will be almost wholly inferential. Finally we shall be able to bring forward a very cogent form of proof by demonstrating the absolute necessity felt by barbarous persons of equating a ready made weight standard, which is being taken over from their neighbours, to the older unit of barter, and likewise the necessity felt by semi-civilized peoples under certain circumstances, even when long accustomed to the use of coined money, of returning to the animal unit as a means of fixing the standard of their coinage.

Starting first with the Greeks, we have already seen at an early stage in this work that the talent of the Homeric Poems was the equivalent of the ox, the older barter name being as yet the only term used in expressing prices of commodities, and the term talent being confined to the small piece of gold.

Passing next to the Italian Peninsula and Sicily, although possessed of certain definite statements as regards the value in copper of an ox in the fifth century B.C., nevertheless, owing to the uncertainty which still exists as regards the relative value of gold, silver and copper at Rome, we shall encounter considerable obstacles in our attempt to find the value of an ox in gold.

As Dr Theodore Mommsen[183] has laid down certain propositions in reference to inter-relations in value of the metals at Rome, which were generally received until a very recent period, when Mr Soutzo[184], in a clever brochure, put forward views of a widely different character which have met with the approval of some competent critics, and as the matter is still sub judice, I think it best, after briefly giving the historical evidence for the value of cattle, to give the views of both these writers.

The Law known as Aternia Tarpeia (451 B.C.) dealt with questions of penalties; certain notices of it fortunately preserve for us some valuable material. Cicero[185] says, “Likewise popular was the measure brought forward at the Comitia Centuriata in the fifty-fourth year after the first consuls (451 B.C.) by the consuls Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius concerning the amount of the penalty.” To the same law Dionysius of Halicarnassus refers[186]: “They ratified a law in the Centuriate Assembly in order that all the magistrates might have the power of inflicting punishment on those who were disorderly or acted illegally in reference to their own jurisdiction. For till then not all the magistrates had the power, but only the Consuls. But they did not leave the penalty in their own hands to fix as much as they pleased, but they themselves defined the amount, having appointed as a maximum limit of penalty two oxen and thirty sheep. And this law continued to be kept in force by the Romans for a long time.” Festus (s.v. Peculatus p. 237 ed. Müller) says: “Peculation (peculatus), as a name for public theft, was derived from pecus ‘cattle,’ because that was the earliest kind of fraud, and before the coining of copper or silver the heaviest penalty for crimes was one of two sheep and thirty oxen. That law was enacted by the Consuls T. Menenius Lanatus and P. Sestius Capitolinus. As regards which cattle, after the Roman people began to use coined money, it was provided by the Tarpeian Law that an ox should be reckoned at 100 asses, a sheep at 10 asses.”

Again Aulus Gellius[187] has a curious notice, too long to quote in full, which ends “on that account afterwards by the Aternian Law ten asses were appointed for each sheep, one hundred for each ox.”

Cicero and Dionysius are probably right (as Niebuhr thinks) in saying that Tarpeius and Aternius fixed the number of animals. C. Julius and P. Papinius, who were Consuls in 429 B.C., to whose reckoning of fines (aestimatio multarum) Livy refers (IV. 30), probably changed the penalties in cattle into money equivalents. Festus and Gellius have evidently muddled their authorities, having interchanged the words sheep (ovium) and cows (bovum). But the important thing is that both are agreed in giving the value of the cow at 100 asses.

Now Dr Hultsch (Metrologie², 19. 3), following Mommsen, shows that gold being to silver as 12½:1, the small talent, called the Sicilian, of which we have just spoken, confined exclusively to gold, would be exactly equivalent to a Roman pound of silver (135 × 3 × 12½ = 5062 grains of silver; whilst the Roman lb. = 5040 grs.). Since at Rome, previous to the reduction of the As in 268 B.C., a Scripulum of silver was equivalent to a pound of copper or as libralis, and there are 288 Scripula or scruples in the pound, it follows that the pound of silver or its equivalent the Sicilian gold talent was worth 288 asses librales. This gold talent = 3 Attic staters (or ox-units), therefore 1 Attic stater = 96 asses librales. But we learned from Festus and Gellius that the value of the cow fixed in 429 B.C. was 100 asses. From this it appears that the value of the ox on Italian soil at this period was almost exactly the same as the traditional value which it had in the Homeric Poems, and which it continued to have in the Delian sacrifices in later times. The mere difference between 96 and 100 asses calls for no elaborate comment. It is enough to remark after Hultsch, that the further we go back the cheaper copper appears to be in relation to silver. This fact will easily explain any discrepancy. Thus Mommsen’s view that silver was to copper as 288:1 gives us a most interesting result.

Let us now turn to Mr Soutzo’s view on the same subject. He maintains that at no time was the relation between silver and copper greater than 120:1, basing his argument on the assumption (which we shall find to be against the statements of the ancient writers) that when the first silver denarius or 10-as piece was coined in 268 B.C., as the as at that time weighed only two unciae, or one-sixth of a pound, silver was to copper as 120:1. He also argues from the fact that in Egypt, under the Ptolemies, the same relations existed between silver and bronze. He likewise maintains that the relation between gold and silver in Italy and Sicily at this period was as 16:1, from which it follows that gold was to copper as 1920:1. This of course gives us as the value of a cow about 390 grains of gold, that is about three gold staters, or ox-units. We would certainly be able to prove that at no time or place in the ancient world was a cow of so great a value in gold.

I shall refrain from any discussion of the merits of either view for the present. I will only add one observation: Mr Soutzo (p. 17) regards the Italian weight standards as borrowed from the East, and starts with bronze as the earliest stage in the history of the weights. The only clearly defined unit of Roman growth according to him is the Centupondium, which he says is the same as the Assyrian talent. From this the Romans obtained their own libra or pound by dividing their talents into 100 parts instead of 60. We shall find hereafter that this is an untenable position, but meantime it is interesting to find the Centupondium, or sum of 100 asses taken by an unprejudiced writer as the basis of the Roman system in the light of the fact that the ancient Roman value of the cow is likewise 100 asses. If Mr Soutzo was right, our thesis finds complete support, as it would plainly appear in that case that, although the Italians received their weight-unit ready made, they found it nevertheless necessary to equate the new metallic unit so obtained to the cow, the older unit of barter.

In Sicily we have an opportunity not merely of finding the approximate value of a cow in gold without having to deal with the disturbing question of the relative value of copper and silver, but also of showing that Soutzo’s relation of 120:1 as that between silver and copper in early Italy must certainly be wrong, and that Mommsen’s view is in the main correct. The famous Sicilian poet Epicharmus has left us a line: “Buy me straightway a nice heifer calf for ten nomoi[188].” As regards the value of the nomos, or nummus (νόμος or νοῦμμος), Pollux supplies us with some definite information.

In passage (IX. 87) already quoted he says: “Yet the Sicilian talent was the least in amount, the ancient one, as Aristotle says, weighed four and twenty nummi, but the later one twelve; now the nummus is worth three half obols.” These three half obols plainly mean the ordinary half obols of the Attic standard. As the Attic drachm is 67½ grains (normal), 65 grains in actual coins, the ⅙ or obol = 11 grains roughly speaking; three half obols therefore weigh 16½ to 17 grains. Accordingly, if we take the weight of the nummus or litra at 16 to 17 grains of silver, we shall not be wide of the mark. The price then of a good heifer calf was 10 nummi or 160 to 170 grains of silver. The term moschos (calf) is used rather vaguely by various Greek writers, but fortunately by the aid of the Sicilian poet Theocritus, we are certain that it means a calf of the first year not yet weaned; for he speaks[189] of putting the moschos to the cows to suck. From what we have seen (p. 32) of the relative values of cattle of different ages, it is tolerably certain that no full-grown cow would be worth less than six or more than ten calves of the first year. Hence the Sicilian cow, at the end of the sixth century B.C., must have been worth from 960-1020 to 1600-1700 grains of silver. We cannot tell exactly what was the ratio between gold and silver in Sicily or Italy at this time, but as we find it was 14 to 1 in Attica in 440 B.C., the probability is that it was not very far from that in Sicily. It certainly must have been at some point between 15:1 and 12:1. Taking it at 12:1, the value of the cow would range from 80 to 141¾ grains of gold, whilst in the ratio of 15:1 the range is from 64 to 113 grains of gold. It is thus absolutely certain that the value of a cow in Sicily in the sixth century B.C. must lie within the limits of 64 to 141 grains, and if the calf of Epicharmus is a suckling, the range in the value of the cow must be from 113 to 140 grains. This is all we require for practical purposes, and it will be admitted that the value of a cow in Sicily comes very close to our Homeric ox-unit of 130-5 grains.

We are now in a position to test the truth of Mr Soutzo’s hypothesis. It will be conceded that at the beginning of the fifth century B.C., the cow must have had about the same value both in Italy and Sicily. The cow in Italy was worth 100 Roman pounds of copper, in Sicily about 1650 grains of silver. If Soutzo is right in saying that silver was to copper as 120:1 on multiplying 1650 by 120 we ought to get a result in copper corresponding to 100 Roman pounds: 1650 × 120 = 198000. Taking the Roman pound before it was raised at about 5000 grs. the Sicilian cow was worth 39 pounds of copper (198000 ÷ 5000 = 39). It is absurd to suppose that even at any time the Italian cow could have been worth 2½ times the Sicilian. Let us now apply the same test to Mommsen’s doctrine, and multiply 1650 grs. of silver by 300. (I take this as being more likely than 288 to have been the relation between copper and silver in the fifth century B.C.). 1650 × 300 = 495000 ÷ 5000 = 99 pounds of copper. The result is too striking to admit of our coming to any other conclusion than that Mommsen is right.

Next let us examine his doctrine that in ancient Italy gold was to silver as 16:1. Mr Soutzo[190] supports this view by three arguments: (1) that when Rome in the course of the Second Punic War issued gold coins for the first time, gold was to silver as 16:1; (2) Mr Head[191] has shown that at Syracuse under the despot Dionysius (405-345 B.C.) gold was to silver as 15:1; (3) that certain symbols on the gold coins of Etruria when interpreted as referring to silver litrae give the proportion between the metals as 16:1. The same answer can dispose of the first two arguments. The state of affairs both at Rome in B.C. 207, and at Syracuse under Dionysius, was quite exceptional. Rome was in a state of bankruptcy, her subjects largely in revolt, the Lex Oppia (215 B.C.) prevented women from wearing more than half an ounce of gold ornaments[192]. It is therefore irrational to treat as normal the relation found to exist between the metals at such a crisis.

Similarly at Syracuse the relations between the metals were completely upset by the wild conduct of Dionysius, who forced his subjects to take coins of tin at the same rate as though they were silver. Moreover any evidence to be drawn with reference to the ratio between silver and gold at Syracuse in the time of Dionysius is completely nullified by the fact that in the reign of Agathocles (B.C. 307) gold was to silver as 12:1[193]. It is evident therefore that if in 207 B.C. gold was to silver all over Italy as 16:1, there must have been a great appreciation of gold. Are we not then justified in regarding the ratio of 16:1 as exceptional, and that of 12:1 as the more regular? That great fluctuations in the relations of the metals did take place in Italy, we know from a statement of Polybius that in his own time in consequence of the great output of gold from a mine in Noricum gold went down one-third in value. Silver was scarce in Central Italy, for it was only after the conquest of Magna Graecia that Rome found herself in a position to issue a silver currency. On the other hand there must have been a large and constant supply of gold coming down from the gold-fields of the Alps in exchange for the bronze wares of Etruria. Now as at Athens, where silver was so plenty and gold in earlier days scarce, the ratio was never higher than 15:1, it is impossible to suppose that in Northern and Central Italy, where the conditions were contrariwise, the ratio can ever have been in ordinary times higher than 12:1.

It is quite possible that after the Gauls got possession of Northern Italy, the supply of gold which reached Etruria and Latium may have been considerably reduced, and this would perfectly explain the relation existing at a certain period between gold and silver coins in Etruria, supposing that Soutzo’s interpretation of the symbols is correct. But as we have no literary evidence to check off any deductions drawn from the coins, it is impossible for us to say whether the symbols on the gold pieces refer to units of silver or bronze.

Returning to the Kelts, the close kinsfolk of the Italians, the reader will recollect that the Gauls struck their imitations of the stater of Philip of Macedon on a standard of 120 grs., 15 grains lower than the weight of the archetype. Now similar but still more barbarous imitations of Philips gold stater are found in Germany. These Rainbow dishes (Regenbogenschüsseln), as they are popularly termed in allusion to the picturesque superstition that a treasure of gold lies at the foot of the rainbow, and also to their scyphate form, are found in especial abundance in Rhenish Bavaria and Bohemia. Like the Gaulish imitations of the Philippus from which they are copied, they follow a standard of 120 grs. (and like the Gauls the Germans struck quarters of this coin, a division wholly unknown to the Greeks)[194]. In the region just indicated dwelt the ancient Alamanni, and there can be no doubt that it was this people who issued the coins found there. Now the Alamanni were among the barbarians who after having overrun the provinces of the Roman Empire, committed to barbarous Latin their immemorial laws and institutions. In the Laws of the Alamanni the best ox is estimated at five tremisses[195], that is 1⅔ solidi, or in other words 120 grs. of gold, the medium ox = 4 tremisses = 96 grs. The coincidence that the value of the ox in gold is the actual weight of the coins of the Alamanni is too striking to admit of any other explanation than that the gold coins of this people were struck on the native standard, the ox-unit. The Keltic and Teutonic tribes were so intermixed that we may plausibly infer that the Gauls had reduced the weight of the Philippus to 120 grs. because owing to gold being less plentiful and cattle more abundant to the north of the Alps, from a very remote time the ox-unit throughout Gaul and Germany was slightly lower than along the Mediterranean.

In the Laws of the Burgundians the value of an ox is set at 2 solidi = 144 grs. of gold[196]. This of course is considerably more than that of the Alamannic ox, but when we consider the late period at which the laws of the Barbarians were compiled, and the various recensions which they underwent, the strange fact is that the ox should have varied so little in its relation to gold from the Homeric ox-unit of at least 1000 B.C.

Passing into Scandinavia we once more, even so late as the eighth century A.D., find the same strange agreement in value. In the ancient Norse documents (where the cow is the unit of value as we have already seen) it is reckoned at 2½ öres (ounces) of silver = 1078 grains. But we likewise know from the same sources that gold stood to silver as 8:1; accordingly the cow was worth 134 grs. of gold[197].

Besides the Hellenes and Italians there was another people who strove for the mastery of all the Western Mediterranean. The ancient city of Tyre had sent out many colonies into the far West, when the nascent power of Hellas had already begun to assert its superiority in the Aegean. Trade grew and flourished between the colonies and the mother city in Phoenicia; thus there was unbroken intercourse between remote Gades and her Eastern mother until after the destruction of the latter (720 B.C.). Henceforward the headship of the Phoenician cities of the West falls into the hands of Carthage, the scene of the last great act and final catastrophe in the drama of Phoenician history. At the very time, nay some say on the very day, when the Greeks of the East were destroying the host of Xerxes in the Strait of Salamis, the Hellenes of the West led by brave Gelon of Syracus were repelling a great army of Carthaginians before the walls of Himera, and during the third and fourth centuries B.C. the Greeks of Sicily lived in constant danger from the Carthaginians, who held the western part of the island with their factories of Lilybaeum, Drepanum and Motyé, until at last they were finally expelled from the island by the resistless might of Rome (241 B.C.).

Could we but learn the estimate put upon the ox by the Phoenicians or Carthaginians, we would get a fair index to its value over a wide extended area. For as in earlier times the Phoenician influence extended from Tyre to Gades, linking both east and west, so in later days Carthage extended her power over all North Africa from the Pillars of Herakles to the confines of Egypt, and over Southern Spain.

Some forty years ago the longest Phoenician inscription yet known was found at Marseilles. The inscription seems to have belonged to a temple of Baal, and contains directions touching sacrifices and certain payments to be made to the officiating priest. Chemical analysis of the stone has demonstrated that it is of a kind not found in France, but known in North Africa. Hence M. Renan thought that it had been brought as ballast in some ship. The names of two Suffetes stand at the head of the inscription, which seems along with other evidence to point to its having been engraved at Carthage. On palaeographical grounds its date is placed in the fourth century B.C., but why it came to Massalia seems still inexplicable. It is possible that in the fourth century B.C. there was a considerable body of Carthaginians resident at Massalia, just as on the other hand we know that there was a large Greek community residing at Carthage. If that were so, the Carthaginians would naturally keep up the worship of Baal at Marseilles, and would regulate the temple worship in accordance with the practice of the mother city. The stone in that case may have been imported to serve as an official declaration of the rules to be observed in sacrifices. Movers and Kenrick regarded the sums of money named in connection with the victims as composition for the animals named, whilst the editors of the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (Vol. I. Pt. I. p. 217) regard them as fees to be paid to the priests for the performance of the sacrifices, saying that it is analogous to the directions for the burnt offerings, peace offerings and thank offerings contained in Leviticus i-vii. The few lines of the inscription with which we are concerned I shall translate from the Latin version given in the Corpus.

“Concerning an ox, whether it is a whole burnt offering, or deprecatory offering or a thank offering, there shall be to the priests ten shekels of silver, and if it is a whole burnt offering, in addition to the fees this weight of flesh, three hundred; and if it is a peace offering the first cuts and additions, the appurtenances thereof, and the skin and the entrails, carcase and the feet, and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the giver of the sacrifice.

“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].”

The shekel here meant is probably that of 130-135 grains, while the price of the ox in Brugsch’s list is 1 ket or 140 grains. At a moderate computation this would make a horse worth 150 oxen, if our documents were contemporary. But from lists of relative prices in ancient and modern times it is preposterous to suppose that at any time or in any place such a remarkable difference in value existed between the horse and the cow. From this it follows that if Brugsch is right in his translation of his Egyptian text, the latter must date from several centuries before 1000 B.C., when as yet silver was of the same or almost the same value as gold. Finally, we have no means of knowing the age of the ox, but as it is equal in value to only four goats, it is possible that it was not a full-grown animal. I have dealt with this point at some length, and have little positive gain to show, but it is necessary to put before the reader all data which may aid in our search, and still more necessary to do so in the case of evidence which seems to present serious difficulties.

Unfortunately for us the Old Testament gives very scanty information on the question of the cost of various commodities, and in no place do we get any information regarding the price of cattle. For in the account of the purchase of the threshing-floor and oxen of Oman the Jebusite by king David, there is a discrepancy in price between the Second Book of Samuel (xxiv. 24) and First Chronicles (xxi. 25), the former making the sum 50 shekels of silver, the latter “six hundred shekels of gold by weight,” and in any case, as we do not know the number of oxen used in threshing or the value of the floor and threshing instruments, it is impossible for us to draw any inference. In the Book of Exodus, however, we obtain the value of a slave, from which we may at least get an approximate idea of the value of an ox: “If the (wicked) ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he (the owner of the ox) shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned” (xxi. 32). Here, as in the ancient laws of Wales and elsewhere, the value of the male and female slave is the same, and thirty shekels or pieces of silver seems to have been the conventional price of a slave among the Hebrews. To this Zechariah (xi. 12) seems to allude, “So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver,” in reference to which the Evangelist writes: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value” (Matt. xxvii. 9). The average slave among the Homeric Greeks (as we saw above) was worth about three oxen, amongst the Irish three, among the modern Zulus about 10, and among the wild tribes of Annam seven (pp. 24-5). Allowing three oxen as the value of a slave among the Hebrews, the ox is worth 10 shekels (ancient) = 1300 grains of silver = 130 grains of gold, taking gold to silver as 10:1, which at an early period was probably the regular ratio in parts of Asia Minor. The result thus reached gives us once more the Homeric ox-unit as the value of the Hebrew ox. It is certain that it cannot have been higher, although we cannot show that it may not have been less.

The cow is estimated in the Commentary on Vendîdâd, Fargard, IV. 1-2 at 12 stirs or istirs.

Our task must be now to find out the weight of this istir. Istir or stir is identified with Greek στατήρ (as dirham is with Greek δραχμή).

The Pahlavi Texts, translated by Dr West, naturally afford us the readiest means of discovering our object[207].

THE VALUE OF A COW

There are in the Shayast-la-Shayast various lists of sins and good works. These sins or good works are put in the golden balance and weighed, in which case the stir is a weight, whilst in other cases we have a money evaluation. As much confusion arises from variations in the lists, it will be best to tabulate the different lists, and thus get a synoptic view of the whole.

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.

It was not for mere artistic reasons, for whilst such animal weights appear on Egyptian paintings, the numerous known Egyptian weights are of a very conventional form, as we shall find below. Doubtless the horns and ears made a cow’s head exceedingly ill-suited for a weight, and in course of time utility prevailed over the traditional idea that the weight unit ought to take the shape of the animal, whose value in gold it was meant to represent.

The following table sums up briefly the results of this chapter:

As has been remarked before, I do not include the values of the ox or cow in the ancient Laws of Wales or Ireland, since from the insular position of Britain and Ireland the principle that we must have unbroken touch between the various peoples in order to have a constant unit does not apply. There could be no free flow of trade in cattle between Britain and the continent until the development of steam navigation.

It is worth noting that the value of a buffalo at the present day among the Bahnars of Annam is almost the same as that of the ancient ox. The buffalo is reckoned at 280 hoes[210], that is 28 francs = £1. 2s. 4d. Taking gold at the rate of twopence per grain, the value of the buffalo in gold is 134 grs. Troy.