We have already spoken of the silphium or laserpitium plant on the coins of Cyrene, Barca, Euesperides and Teuchira, and mentioned the interpretation which makes it the symbol of the hero Aristaeus. It seems however far more reasonable to treat it on the same principle as the others just discussed. The silphium formed the most important article produced in that region, and it is perfectly in accordance with all analogy that certain quantities of this plant and of the juice extracted from it should be employed as money. We saw above that at the present moment tea is so employed on the borders of Tibet and China, and raw cotton in Darfur. But there is also some positive evidence in favour of this assumption, for Strabo[396] tells us that a traffic was carried on at the port of Charax between the Carthaginians and Cyrenaeans, the former bringing wine wherewith to purchase the silphium of the latter. There must have been a wine-unit, and also an unit for the silphium, or otherwise the barter could not have been carried on; and just as in Gaul[397] a jar of wine purchased a boy fit to serve as a cupbearer, a certain measure of wine being equated to a slave-boy, so we may conclude that some such wine-unit was equated to a packet or bale of silphium, the latter in turn having a certain amount of silver equated to it, which when coinage was introduced was stamped with the silphium device. That the silphium was packed in bales of a fixed weight is proved by a now famous vase-painting which represents the weighing (on ship board?) of the bales of silphium in the presence of Arcesilas the king of Cyrene[398]. The figure who points to the scales is marked silphiomachos (σλιφιομαχος) which is taken to mean silphium-weigher (σλιφιο- being either a mis-spelling of the artist, or the local form of the word, whilst the latter part is connected with the Egyptian mach = to weigh). Close to the silphium packets is the word ΜΑΕΝ, which has not been explained, but which may be simply a form of the word mina (manah, meneh) and denotes that each packet weighed that amount.

The ear of corn (wheat) on the coins of Metapontum[399], an old Achaean colony in Magna Graecia, is explained by modern writers as a symbol of Demeter: but the story told by Strabo of how the early settlers dedicated a golden ear at Delphi because they had amassed such great wealth from agriculture, indicates a far simpler solution, that the chief product and chief article of barter of Metapontum was naturally placed on her coins. As the tunny adorns the coins of Cyzicus, so we find the cuttle-fish on the coins of Croton and Eretria. As this creature was devoured with great gusto by the ancients, as it is at the present day at Naples and in Palestine, there is no necessity to regard it as a symbol of Poseidon, or of treating it in any way different from the tunny.

I now come to two most important types, the Tortoise of Aegina, and the Shield of Boeotia. I have already mentioned the symbolic interpretation given by E. Curtius to the former. That various natural productions, such as gourds, cocoa-nuts, joints of bamboo, served and still serve as vessels and measures of capacity in various countries we have seen already, and we likewise found that in the ancient Chinese monetary system of shells the shell of the tortoise stood at the top as the unit of highest value, and that down to a comparatively late epoch it was still highly prized in Cochin China for making bowls of great beauty. In both Greek and Latin there is abundant evidence to show that the functions which in a later time were performed by pottery were discharged by natural shells at an earlier period. Thus, if we do not find any actual vessel called a chelône (tortoise) in use amongst the Greeks, we at least find one called a Sea-urchin (Echinus, ἐχῖνος): for not only was the shell of this creature used as a vessel for containing medicines and the like, but vessels of artificial construction of the same shape and name were actually employed; thus the casket in which were deposited and sealed up the documents produced at the preliminary hearing of an Athenian lawsuit was called an Echinus. There was likewise a small vessel called conché (κόγχη), after the shell-fish of that name, the Latin concha, whilst a cognate name, conchylion, was applied to the case placed over the seals of wills.

Nay, ostrakon, the common word for a potsherd, familiar to us from its famous derivative Ostracism, or Voting by Potsherds, so called because the people inscribed their votes on pieces of pottery, meant originally nothing more than an oyster shell. In Latin testa, the ordinary name for an earthenware vessel, means nothing more than the covering of a shell-fish, and from this word testudo, the Latin name for the tortoise, is simply a derivative. Such instances could be multiplied if it were necessary, but those mentioned are sufficient to show the high probability of so valuable a shell as that of the tortoise having been employed. Owing to its beauty it would probably hold its place in Greece as the choicest kind of vessel for centuries after the art of pottery was known, just as it did in Cochin China. It would be only when the art of glazing and embellishing pottery had made some progress that vessels of baked clay could compete with the lustrous, many-hued shell. Nor are we without some direct evidence for the use of tortoise shell among the Greeks. The famous story of the invention of the lyre by the god Hermes is not without significance. According to the Hymn to Hermes, “the precocious divinity on the very day of his birth sallied forth and found a tortoise feeding on the luxuriant grass in front of the palace, as it moved with straddling gait.” His eye was caught by the dappled shell (αἰόλον ὄστρακον), and carrying home his spoil, he made of it a lyre. The legend which thus explains why the sounding-board of the lyre is so called points back to a time when the best form of bowl or hollow vessel for making a sounding board for a musical instrument was that afforded by the shell which was probably one of the common articles of everyday life.

But, in addition to all this indirect evidence, we are able to point to actual Greek vessels made of earthenware, fashioned in the shape of a tortoise. In the second Vase Room of the British Museum (case 48 and 49) there are two terra cotta vases from the island of Melos, wrought in the shape of this creature, and with these before us it is hardly possible to regard as other than wooden bowls carved in the shape of the same animal the wooden tortoises with which the Thessalian women pounded to death Lais the famous courtezan, in the temple of Aphrodite, after she had taken up her residence in their country[400]. We can parallel this development of artificial vessels of wood and earthenware from the use of the actual shell in modern times. Lady Brassey saw in the Museum at Honolulu, amongst the ancient native weapons and swords, “tortoise-shell cups and spoons, calabashes and bowls[401].” Now in the Cambridge Ethnological Museum there is a very fine wooden bowl from the South Seas, carved in the shape of a tortoise, and also earthenware vessels in the shape of tortoises from Fiji, which shows that the islanders of the Pacific not only used the real shells for vessels, but likewise imitated them in wood[402].

On an earlier page I quoted the statement of Ephorus that the Aeginetans took to commerce on account of the barrenness of their island. But they must have had something to give in exchange to other people before they could have developed a carrying trade, and as the island had been the resort of merchants from very early days, it must have had something to attract strangers as well as its position. Let us take the case of an island with barren soil in modern days, and see what it has to export. Thus Dhalac Island in the Red Sea is frequented by the Banyan merchants for the sake of its pearls, and at Massowah tortoise-shell forms an important article of commerce. Just as the Banyans come to Dhalac[403], so the Phoenicians probably came to Aegina, searching for the murex (purple fish) and tortoise. No doubt tortoise-shell must have been the chief article of export from Tortoise Island, described by Strabo (773), as situated in the Arabian Gulf (Red Sea).

The foregoing considerations make it not at all improbable that the tortoise on the coins of Aegina simply indicates that the old monetary unit of that island was the shell of the sea-tortoise (ἡ θαλαττία χελώνη), which was considerably larger, and therefore more valuable for making bowls, than that of the land or “mountain” tortoise (ἡ ὀρεινὴ χελώνη). There was a well-known headland on the Coast of Peloponnesus called “Tortoise Head” (Chelonates), and this creature must have been a peculiar feature of the shores of Aegina, or it would not have been chosen as the type for her coins, whether it be a religious symbol or not. At all events we know from the story of Sciron the robber, slain by Theseus, that the sea-tortoise was a familiar feature on the shores of the Saronic Gulf, as the hapless travellers who were kicked over the rocks by the caitiff were devoured by a large sea-tortoise which frequented the strand below. This creature’s picture is handed down on a well-known vase-painting which commemorates the exploits of Theseus. Finally, it may well be supposed that had not its connection with the invention of the lyre attracted to that instrument the name of “Tortoise” both in Greek and Latin, we should have found the name employed for some sort of vessel, as is the case with the Echinus.

Coming now to Central Greece, we find on the coins of all the Boeotian towns (with the exception of Orchomenus in her earliest issues) the well-known device of the Boeotian shield. This has been confidently pronounced to be a sacred emblem, symbolic of a common worship, conjectured to be that of Athena Itonia, whose temple near Coronea was the meeting-place of the Boeotians[404], whilst at Coronea golden shields were preserved in the Acropolis[405]. This may be so, but it is equally possible that the shield represented a common monetary unit in ancient times. The shield of early Hellas was a simple ox-hide buckler, described in Homeric language simply as an ox-hide[406]. Amongst barbarous peoples, as we saw above, weapons form one of the regular commodities commonly employed as currency; the Achaeans bought wine with hides as well as with oxen from the ships that came from Lemnos, and as there can be no doubt that the hide was a regular sub-multiple of the cow, it is very probable that the ox-hide shield stood in a similar relation to the cow, the chief or most universal unit; and as we find axes and half-axes among the prizes offered by Achilles as well as kettles and caldrons, so we learn from a famous passage[407] that shields were amongst the most usual articles offered as prizes and therefore were regular units of currency: “For they strove neither for an ox to be sacrificed nor yet for an ox-hide shield which are wont to be the prizes for the feet of men, but they strove for the life of the horse-taming Hector.”

When silver money was struck, it was natural that the barter-unit which came nearest in value to the silver didrachm would be equated to it, and the piece of silver would accordingly be termed Shield or Tortoise, just as the silver equivalent for the old copper rod was called the Obol, and in due course the corresponding device would be impressed on the silver coinage. The same explanation may probably be applied in other cases, such as that of the boar on the coins of Lycia. On the coins of the Gaulish tribe Sequani who made the best bacon and hams which came into the Roman market, the swine is found[408]. Doubtless this animal was their chief source of wealth, and formed a unit of barter, but we have not space for any more examples.

It is worth noting that it is quite possible that the men who issued the earliest coins of Boeotia and Aegina were influenced in the shape they gave these coins by the actual objects which they were replacing. The coins of Aegina with their high round upper side and flat under side suggest the general outline of a tortoise. As the people of Olbia, like the Chinese, Burmese and Ceylonese, had to make coins in the shape of a fish, so the Aeginetans acting under a like instinct may have wished to give a conventional representation of the tortoise. The earliest coins have the incuse on the reverse divided into eight triangular compartments. Are these the eight plates which form invariably the plastron or under surface of all the tortoise family? Later on the Aeginetan incuse is always in five compartments, but in the two well-known triangular depressions we perhaps find an echo of the tortoise-plastron[409]. The earliest coins seem to represent a sea-tortoise, for the feet are real flippers quite distinct in shape from the legs shown on the later coins. As the plates of the carapace (upper surface) are not fully represented in the archaic coins, this omission may not be merely due to rudeness of work, but rather because in the case of the sea-tortoise the thirteen plates of the carapace are not so prominent as in the land-tortoise. On the later coins where the feet are those of the land-tortoise the coins accurately represent the thirteen plates.

It has to be borne in mind that the shape of the incuse depressions on the reverse of coins is very constant. Thus on the Aeginetan coins we never find what is known as the mill-sail incuse which is the peculiar feature of the reverse of the early Boeotian coins, nor on the other hand do we even find the eight-fold incuse on the coins of Boeotia. Some influences must have determined the choice of form, such as I have just suggested in the case of Aegina. Did the first Boeotian Mintmaster shape his coins with the real buckler in his mind’s eye? On the reverse of these coins we find the incuse forming a rude X, which is bounded by a circle of dots, whilst in the centre of the incuse is the initial letter of the name of the issuing town, such as 𐌈 for Thebes, 𐌇 for Haliartus. Does the X-shaped incuse represent conventionally the cross-bars of the frame of the shield seen at the back, the circle dots indicating the outline? The letters on these coins are the earliest inscriptions on the coins of Greece Proper. We can easily see how they came to be placed on the coins, as soon as we remember that there was a Λ on the Lacedaemonian shields, a Σ on the Sicyonian, a Μ on the Messenian[410]. Why do not we find the initial in the coins placed on the front of the shield, where it must have stood on the real buckler? If as is held by the best authorities the coins of Boeotia formed a federal currency, we see a reason for the practice. As the silver shield replaced the real buckler, the old unit which had been universally employed through Boeotia, no town would have been permitted to put its initial on the shield engraved on the obverse. No doubt the old actual shield of currency was plain, and each purchaser painted the initial of his own country upon it. The Mintmasters accordingly of each town regarding the whole coin as a shield placed the letter of these several states on the reverse. Baumeister (Denkmäler, s.v. Wappen) gives pictures of the back of two shields. The frame of the shield consists of a circular rod, with two cross bars. The idea of making the incuse represent the other side of the object given in relief on the obverse seems to be just the stage between a complete representation of the object as in the tunny of Olbia, and that evinced by the early coins of Magna Graecia, on which the reverse gives in the incuse exactly the same form as that in relief on the obverse.

At first sight the result of this great variety of local units apparently places impassable barriers to trade, but a knowledge of the actual facts of barbarous communities and their monetary systems as they exist in our time easily dispels this impression. I quoted above (p. 46) the words of Mohammed Ibn-Omar, wherein he points out that every separate district in the Soudan has its own lower unit or units, whilst everywhere alike the ox and the slave are the higher units; these local units are equated one to the other, so that there is no difficulty in trading. The same holds true of ancient Greece; the tortoise-shell of Aegina may have been reckoned equal to a certain amount of Attic olive oil or to a jar of wine of certain size, which formed the unit of commerce at Thasos and Chios, whilst in its turn a jar of wine was reckoned as equivalent to a package of silphion from Cyrene, a kettle from Crete, or an axe, or certain number of axes, or half-axes from Tenedos, or an ox-hide shield from Boeotia. All were sub-multiples of the ox, and had a fixed value in gold, and later in silver, as weighed against grains of corn. This supposition is in complete accord with the system revealed to us in the Homeric Poems, and is confirmed by the evidence drawn from barbarous races in modern times. It is likewise to be borne in mind that the tendency to place religious and mythological types on Greek coins was one especially developed in the later but not in the earliest period of coinage. No doubt aesthetic considerations played a large part in the adoption of such types, which came especially into prominence when Greek art was at its height. On the early coins one simple type is the rule, whilst at a later stage, besides the old national type, many adjuncts and symbols are added. Contrast the early coins of Athens with the later. The archaic issues have an olive spray and an owl, the later have not merely the owl, but an amphora, and a symbol in the field alluding to the legend of Triptolemus. Again, at Argos the early coins have simply the wolf or half-wolf or wolf’s head, with a large A on the reverse, but in the later times the A is accompanied by symbols, such as a crescent and letters. The hare appears on the coins of Rhegium and Messana, having been chosen as a type, according to Aristotle, by the tyrant Anaxilas in commemoration of the introduction of that animal by him into Sicily; but it also appears on a rare coin of Messana, not as a main type, but as caressed by Pan. This does not prove that the hare was a symbol of Pan, but that for artistic purposes the rustic god in the act of caressing the hare is chosen instead of the more commonplace type of the hare all alone. So at Thasos the coins with old Silenus quaffing from a wine-cup do not signify that Silenus was a principal object of worship, but he is simply added for picturesque effect. We can at all events draw one conclusion from the historical origin assigned to both this type and that of the axe of Tenedos, that in the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. the Greeks did not see any religious significance in them, any more than they did in the representation of the mule-car which had won at Olympia, placed on his coins by Anaxilas. If, as has been so emphatically laid down by the leading modern Greek numismatists, the types on Greek coins are so essentially religious in origin, it is extremely difficult to explain the extraordinary rapidity with which all such notions as regards their origin must have vanished from the minds of the most learned of the Greeks, at so early a date as the 4th cent. B.C. (hardly more than two centuries after the introduction of the art of coining). The Greeks regarded those types from much the same point of view as we regard St George and the Dragon on sovereigns and crowns, or the Lady Godiva riding in puris naturalibus on the Coventry tokens. The effort to turn agonistic into religious types by contending that, as the Olympic festival was of religious origin, so the successful chariot which had won at Olympia was a sacred symbol, can only be regarded as an ingenious effort to attach by even the most slender thread a simple commemorative type to a religious origin.

There is not the slightest reason for treating with incredulity the statement that Anaxilas introduced the hare into Sicily. Pollux[411] tells us that there were no hares in Ithaca, and from the same source we learn that the islanders of Carpathus, wishing to add the animal to the products of their isle, introduced a single pair, the descendants of which became in a short time so numerous that they ruined the crops, a story which finds a singular parallel in the history of the introduction of the rabbit into Australia in our own days. The hare was to the old Greek sportsman (as we know from the Tracts on Hunting of Xenophon and Arrian) what the stag was to the mediaeval baron, and the fox to the modern English squire. If William the Conqueror, as says the chronicler, “loved the tall deer as though he were their father,” the tyrant Anaxilas may well have prided himself upon the introduction of the hare into Sicily in much the same manner as modern sportsmen have brought the French partridge into England. When once the type was started, the dislike of any change in coin types is so strong that we need not be surprised at the hare appearing for a long period on the coins of Messana and Rhegium. Besides, the hare was considered by the Greek gourmet as the choicest of viands: all readers of Aristophanes are familiar with “jugged hare” as a proverbial expression for “the best of cheer.”

Variation of Silver Standards.

The connection between the types on early silver coins of Greece and the earlier local units of value being probably such as I have indicated, we next approach the question of changes in the weight of the silver coins at various places and at various times. Besides the ordinary Euboic and Aeginetic standards we find others such as the Rhodian, and the Ptolemaic, the former so named because the island of Rhodes from the beginning of the 4th century B.C. ceased to strike tetradrachms of the full Attic weight of 270 grs. and coined instead pieces which range in weight from 240 to 230 grs., the latter getting its name from the dynasty of the Lagidae, who quickly dropped the full weight of the tetradrachm (270 grs.) as struck by Alexander, and reverted to the Phoenician silver of 220 grs., which they used not only for silver, but also for gold; it is to this last fact that the name Ptolemaic as given to the standard is really due, for as a standard for gold it was certainly new. But not merely shall we find coins standing so far apart from the usual standards that we are obliged to give them distinctive appellations, but we likewise find various modifications of the Aeginetic in various places, whilst in some parts of northern Greece and Thrace we shall find the so-called Phoenician and Babylonian standards in occupation. It is hardly possible that mere degradation of weight will account for all the phenomena; accordingly the object of this section will be to show that from first to last the Greek communities were engaged in an endless quest after bimetallism: we shall find, as we have already indicated, that whilst the gold unit never varies in any part of Hellas until a late epoch, the silver coins exhibit differences not merely between one district and another, but even between one period and another in the self-same city or state. There is incontrovertible evidence to prove that the same trouble was caused by the fluctuation in the relative value of gold and silver as arises in modern times. Xenophon[412] in his treatise De Vectigalibus (speaking of the benefit likely to accrue to the state if the silver mines of Laurium were better worked) makes the most interesting remark that “if any one were to allege that gold too is not less useful than silver, that I do not deny, yet this I know that gold, whenever it turns up in quantity, becomes on the one hand cheaper itself, and on the other makes silver dearer.” This passage alone is sufficient to show how sensitive was the old Greek money market in the beginning of the 4th century B.C., and this statement is amply substantiated on Italian soil by a passage quoted by Strabo[413] from Polybius, from which we learn that after the discovery of a rich gold mine in the land of the Taurisci of Noricum, within the space of two months “gold went down one third in value throughout all Italy.” Such being the effect of a discovery of gold, it is evident that either the silver currency must undergo certain modifications in order that a definite round number of silver units may be equal to the gold unit, or on the other hand the gold unit must undergo modification. But as we have shown that the gold unit remained unaltered throughout all Hellas, Asia and Egypt down to the time of the Ptolemies, it follows that whatever changes were necessary must have taken place in the silver standards. Of this we have proof in the case of Rhodes itself. Down to 408 B.C. the three ancient cities of Ialysus, Camirus and Lindus issued each a separate series of coins, Camirus on the Aeginetic standard, the other two on the Phoenician. In 408 B.C. all these united in founding the new city of Rhodes, and henceforward there is a single coinage. At first the Attic standard seems to have been employed for silver, as rare tetradrachms of 260 grs. are found, but it must have very soon given place to the so-called Rhodian, the tetradrachm of which ranges from 240 to 230 grs. About the same time (400 B.C.) the Rhodians began to issue gold staters of the so-called Euboic standard, and for a century this double issue of gold and silver continued unbroken. It is plain, from the case of this famous island, that it is only the silver standards which changed. There can be no doubt that the unit by which gold in bullion was reckoned before that metal was coined was the so-called Euboic or ox-unit, but during the archaic period we find both the so-called Phoenician (220 grs.) and Aeginetic (drachms of 92 grs.) being employed for silver in the island, whilst after 408 B.C. gold is issued on the ox-unit, but silver, although at first on this standard, immediately changes to the Rhodian of 240 grs. Evidently then the fixed element is the gold, the fluctuating the silver. The coinage of Rhodes likewise exemplifies the doctrine already indicated, that the employment of religious and mythological symbols seems to mark not the earlier but rather the later stages of Greek coining. Thus Camirus employed the fig-leaf, Ialysus half a winged boar, and Lindus the lions head with open jaws, but after 408 Helios the Sun-god, from whom all Rhodians alike claimed descent, and to whom the island was sacred[414], becomes the regular type, with the type parlant of the Rose (Rhodon) on the reverse.

Next let us take the money of Macedonia, where there was an abundant coinage of both gold and silver. The Pelasgian tribe of Bisaltae, and the Thracian Edonians and Odomanti, had during the half century which preceded the Persian wars all struck silver on the so-called Phoenician standard. It is commonly supposed that they obtained this standard from the important town of Abdera, which at the same period employed a like standard, and it is suggested that Abdera had borrowed it from her mother Teos, who had borrowed it from Miletus and the other great towns of the Ionian seaboard, among which it was especially employed for electrum. But unfortunately, whilst the types of Teos and Abdera are the same (a seated Griffin), the staters of Teos weigh only 186 grs., which is the Aeginetic, not the Phoenician (220 grs.) standard. Shortly after the overthrow of the Persian host Alexander I. of Macedon acquired the land of the Bisaltae along with the rich silver mines, which were said to produce for him a talent daily, and he adopted both the types and standard of the Bisaltian silver coinage, only substituting his own name for that of the Bisaltae. During the century which elapsed between Alexander I. and the accession of the famous Philip II. the coinage of Macedon and that of Abdera followed the same course in each case; the Phoenician standard of 230 grs. gave way to the so-called Babylonian or Persian of about 170 grs. Again, it has been suggested that Abdera influenced the neighbouring communities in this change. But when Philip came to the throne he returned to the Phoenician standard for silver, and when for the first time in Macedon he issued a bountiful coinage of gold staters, they were struck on the ancient gold unit, the so-called Euboic standard of 130 grs. But hardly had Philip slept with his fathers, and Alexander reigned in his stead, when a need was felt for a change in the silver standard. Accordingly the latter in the early years of his reign began, and continued to his death, to strike his silver on the same standard as his gold. Let us now study the lessons to be learned from this history of currency. There can be no reasonable doubt that the ox-unit or stater was the unit by which gold was estimated from first to last in that region. Unless it already existed Philip would not have employed it for his gold coinage at a time when he was making changes in his silver, but would have assimilated his gold to his silver standard. But, as before remarked, just because gold was not coined anywhere in Greece until the closing years of the 5th century, and in all transactions it passed as bullion, so much the stronger was the reason for keeping its weight-unit unchanged. But was the standard of 220 grs. really an imported Phoenician, or was it not rather one arrived at in that region by the natives themselves owing to the relations then existing between silver and gold? It is evident from the account given of the Bisaltian silver mines that in the time preceding and immediately posterior to the Persian invasion silver was exceedingly abundant in all that region. It is then by no means unlikely that it required ten silver pieces of 220 grs. each to make the equivalent of one gold unit of 130 grs. With the exhaustion of the silver mines, and perhaps a greater output of gold, silver became dearer, and consequently 10 silver pieces of 170 grs. each were now equal to a gold stater. Abdera on the coast would come perfectly within the sphere of such changed conditions, and her standard would consequently likewise undergo modification. With Philip’s accession, fresh conquests and a general development of resources may have temporarily thrown more silver on the market, thus inducing him to revert to the 220 grs. standard, but the exploiting of the famous mines of Crenides increased the supply of gold to such an extent that by the time Alexander mounted his fathers throne gold stood to silver in the relation of 10:1, and it was found extremely convenient to coin this on the same footing as gold, 10 silver pieces of 135 grs. being exactly equal to the gold stater of like weight. A like explanation applies to the coinage of Thrace. Amongst the Thracian tribes who dwelt near Mount Pangaeum and worked the gold and silver mines of that region the art of coining had been known from the 6th century B.C. and they issued silver coins of about 160 grs. This is regarded by some as debased Babylonian or Persic standard. But it is far more rational to suppose that in that region gold was more plentiful in proportion to silver than it was at that time further west in Macedonia, and accordingly a certain number of silver didrachms of 160 grs. were found to represent the gold stater or ox-unit. It seems most unlikely that a people long acquainted with both gold and silver could not devise for themselves a simple method of making some convenient number of silver pieces be equivalent to one gold, and that, on the contrary, having once obtained a certain standard fixed for silver in Asia Minor, at a time when gold was to silver as 13:1, they would blindly cleave to this standard, no matter how great a change took place in the relation of the metals. In face of the statements of Xenophon and Polybius already quoted and the fact that Solon deliberately constructed a new silver standard, it is simply impossible to believe such a doctrine.

On the opposite shore from Thrace lay the flourishing city of Cyzicus. This wealthy community commenced to issue electrum staters and hectae in the 5th century B.C., if not earlier, the former being about 252 grs., the latter 41 grs. These electrum staters have been shown by Professor Gardner to have contained gold and silver in about equal proportions[415]. This most important fact, taken in connection with the literary evidence derived from Xenophon and Demosthenes, makes it probable that the Cyzicene stater of 252 grs. was counted equal to a Daric of 130 grs. of pure gold[416]. “These coins of Cyzicus,” says Mr Head, “together with the Persian Darics formed the staple of the gold currency of the whole ancient world, until such time as they were both superseded by the gold staters of Philip and Alexander the Great[417].”

Not only did they circulate side by side with the Darics, but it is worthy of notice that when the Cyzicenes struck coins of pure gold (circa 413 B.C.) they were of Daric type and standard. The earliest silver coins (430-412 B.C.) were small pieces of 32 and 18 grs., whilst the larger coins which come later are on the Phoenician silver standard of 212 grs. (412 B.C.), whilst from 400 B.C. to 330 B.C. the Rhodian standard of 235 grs. prevailed. From the story of her coinage we learn clearly that at Cyzicus the inferior metals bowed to the sway of gold. The electrum stater of 252 grs. is made equal to the pure gold unit, and whilst the silver standard changes from 212 grs. to 235 grs. the gold and pale gold pieces in currency remain inviolate. Once more, it is almost certain that some displacement in the relative values of the metals had caused the raising of the standard from 212 grs. to 235 grs. One thing certainly is beyond doubt, and that is the utter improbability of the introduction of the 235 grs. standard being in any way due to the influence of Rhodes. This remark likewise applies to Chios, where from a very early period (600-490 B.C.) side by side with electrum staters of 217 grs. we find didrachms of silver of 123-120 grs., “a weight peculiar to Chios,” says Mr Head, “which was probably the Phoenician somewhat raised.” But why was it raised? The real solution is that the relations between gold, electrum and silver at Chios necessitated the striking of silver on a standard a few grains lighter than the gold unit in use (the Persian Daric), and the electrum stater of 217 grs. Space forbids our going through all the cities of the Ionian coast in detail, but the principle which we have laid down and illustrated from the currency systems of several leading states is sufficient to indicate the method by which we would explain the fluctuations in the silver standards employed at different times in various states. The Daric is the universal gold unit of all this region; by its side is the electrum stater usually of 217 grs. and most probably the equivalent in value of the pure gold coin of 130 grs.: along with them we find singular fluctuations in the silver currency; towns that are close neighbours employing different systems contemporaneously.

There is, however, one state which cannot be passed over without more particular reference. At an earlier page I spoke of the gold mines of Thasos, which had attracted the attention of the Phoenicians at a very early time. But, in addition to the mineral wealth of their own island, the Thasians drew a huge annual revenue from their mines on the mainland. Although the first influence in the island was Phoenician, and the Thasians themselves were Ionians from Paros, instead of finding the Phoenician standard employed for its silver coins, we see them striking their archaic coins on the so-called Babylonian system. Under the supremacy of Athens this standard fell so much that it eventually coincided with the Attic (138 grs.) or even was lower. The Thasians, after revolting from Athens in 411 B.C., struck gold coins for the first time; these were on the Euboic or ox-unit standard (consisting of half-staters and thirds). But about the same period they began to coin silver on the so-called Phoenician of 220 grs. It is indeed strange that in the early age, when the Phoenician tradition was still strong, they did not employ the 220 grs. standard, but only resorted to it after employing for a long period the Babylonian and Attic standards. It is evident that in Thasos, as elsewhere, there had existed the same gold unit for untold generations, else at the very time when they revolted from Athens and adopted a new standard for their silver, they would not have struck gold on what is commonly called the Attic or Euboic standard. It is evident that the changes in the silver standards were due to changes in the relation of silver to gold, the fall in standard from 168 grs. to 135 grs. indicating perhaps that silver, which at first was to gold as 1:13, had gradually grown dearer.

Commercial Weight System.

We must now turn to the commercial weight system. As elsewhere, one of the chief commodities to come under such a system was copper, and the history of the weighing of this metal, as far as it can be learned, will be of great importance to us. Now we should naturally expect that at Athens, which had in later days but one standard for gold and silver, copper likewise would have been estimated on this unit. But, as a matter of fact, there were two distinct standards in use at Athens, as is proved by two weights preserved in the British Museum, the inscription on one of which is Mina of the Market (ΜΝΑ ΑΓΟΡ), that on the other is Mina of the State (ΜΝΑ ΔΗΜΟ). This mina of the market is the same as that called the Commercial Mina on an Attic inscription[418], where its weight is given as that of 138 silver drachms, that is, the weight of an Aeginetic mina of silver. Athens had not coined any money of her own up to Solon’s time, but seems to have employed the coins of Aegina. But this standard, although no longer employed for silver, did not fall into desuetude. As already pointed out, all peoples have felt the need of a heavier standard for cheap articles than that which serves for gold. Probably the Aeginetic mina had been used at Athens for copper: accordingly, when Solon made his new silver standard for the weighing of silver, the Aeginetic standard was found convenient for less costly and more bulky wares, and was therefore retained in use as the mercantile or market standard, the name State being given to the silver standard.

We have learned already that in the early stages of society copper and iron are not sold or appraised by weight, but rather by measurement. We have also seen that there is every reason to believe that the Greek obol originally was a spike or rod of copper of a definite length and thickness. If we can believe the statement of Ephorus given by Strabo that Phidon of Argos established a weight as well as a measure system for the Peloponnesians (although Herodotus is silent as regards weights), it is not at all improbable that, taking this story in conjunction with the dedication of the old bar money by Phidon in the temple of Hera, we have here a genuine tradition of the superseding of the bars of metal, the value of which simply depended on their dimensions, by a system based essentially on weight. It is plain that, as copper was weighed both at Aegina and Athens by the Aeginetic silver standard, copper most probably was never estimated by weight until after the forming of the separate silver standard in the way already described.

We have previously noticed the fact that the two principal terms applied to silver coins, drachm and obol, give clear indications that they have been borrowed from an ancient system of copper (just as we shall presently find that the denarius, the special term employed for their silver currency by the Romans, owes its origin to the ancient copper as). If further proof were required, it is afforded by the name employed for the subdivisions of the obol. The latter at Athens was divided into 8 chalci or coppers (χαλκοῖ). The smallest silver coin at Athens was the half-obol, but in some places names, Trichalcum, Tetrachalcum, etc. were given to copper coins. Now, as the Aeginetan obol weighed about 16½ grs. and the Attic 11¼, the former is one-third greater than the latter. But we shall see shortly that as the Attic obol has 8 chalci, the Aeginetan must have had 12, from which it follows that the ancient copper obol or bar used in Aegina, throughout Peloponnesus, and at Athens, and probably throughout Boeotia, was everywhere the same.

The Sicilian System.

In dealing with the Sicilian and Italian systems we must reverse the order of treatment of the metals, and as it is in the copper that we shall find the closest link between the Greek and those other systems, we shall therefore commence with that metal.

On the Italian Peninsula and in Sicily we find a series of weight and monetary terms totally distinct from any found in Greece Proper. From this alone we may infer that, even before the settlement of any Greek Colonies in Magna Graecia and Sicily, there existed a well defined system, if not of weight, at least for the exchange of copper by fixed standards of measurement. In various Sicilian cities we find small silver coins called litrae; these beyond all question are simply the representatives in silver of an ancient copper unit employed by the Sicels, and which they had brought with them into the island. These Sicels were a tribe of the great Italian stock (itself a branch of the Aryan family) closely related to the Umbrians, Latins, and Oscans, had probably formed the van of the Aryan advance into the Peninsula, and had finally crossed the straits and overcome the Sicanians, an Iberic race, who were the earliest inhabitants of the island of whom any historical record exists. The word litra is merely a dialectic form of the same original lidhra[419], from which the Latin libra itself is sprung. But whilst we shall have little difficulty in finding out the weight at which the Latin libra was fixed, we have just as great difficulty in discovering that of the Sicilian litra, as we have lately found in the case of the ancient Greek copper obol. As copper was only coined at a late period, and the copper coins are merely tokens, or money of account, we are unable to arrive at any conclusion as to the original full weight of the litra from any data afforded by the copper coins of the various Sicilian states, although, from the circumstance that many of these coins bear marks of value, at first sight it might seem far otherwise. Thus at Agrigentum in the period preceding 415 B.C. the copper litra weighed about 750 grs., between 415 B.C. and 406 B.C. 613 grs., and from 340 B.C. to 287 B.C. it was about 536 grs. only. At Himera between 472 B.C. and 415 B.C. it was about 990 grs., but within the same period it fell to 200 grs., whilst at Camarina between 415 B.C. and 405 B.C. it was about 221 grs. Not only therefore is it futile to attempt any statement of the reduction of the litra in Sicily in general, but also to arrive at any sound approximation to its full original weight, as far as the weight of the copper coins is concerned. On the other hand, any calculation based on the relative values of copper and silver has been up to the present unsatisfactory, owing to the great uncertainty which still prevails, Mommsen making the relation in the earlier period stand as 288:1, whilst Mr Soutzo thinks it never can have been higher than 120:1.

The latter view I have already proved to be untenable when we apply the test of the value of cattle, and it was made probable that in the 5th century B.C. silver was to copper as 300:1. From this it will be possible to show that the full weight of the copper litra was originally about 4900 grs.

Any effort to determine the original weight of the copper litra by a new method calls for a merciful consideration, even though it too may fail. Whilst the original weight of the litra is still a matter of doubt, we are fortunately completely acquainted with the method of its subdivisions. The litra was divided into 12 parts called Ungiae, Unciae or Onciae, a name which is no other than the Latin Uncia. This at once brings us face to face with the Roman copper system, where the as was the higher unit, and was divided into 12 unciae (ounces). But there are other striking coincidences of nomenclature. Thus ⅙ of the as was called sextans; one-sixth of the litra is called Hexâs (ἑξᾶς), and the Triens and Quadrans are paralleled by the trias (τριᾶς) and tetras (τετρᾶς) although there is a difference in the application of these terms. Then the five-twelfths of the as is Quincunx; the same fraction of the litra is Pentonkion (πετόγκιον). We have plainly therefore a common Italo-Sicilian copper system, the terms of which were adopted and Graecised by the settlers in Italy and Sicily.

Now we have already adverted to the fact that the earliest Sicilian towns which coined money, Naxos, Zancle and Himera, although Chalcidian colonies, yet employed the Aeginetic standard, whereas we might naturally expect them to follow the Euboic. This would give the maximum of 16½ grs. for the silver obol. Now according to Pollux, Aristotle in his lost treatise on the constitution of Agrigentum says that the litra is worth an Aeginetan obol, and Pollux goes on to say that “one would find in him (Aristotle) in his Constitution of the Himeraeans likewise other names of Sicilian coins, such as ungia, which is equivalent to one chalcus, and hexas, which is equivalent to two chalci, and trias, which is equivalent to three chalci, and hemilitron (half litra), which is equivalent to six, and litra which is equivalent to an obol[420].” It is plain from this that Aristotle knew that the Aeginetic obol was divided into twelve chalci. Thus the proposition laid down above, that the ancient Greek copper obol was a rod or spike divided into 12 parts, is thoroughly proved. The reason why the Attic obol had only 8 chalci is now plain; it was, as we saw, only two-thirds of the Aeginetan and consequently only contained two-thirds of the whole number of pieces of copper into which the ancient copper unit was divided. Now, as we find the Chalcidian settlers of Himera and other places not using their native Euboic standard for coining, but employing the Aeginetic, and as the Aeginetic obol was equal to the Sicilian litra, we are justified in the conclusion, that when the Greek settlers reached Italy and Sicily they found their Italic kinsfolk using a copper unit exactly the same as that employed in Greece; and that finally, when they began to coin, they found it more convenient to strike silver on a standard which was both convenient in reference to exchange with gold, as I have shown above, and had the further advantage of corresponding accurately in value to the ancient copper unit in use among the Sicels. If, as I indicated, silver was to copper as 300:1, the Aeginetic silver obol of 16⅔ grs. would be worth 5000 grs. of copper (practically the same as the early Roman libra). It follows then that if we could only discover the weight of the Sicilian litra we should know that of the old Greek copper obol. Is this possible? We have no reason to doubt that the obol was a rod of copper of a certain size, which in the course of time after the introduction of coined money shrank up until the original rod was only represented by what had been its equivalent in silver, or a small copper coin, whose name still survives in the ob used in old account books as the symbol for half-penny[421]. The Greek coinage has preserved for us but faint traces of the various steps in the degradation of the copper obol, but, as we have already seen, we find the Sicilian copper litra in various stages of its decadence from 990 grs. down to 200 grs. Again, whilst no trace has as yet been found of obols at all in the archaic shape of rods, or anything approaching it, we find in Sicily at Agrigentum litrae which are in form distinct survivals of an earlier stage when the litra, like the obol, was a rod or bar of copper. These are very strange looking lumps of bronze made in the shape of a tooth with a flat base, having on one side an eagle or eagle’s head and on the other a crab, while on the base are marks of value ⸬, ⸪, : (tetras, trias, hexas). The uncia is almond-shaped with an eagle’s head on one side, and a crab’s claw on the other[422]. As we found the Chinese knife shrinking up into a shorter and thicker mass until at last it only survives in the round cash, so in all probability we here find the Sicilian litra in its mid course from its original full size and shape to that of the ordinary round copper coin of a later age. That the shape of the original copper unit of the Italians was that of a rod or bar we shall now proceed to demonstrate in the case of the Roman as.

The Italian System. Bronze.

As the cow formed the highest unit in the monetary system of ancient Italy, so the lowest unit employed was a certain amount of copper called an as. We have already found the cow serving the same purpose in Sicily (as late as the time of Dionysius forming the rateable unit at Syracuse). The systems of Further Asia, where the buffalo stands at the head of the scale and the hoe or a piece of raw metal of a certain size stands at the bottom, form a perfect analogy in modern times. As far as its value and divisional system go, we have identified the Sicilian litra with the ancient Hellenic obol or rod, and we have in turn discovered a very close resemblance between the divisions of the litra and that of the as. I now propose to examine into the original nature of this denomination, and the form of the object to which it was applied. This will have been effectually accomplished, if I can succeed in establishing the proposition that the as was primarily a rod or bar of copper, one foot in length, divided into 12 parts, called inches (unciae), thus coinciding with the Greek obol in form, as also in its duodecimal division.

We must, as a preliminary, note carefully several most essential facts connected with the as: (1) The term as (as used in respect of metals) is never employed for either gold or silver, but is appropriated to bronze exclusively; (2) it is not the Roman unit of weight, for that is expressed by the general term libra, a word exactly corresponding to the Greek Talanton, since it means both the weight and the scales; (3) the as is not confined to weight, but is also employed as the unit of linear measure equal to the foot, and also as the unit of land measure equal to the jugerum or acre.

The following table exhibits the subdivisions of the as:

Now it has been hitherto assumed by all writers that the system of division employed in the as as a unit of weight has been transferred to measure. This however is contrary to all experience, for, as we have had occasion constantly before to notice, weight units are derived from measures, e.g. the bushel from the measure of that name, and so on. In the next place as the as is not the unit of Roman weight, if even the measure unit was borrowed from the weight, we ought to expect the foot to be called a libra rather than an as. It is far more likely that a unit originally employed for measure would in time give its name to a weight-unit corresponding in mass to the original measure-unit. There are besides certain pieces of evidence afforded by the nomenclature of the submultiples which point directly to the original as being a measure rather than a weight-unit. The 24th part of the uncia is called the scriptulum, little scratch, or line (scribo), which is exactly translated by the Greeks as gramme (γραμμή, scratch or line)[423]. Now whilst 24 strokes make an excellent method of dividing the uncia in its capacity of inch, they of course have no significance as submultiples of uncia, meaning ounce. Moreover, the forms of several of the best known divisions of the as, such as triens, quadrans, sextans, which are not easy to explain on the hypothesis that the terminology was primarily applied to weight, on the other hand admit of a ready solution when we take the as as originally a unit of measure. For sextans means not a sixth, but that which makes a sixth, triens not a third, but that which divides in three parts, and quadrans not a fourth, but that which makes fourfold, i.e. divides into four, for quadra means not a fourth part, but that which has four parts (hence usually a square). If we regard these words as referring to certain lines drawn across a bar of metal, their meaning is obvious. Whilst sextans uncia, the ounce which makes a sixth, is nonsense, sextans linea, the line which makes a sixth, gives excellent sense, so likewise triens linea fits in admirably with the required meaning, whilst quadrans linea seems to mean the line which divides the whole into four parts.

The etymology of the word as has long been a puzzle. Scholars starting with the assumption that as was the Roman abstract term for unity have accordingly searched for an appropriate derivation. Some have identified it with the Greek heis one (εἶς through a Tarentine ἇς), whilst the most recent attempt connects it with the first syllable of elementum. The same principle has been carried out with regard to uncia, which has been treated simply as meaning unit and connected with unus and unicus.

Now it is notorious that the Roman mind was essentially concrete, and found great difficulty in arriving at abstract ideas, and consequently at abstract terms. This alone would make us hesitate to believe that as had originally begun as an abstract term meaning unit, and rather incline us to believe that it started in life as a name for some common concrete object. But we have seen above that the numerals in all languages seem originally to have meant certain actual physical objects which served as counters, such as the fingers and toes (decem δέκα, digitus δάκτυλος), seeds or pebbles. If such has been the origin of the various names for unit, we can hardly believe that any term for unity can have originated independently of some concrete object. To add to the mists which hang round the origin of the as, its division into 12 parts is taken to indicate a Babylonian source. Now the Roman foot was divided, not merely into 16 fingers like the Greek, but also into 12 unciae or inches like our own. The latter is most probably the true Italian system, as it is that found among their cousins and neighbours the Kelts, as well as amongst the Teutonic peoples. With ourselves still the rustic measures inches by his thumb, just as he measures feet by means of his own natural foot. The ancient Irish foot was divided into 12 thumbs or inches (ordlach, Lat. pollex, the initial p being lost in Irish)[424]. The Romans too (as did likewise the Teutonic peoples, e.g. Icelandic tomme, an inch) used the thumb (pollex) as the ordinary measure in practical life[425]. The division then into 12 unciae is simply the result of the fact that a certain natural relation exists between the breadth of the thumb and the length of the foot, and as the relation held true just as much for the Kelt as the Chaldaean, there was no need for the ancient Italians to borrow their duodecimal system from the East. Now what are we to say as to the origin of the word uncia? Does it mean anything more or less than the breadth of the (thumb) nail? The use of unguis, a nail, as a measure was common in Latin, as we know from the phrases transversum unguem (the thickness of a nail) and latum unguem (a nail’s breadth) side by side with transversum digitum (a fingers thickness) in Plautus. Uncia may be simply a derivative from unguis; there is no phonetic impossibility, and even if there were any linguistic irregularity, false analogy with unicus would amply account for it. The use of a word meaning nail to express the divisions of the foot is completely paralleled by the ancient Hindu system, where the finger-breadth is termed angala, i.e. nail (cognate of unguis and ὄνυξ).

Next we come to the word as itself, which appears in old Latin as assis. It is masculine in gender, which of itself is sufficient to throw doubts on its being a really abstract word. Can it be that we have a close relative of it in asser a rod, bar, pole, which is likewise masculine in gender? Whilst one form of the name was specially confined to a small rod or bar of copper, the other was employed in a wide and general way. These two forms assis and asser,-is are completely analogous to vomis and vomer,-is, a ploughshare. The meaning rod is in complete harmony with what we have said about the Greek obol. All that is now wanting to make our proof complete is some evidence that the primitive Italian as was really in the form of a rod or bar. The most archaic specimens of ancient Italian bronze money as yet described are those found at the Ponte di Badia near Vulci in 1828. These consisted (1) of quadrilaterals broken in pieces, weighing from 2 to 3 pounds each, stamped with an ox and trident, (2) cube-shaped pieces of copper without any mark, weighing from an ounce to a pound, and (3) some ellipse-shaped pieces for the most part weighing two ounces[426]. But in the British Museum are preserved a number of pieces of bronze which are roughly quadrilateral. A cursory examination showed me that, whilst two parallel sides exhibit the marks of a mould, the two remaining sides displayed unmistakable signs of fracture. Several of them are end pieces, showing the voluting of the mould on two sides and at one end, whilst the other end shows marks of having been broken (Fig. 48). Several of them bear stamps, or letters. There can be no doubt that these are pieces of short bars of bronze, which were afterwards cut up, as occasion demanded. The imprints on them prove them to be of comparatively recent date. If therefore the asses still retained their bar shape after the art of stamping metal to serve as currency had come into use, à fortiori the primitive as of Italy must certainly have been nothing more than a plain rod or bar of copper, which passed from hand to hand as the obols in Greece, and the bars of iron and copper pass at the present among savages of Africa and Asia[427]. This was what was called by the ancient writers the raw copper (aes rude), as distinguished from the stamped copper (aes signatum) of a later date. The fact that early specimens of aes signatum, such as the decussis, bearing a cow on both obverse and reverse (Fig. 49), were still made in the shape of a bar, is a further proof that such was the original form.