[395] Lysias, de Sacra oliva, 6.
[396] Strabo, XVII. 836.
[397] Diodorus Siculus V. 26. 2 διδόντες γὰρ τοῦ οἴνου κεράμιον ἀντιλαμβάνουσι παῖδα κτλ.
[398] Baumeister, Denkmäler, s.v. Silphium. Studicyna, Kyrene, p. 22. Birch, Ancient Pottery (frontispiece). The vase is in the Paris Bibliothèque.
[399] The only evidence to show that Demeter was worshipped at Metapontum is that a female head on certain of her coins is accompanied by the legend Σωτηρία. It has been inferred that this is an epithet of Demeter, but this is most unlikely, for in that case we should expect Σὼτειρα, as on the coins of Hipponium, Syracuse, Agrigentum, Corcyra, Cyzicus, and Apamea, not Σωτηρία, as the adjective. Thus we always find Ζεὺς Σωτήρ, not Σωτήριος: cf. Σώτειρα Εὐνομία, Pind. Ol. IX. 16, Σώτειρα Τύχα, Ol. XII. 2, Σώτειρα Θέμις, Ol. VIII. 21. Σωτηρία is rather Safety (Lat. Salus), who, as my friend Mr J. G. Frazer points out to me, was worshipped at Patrae and Aegeum, two of the chief towns of Achaea (Pausan. VII. 21. 7; VII. 24. 3). We also find such names of divinities as Ὑγιεία, Ὁμόνοια and Νίκα on the coins of Metapontum. As Metapontum was an Achaean colony, it is likely that Salus was worshipped there also. Besides it was to Apollo, and not to Demeter, that they dedicated their golden ear as a harvest thank-offering. Θέρος is the ear cut from the stalk after the ancient way of reaping, cf. θέρη σταχύων, Plut.
[400] Athenaeus XIII. p. 589 ab; Schol. on Aristophanes, Plutus, 179; Suidas, s.v. χελώνη.
[401] Voyage of the Sunbeam, p. 276 (London, 1880). [L.M.R.]
[402] We learn from Strabo, 773, that the Greeks were familiar with the employment of tortoise shells, for a tribe called Tortoise-eaters on the north coast of Africa used the shells of these animals, which were of large size, for roofing purposes. Pausanias (VIII. 23. 9) tells us that there were large tortoises well suited for making lyres in Arcadia, but the people would not touch them as they were under the protection of Pan. As Pan was lord of the forest and mountain, the tortoise being especially large would naturally be regarded as his special property.
[403] Mansfield Parkyn, Abyssinia, Vol. I. p. 407.
[404] Pausan. IX. 34.
[405] Pausan. I. 25.
[406] Iliad XVII. 381.
[407] Iliad XXII. 158.
[408] Strabo 192, ὅθεν οἱ ἄρισται ταριχεῖαι τῶν ὑείων κρεῶν εἰς τὴν Ῥώμην κατακομίζονται. Hucher, Art Gaulois, Pl. 78. The swine is also found on coins of Bellovaci, Pictones and Armorican Gauls.
[409] On the plastron of the sea-tortoise eight triangular patches are made very conspicuous by pigmentation.
[410] Photius Lex. s.v. Λάμβδα. Eustathius on Homer p. 293. 39 seqq. Xenophon Hell. IV. 4. 10 (which shows that the letter was on the front, cf. Pausan. IV. 28. 5).
[411] Pollux, V. 66.
[412] Xenoph. De Vectigalibus, iv. 10, εἰ δὲ τις φήσειε καὶ χρυσίον μηδὲν ἧττον χρήσιμον εἶναι ἢ ἀργύριον, τοῦτο μὲν οὐκ ἀντιλέγω, ἐκεῖνο μέντοι οἶδα ὅτι καὶ χρυσίον ὅταν πολὺ παραφανῇ, αὐτὸ μὲν ἀτιμότερον γίγνεται, τὸ δὲ ἀργύριον τιμιώτερον ποιεῖ.
[413] Strabo, IV. 208, συνεργασαμένων δὲ σὺν βαρβάροις τῶν Ἱταλιωτῶν ἐν διμήνῳ, παραχρῆμα τὸ χρυσίον εὐωνότερον γενέσθαι τῷ τρίτῳ μέρει καθ’ ὅλην τὴν Ἰταλίαν.
[414] Pindar, Olymp. VII. 58 sq.
[415] Numismatic Chron. VII. 185. That the Cyzicene staters were at some time and at some places (Cyzicus itself?) less in value than a Daric is made possible from the new-found Mimiambi of Herondas (VII. 96 seqq.); where 4 Darics seem worth more than 5 staters:
[416] Xen. Anab. V. 6. 23; VII. 3. 10. Dem. Phorm. p. 914.
[417] Op. cit. p. 449.
[418] Corp. Inscr. Graec. 125, ἀγέτω ἡ μνᾶ ἡ ἐμπορικὴ Στεφανηφόρου δραχμὰς ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα καὶ ὀκτὼ πρὸς τὰ σταθμία τὰ ἐν τῷ ἀργυροκοπείῳ.
[419] Cf. Wharton, Etyma Latina, s.v. litra.
[420] Pollux, IX. 80.
[421] Cf. Shakespeare, I. Henry IV. II. 4, 590, in Falstaff’s tavern bill: “Item, Anchovies and sack, 6d. Item, bread, Ob. O monstrous! But one halfpenny worth of bread to such an intolerable deal of sack!”
[422] Head, op. cit. p. 105.
[423] The forms scripulum, scrupulum, scrupulus are all due to its simply being regarded in later times as a weight, and thus falsely identified with scrupulus, a small pebble.
[424] Book of Aicill, p. 335.
[425] Caesar, B. G. III. 13.
[426] Blacas, Mommsen, I. p. 177.
[427] It is worth noticing that Plutarch (Poplicola 11) translates the libral asses of early Rome by the Greek obolos; ἦν δὲ τιμὴ προβάτου μὲν ὀβολοὶ δέκα, βοὸς δὲ ἑκατόν· οὔπω νομίσματι χρωμένων πολλῷ τότε τῶν Ῥωμαίων, ἀλλὰ προβατείαις καὶ κτηνοτροφίαις εὐθηνούντων. It is quite possible that Plutarch embodies a genuine tradition that the original as and obol were the same. Otherwise like Dionysius of Halicarnassus he would have represented the asses by the value in Greek money of his own time. For he can hardly have supposed that at any time an ox was worth only 100 of the obols of his own time.
[428] So the word mark means not only a weight but is also used as a linear measure = 48 alen, and also as a measure of area, as in the term arable mark etc. See Appendix.
[429] Many of the Roman unciae in the British Museum are under 410 grs.
[430] ὁ δὲ νοῦμμος δοκεῖ μὲν εἶναι Ῥωμαίων τοὔνομα τοῦ νομίσματος, ἔστι δὲ Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ καὶ ἐν Σικελίᾳ Δωριέων.
[431] Pollux IX. 84.
[432] Evans, Horsemen of Tarentum, pp. 9-11.
[433] Tabulae Heracleenses (Boeckh Corp. Inscrip. Graec. 5774-5; Cauer, Delectus 40, 41) I, 122. αἱ δέ κα μὴ πεφυτεύκωντι κατὰ γεγραμμένα, κατεδικέσθεν πὰρ μὲν τὰν ἐλαίαν δέκα νόμως ἀργυρίω πὰρ τὸ φυτὸν ἕκαστον, πὰρ δὲ τὰς ἀμπέλως δύο μνᾶς ἀργυρίω πὰρ τὰν σχοῖνον ἑκάσταν.
[434] Boeckh, Metrol. Unters. 160, takes the Sicilicus as originally the Silician quadrans in the Roman silver reckoning. Cf. Mommsen, Blacas, I, 243. Hultsch, Metrol. p. 145.
[435] Étude des monnaies de l’Italie antique. Première partie, pp. 8 and 16.
[436] Ibid. p. 29.
[437] Ibid. p. 30.
[438] Soutzo, ibid. p. 31.
[439] If we take the καινὸν κόμμα of Aristophanes (Ranae 720) to refer, as the scholiast ad loc. asserts on the authority of Hellanicus and Philochorus, to a gold issue in B.C. 407, which was much alloyed. As Mr Head says it is quite possible that Aristophanes alludes to the new bronze coinage issued the year before the Frogs was acted (Hist. Num. 314). No such base gold coins of Athens are known, and as her gold coins are of excellent quality, it is better to refer them with Head to 394 B.C., the period of her restored prosperity, when Conon and Pharnabazus brought aid from the great king.
[440] Varro ap. Non. p. 356 nam lateres argentei atque aurei primum conflati atque in aerarium conditi. Lateres is used in this sense by Tacitus, Annals, XVI. 1.
[441] Gaius I. 122. This passage is unhappily corrupt. The Verona MS. runs asses librales erant et dupondii——unde etiam dupondius. As dupondius is really a masculine adjective used as a noun, a masculine noun must be understood, this can only be as. Dupondius then is simply a two-pound bar.
[442] XXXIII. 3. 13.
[443] Before striking silver at Rome the Romans had struck silver coins with type of quadriga and ROMA in Campania. Hence it is that Pliny regarded these the quadrigati and bigati as the oldest issue instead of the coins with the Dioscuri (Fig. 54). The biga came next, after it the genuine Roman quadriga.
[444] Varro, R. R. II. 1, 9.
[445] Varro ap. Non. p. 189 aut bovem aut ovem aut vervecem habet signum. Probably uerrem, not ueruecem, is the true reading, since Plutarch says that the coins were marked with an ox, a sheep or a swine (βοῦν ἐπεχάραττον ἢ πρόβατον ἢ ὗν). Popl. 11.
[446] Festus fragm. p. 347 Müller s.v. Sextantari asses.
[447] V. 173 Müller.
[448] Deux. Partie p. 41. “Le poids normal de l’as oncial est de 27 gr. 25, mais il alla en s’affaiblissant progressivement du commencement à la fin de la periode.”
[449] Ancient Laws of Ireland, Vol. I. p. 61. O’Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Vol. I. pp. 100 seq.
[450] Survey of the Coinage of Ireland, p. 3.
[451] Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 213 seqq.
[452] Folio 24 c.
[453] The bracketed words are interlined in a recent hand; but the final word shows that they were a portion of the text.
[454] Near Croghan Hill, in the north of King’s Co.
[455] See note on Irish text.
[456] O’Donovan has omitted caerach of the MS.
[457] Norges Mynter, IV-V.
[458] I am indebted to Mr E. Magnússon for the translation of Holmboe.
[459] Polybius XXXIV. 8.
[461] Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen d. Abendländisch. Kirchen (De disputatione Hibernensis Sinodi et Gregori Nasaseni sermo), p. 137.
[462] Beside the difficulty about numo aureo there is a further variant between anulis ferreis and taleis ferreis (bars of iron). Can Caesar have in reality written both? May the original reading have been: utuntur aut aere aut numo aureo, aut aureis anulis, aut taleis ferreis etc.? Caesar speaks of the Britons having iron of their own, and it is highly probable that they employed ingots or bars of it as money, as the wild tribes of Annam and Africa do at present. They probably used their gold or bronze rings and armlets as money also.
[463] These are taken from Sir W. Wilde’s Catalogue, but for the weights of articles acquired since 1862 I am indebted to the kindness of the Curator, Major Macenery.
[464] My friend Mr F. Seebohm has shown me that as a weight the Swedish Jungfrau is equal to the Irish Cumhal.