The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards

Appendix C — Keltic and Scandinavian Weight Systems

It is always dangerous to deal with things Keltic. So much difficulty is there in getting at any facts amidst masses of wild assertions and loose conclusions, that a prudent man may well shrink back. However, as it is worth while to give some facts respecting the actual weights of gold rings and other ornaments, I have thought it best to print the following pages.

Attempts have long ago been made to find the standard of the so-called ring money. Sir William Betham, followed by John Lindsay450, after weighing many examples, arrived at the conclusion that they are based on the ounce Troy. Now as the ounce Troy is entirely unknown to the Brehon Laws, and was only brought into Ireland by the English settlers, it is needless to argue further against that doctrine. Dr Petrie’s451 discussions about Irish coins are similarly vitiated by his treating as Troy grains the grains of wheat mentioned by the authorities.

1. Irish. Let us work back from the known to the unknown.

The system in the Brehon Laws is as follows:

1 Cumhal (ancilla)	=	3 Cows.
1 Cow	=	1 Unga (uncia of silver).
1 Unga	=	24 Screapalls.
1 Screapall	=	3 Pinginns.
1 Pinginn	=	8 grs. of wheat.

Unga = 576 grs. of wheat.

The ounce seems to be the highest unit of weight, and just as in the Brehon Laws an unga of silver is equated to a cow, so in early times an unga of gold seems to have been the regular value of a slave, the most valuable of living chattels. At least we may so infer from a curious story of St Finnian of Clonard:

Life of St Finnian (of Clonard, Co. Meath).

(Book of Lismore, fol. 24 b, c.)

Tainic iar sin Finnen cu Cilldara co Brighit, cu m-bui ic tiachtuin leiginn ocus proicepta fri re. Ceilebrais iar sin do Brigit ocus dobreth Brighit fainne oir dho. Nir ’bho santach som imon saegul: ni roghabh in fainne. “Ce no optha,” ar Brigit, “roricfea a leas.” Tainic Finnen iar sin cu Fotharta Airbrech. Dorala uisce do. Roinnail a lamha asin usci452: tuc lais for a bhais asan uisci in fáinne targaidh Brighit dó.

Táinic iar sin Caisin, mac Naemain, co faelti moir fri Finden. Ocus coneadhbair fein dó ocus roacain fris ró Fotharta ic cuinghidh oir fair ar a shaeire. “Cia mét,” ar Finnen, “conaidheas?” “Noghebhudh uingi n-oir,” ar Caisin. Rothomthuis sé iar sin in fainne [ocus frith uingi oir453] ann. Dorat Caisin hi ar a shaeriri.

Translation.

“After that came Finnian to Kildare to Brigit and he was engaged in teaching and preaching for a time. He takes leave afterwards of Brigit and Brigit gave a ring of gold to him. He was not covetous regarding the world: he accepted not the ring. “Though thou refusest,” said Brigit, “thou wilt require it.” Finnian came after that to Fotharta Airbrech454. [On his way] he met water. He washed his hands with the water [and] brought on his palm from out the water the ring that Brigit offered to him.

“After that came Caisin, son of Naeman, with great joy to [visit] Finnian. And he offered himself to him and complained to him that the king of Fotharta was demanding gold from him for his liberation. “How much,” said Finnian, “asketh he?” “He would accept an ounce of gold,” said Caisin. He [Finnian] weighed after that the ring (and there was found an ounce of gold455) in it. Caisin gave it for his liberation.”

I am indebted for this valuable reference, which also enables us to form an idea of the relative value of gold and silver in early Ireland, to the Rev. B. Mac Carthy, D.D., of Youghal.

But there is another weight called crosoch (crosóg or crosach), found in the most ancient poems. For instance in Cuchulaind the brooch of Queen Medbh, “My spear brooch of gold which weighs thirty ungas, and thirty half ungas, and thirty crossachs and thirty quarter [crossachs].” (O’Curry, Manners and Customs, Vol. III. p. 102.) The weight of a crosoch we learn from a gloss quoted by O’Donovan (Supplement to O’Reilly’s Dictionary) from MS. R. I. A., No. 35, 5. 49.

da pinginn agas cetrime pinginne isin lacht caerach i, crosóg456.

“Two pinginns and a fourth of a pinginn are a milk of a sheep, i.e. a crosóg.” Since 1 pinginn = 8 grs. wheat therefore a crosóg = 18 grs. wheat or 13·5 grs. Troy.

There are accordingly 32 crosochs in the unga of the Brehon Laws.

Inspection at once shows that the crosoch must have belonged to a different system, on which either the system of ungas and screapalls was grafted or vice versa. The expulsion of the crosoch from the later Irish shows that the first alternative is the true one.

Again, it is certain that the unga and screapall were borrowed from the Roman system, probably before the time of Constantine, as after his time the solidus became universal throughout the Empire, and has left its impress everywhere.

The crosoch therefore must be non-Roman, i.e. belong to the native population.

Above we saw that it was used along with ungas and half ungas in describing Medbh’s Fibula. Here is historical evidence of its use in the weighing of gold ornaments.

There were certainly 32 crosochs in the ounce of the Brehon Laws, but if we can show in another system of north-western Europe a weight exactly the same as the crosoch, with an ounce which is its thirty-fold, we may hesitate to lay down that the full Roman ounce with its 432 grs. Troy (576 grs. wheat) was the earliest form of Irish unga.

There is no mention of screapalls in the weight of Medbh’s brooch. It is quite possible that under ecclesiastical influences the full Roman ounce and its division into screapalls may have been introduced at a comparatively late period. The contact between Kelts and Scandinavians in early times has of late excited much interest.

2. Let us now turn to the old Norse system. It is as follows:

1 pening	=	13·5 grs. Troy
10 penings	=	1 örtug = 136·7 grs.
3 örtugs	=	1 öre = 410 grs.
8 öres	=	1 mark = 3280 grs.

Let us deal first with the mark. As its name signifies, it in all probability was originally not a weight, but a measure. The use of mark as a land measure is well known in the Teutonic languages. It is also used as a measure of length. Thus a mark of cloth consists of 448 alen or ells. After what we have learned about the history of the Roman as (p. 354) we need not be surprised if a term originally used as a measure of some article which was not as yet sold by weight, came in similar fashion to be incorporated at a later period into the weight system as a higher unit. If the mark was originally a given measure of bronze or iron, we can readily see how it came later on to be used as a weight, and ultimately to be the chief unit of account among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, until it was at last driven out by the pound.

That silver was cast into bars which weighed a mark is rendered highly probable by the fact that three of the silver bars found at Cuerdale weigh respectively 3960, 3954, and 3950 grs. Troy; that is, just the weight of 160 pennies of the reign of Alfred. 160 pennies are two-thirds of a pound of 240 pennies, or in other words a mark.

The practice of running silver into ingots of such a weight may well have arisen from an earlier practice of employing bronze or iron bars of such a weight. It is at all events certain that the mark is native Teutonic and is not borrowed from Rome. That the Kelts at least used bars of iron as money is made not unlikely by a famous passage of Caesar which I shall quote later on. A various reading states that the Britons used iron rods as money (ferreis taleis). Even without this we may reasonably infer from what we have learned of the practice of primitive peoples in dealing with iron or copper, that the Teutons and Kelts must have used these by measure. It is well known that the Swedes used ingots of copper as currency down to comparatively recent times. It is then most likely that the öre or ounce of 410 grs. was the highest original weight unit, just as the unga is in the ancient Irish system. The weight of this öre is of great interest. If we found the Roman pound of 12 ounces in Scandinavia, we should at once say that the öre of 410 grs. was the reduced Roman ounce (432 grs.). But as the native mark evidently got its position before the influence of Rome was felt in the North, we may well consider the öre to be pre-Roman. The reader will remember that I identified the ancient Roman uncia with the small talent of Sicily and Macedonia. The latter weighed 3 ox-units or about 405 grs. I also suggested that it originally represented the value of a slave, and was thus the original highest unit used for gold or silver. I showed on an earlier page (141) that the Norse örtug, the one-third of the öre, was the price of a cow. If three cows were the price of a slave in Scandinavia as they were in Ireland, and probably in Homeric Greece, an öre of gold was the price of a slave. The passage from the life of St Finnian given at once shows that an ounce of gold was the regular price of a slave in early Ireland, and probably a good Scandinavian scholar could soon find similar evidence for the value of the old Norse slave.

The meaning and derivation of the term örtug have been much discussed. It occurs in the forms örtog, örtug, ertog, œrtug. Cleasby’s Lexicon makes nothing out of the first part of the word, but takes the second part (-tog -tug = tugr = 20), because örtug had the value of 20 penningar, though tugr means 10. But as a matter of fact there were, as we saw above, 240 penningar in the mark, and therefore there were 10 penningar in the örtug. Holmboe457 goes more deeply into the origin of örtug. He says, “As á, pl. œr, signifies a ewe, and tug-r as a derivative of ten both by itself and in compounds signifies ten, ertug seems originally to have signified 10 ewes, just as the weight ertug betokens the weight of 10 peningar, and peningr itself also means a sheep. It may be regarded as questionable to assume the plural œr to form the first part of the compound, yet œr must at an early period have been used in the formation of compounds, since both the folkspeech of Norway has the form œr-saud-ewe, sheep, technically a ewe-with-lamb, and the folkspeech of Denmark has œr lam in the sense of ewe-lamb458.” Another suggestion is that örtug comes from arta = a pea-formed knob, so that örtug = örtu-vog, the weight of a pea.

The objection to this would be that the pea would weigh 13·5 grs. Troy, which seems far too much.

In spite of the philological difficulty in making örtug = 10 ewes, it is very remarkable that this value corresponds so accurately with the value of a cow, which I independently found for it. I have already pointed out that 10 sheep were the usual value of a cow. So it was at Rome in 451 B.C. and so it is with the Modern Ossetes. The ox fit for the yoke was probably worth 20 lambs or 5 sheep in Lusitania459, and as we saw that in the Welsh Laws the ox when fit for the yoke was worth half a full-grown cow, the Lusitanian cow was worth 10 sheep. So also at Athens, when Plutarch460 says an ox was worth 5 sheep, he probably means an ox fit for the yoke, the cow being worth 10 sheep. In the Brehon Laws 8 sheep go to the cow, but as I have already pointed out the insulated position of Ireland would tend to cause a variation in prices from those on the mainland of Europe. Thus we see from the story of St Finnian that gold must have been worth only three times its weight in silver in Ireland in the early centuries of our era. For the price of a slave was an ounce of gold, whilst in the Brehon Laws it is 3 ounces of silver. It might be said that we cannot prove that this was the value of a slave in gold and silver at any one time, and that silver may have been much cheaper at an earlier date. When we recollect that silver has never existed in any quantity in Ireland, and that where it does exist it can only be obtained by systematic mining, a thing impossible in the eternal turmoil of Ireland, and also bear in mind that when Japan was opened to Europeans in this century gold was exchanged for three times its weight in silver, we need not think such a relation at all unlikely in ancient Ireland. The paucity of silver ornaments in the Royal Irish Academy Museum confirms this opinion. But the evidence from the Penitentials shows that silver was scarce at a comparatively still early date in Ireland461. Thus XII altilia vel XIII sicli praetium unius cuiusque ancillae.

I have already shown the universality of making gold ornaments after a fixed weight. The passages given above show that a similar practice existed among the ancient Irish.

Let us turn to the numerous gold rings, commonly called Ring Money, of which there are some 50 in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy of various weights and sizes. I give these weights. Let us examine them, and see if we can find any indications gained inductively of a weight standard.

As by inspection we see that the smallest rings weigh 13 and 14 grs. Troy, and the next three 29, 31, 32 respectively, which look like the double of the smaller, I shall group the rings according as they approximate to the multiples of 15.

Multiples of 15	Actual Ring Weights (Royal Irish Acad.)	Multiples of 15	Actual	Rings	Weights
15	13, 14	180	179	345
30	29, 31, 32, 36	195	199, 203	360
45	40, 46	210	206, 209	375	372
60	54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 65, 65	225	220	370
75	69, 73	240	247
90	84, 84, 88, 96	255	259
105	98, 104, 111	270
120	121, 124	285	283, 283
135		300
150	144, 144, 147, 147, 150, 151	315	322
165	171,172	330	332

A glance at the foregoing table shows that the most numerous group of rings occurs at the fourfold (60), no less than seven specimens ranging themselves at that point, next we find six specimens at the tenfold (150), whilst next in order comes the sixfold with four examples. There are three cases of the double (30). On the other hand it is worth noticing the absence of the ninefold, whilst there are three instances of the sevenfold, and the absence of the eighteenfold (2 × 9) likewise, whilst we have the elevenfold, twelvefold, thirteenfold, fourteenfold. However from the absence of the twentyfold (2 × 10) we cannot lay great stress on this. The heaviest specimen (372) closely approximates to the twenty-five fold (375).

I add the weights of the ancient Irish gold rings preserved in the British Museum.

Irish small plain ring money. Some are without localities but may be assumed to be Irish. Marked thus *.

*103, 563, *389, *121, *29½, 218, 224, 323, 295 injured, 218, 122, 90, 28, 56, 215 copper plated with gold (injured), 299, 148, 98, 366, 89 piece cut from a larger bracelet?, 48½ hollow and open? plating of bronze ring? (banded), 422, 410 (ounces), 288 (injured).

Irish fluted ring money. * No precise locality, but presumably Irish.
*106, *123 (worn), 30, 59, 90, 66, 59½.
With disks, 249, 806 (2 oz.), 595, 283, 169, 665, 139, 119.
Dots, no lines, 32.

The weights of these rings show many points of agreement with those in the Irish Museum. Thus we get 28, 29½, 30, and 32 grs. corresponding to 29, 31, and 32 grs. of the second group in the Irish Table. Again, 56 and 59½ where we get 54, 56, 58, 59, 61 in the Irish, and 66 corresponding to 65, 65; 98 to 96 and 98; and 89 corresponding to 88 and 90; 119, 121, 122 and 123 to 121 and 124; 139 to 144, and 144 and 148 to 147 and 147; then 169 to 171 and 172. Then comes a break, and we get 215, 218, 218, 224 corresponding to 220, and 249 to 247, and 283 to 283 and 283; and 323 to 322, and 360 to 366. But the British Museum gives us in the higher weights three very important specimens: for 410 grs. is the ounce corresponding exactly to the old Norse öre of 410 grs., and the ring of 422 grs. looks like the later ounce rising towards the full weight of 432. The ring of 806 grs. is plainly 2 ounces of the standard of 410 (806 ÷ 2 = 403).

The occurrence of several specimens so constantly all of the same weight, as for instance those about 220 grs., points beyond doubt to the conclusion that when the rings were being made a given quantity of gold was weighed out for the purpose. The story of St Finnian proves that for any transaction in which rings were employed as money, the scales were employed.

There is a set of leaden weights in the Royal Irish Academy Collection, found at Island Bridge, Dublin, in 1869, when Ancient Irish and Scandinavian remains were found together. As they are more or less corroded, it is not advisable to lay much stress on their present weights.

		grs.
1.	Semicircular weight	1852
2.	Animal’s head	1550
3.	Circular	1221
4.		958
5.		634
6.	Oblong	539
7.		459
8.	Quadrangular	414	(oz.)
9.		395	(oz.)
10.		220

There are certainly some interesting points of agreement between the weights and the gold ornaments, e.g. the weights of 220, 390, 414, 630, have corresponding weights in gold. The largest weight may be 4½ oz. of 410 grs.

---

Let us now return to the Irish monetary system, and see if we can determine more accurately its relation to that of Rome.

8	grains of wheat	=	1	pinginn.
24	″ ″	=	3	pinginns	=	1	screapall.
576	″ ″	=	72	″	=	24	screapalls	=	1 unga.

As regards unga and screapall we have spoken already. Of their origin there is no doubt. The pinginn on the other hand is not so easy. The name is certainly Teutonic, said to be ultimately a loan word formed from pecunia. It seems to have been employed as a general term for the smallest form of currency. Hence we find the Saxon form (pendinga) applied to the 240th part of the lb., and of about 32 grs. wheat, and the Norse peningr used for the 240th part of the mark, whilst in Ireland the cognate form is applied to the 72nd part of the ounce, and is of the weight of 8 grains wheat.

The Irish employed the system of Uncia and Scripula. Shall we say then that this system was in vogue in Britain likewise before the time of Constantine and yielded slowly before the later one?

Since then it was common to the Kelts on both sides of the Irish Sea, and we find that in Ireland it was grafted upon an earlier system, of which the crosoch is a survival, we may reasonably infer that the Kelts of Britain had likewise a native system analogous to the crosoch. But further, of this we have strong evidence of two kinds. Caesar B. G. v. 12, when describing the British Kelts and their manners, says; pecorum magnus numerus. Utuntur aut aere aut nummo aureo aut annulis ferreis ad certum pondus examinatis pro nummo462. The passage has been mutilated by Editors, but this is the reading of the best MSS. Caesar thus tells us that they had a system of weights of their own. Secondly the evidence of the actual British Coins (cf. Evans, Coins of Ancient Britons) which are of a standard not Roman.

Now we have seen above that the Irish gold rings were weighed on a standard of almost 13·5 grs. Troy. Let us now see if the larger gold ornaments preserved in our Museums confirm or disprove the evidence of the rings. I shall first give the weights of those in the Royal Irish Academy463:

Crescent shaped ornaments: 1539, 434 (ounce of Brehon Laws?), 733, 1008, 255, 2013, 489, 552, 660, 1081, 98, 432 (ounce of Brehon Laws), 339, 400 (early ounce = Norse öre?), 187, 390 (old ounce?), 797 (2 ounces, 2 × 398½).

The following are not in Wilde’s Catalogue: 472, 505, 542, 540, 630, 647, 667, 687, 720, 722, 737, 1092, 4331.

Torques: 476, 1013, 1527, 3126, 3168, 4722, 5941, 6007, 10268.

Not in Wilde: 154, 342, 1946, 2715, 4172, 5207, 5275, 6012, 6881.

Armlets: 144, 158, 182, 329, 401 (small pre-Roman ounce), 421 (ounce), 487, 510, 684, 757, 894, 989, 1037, 1369, 1630 (4 ounces of 407 grs.?), 1716 (4 ounces of 426 grs.?), 2089 (5 oz. of 418 grs.?), 5635 (14 oz. of 402 grs.?), 6265 (15 oz. of 417 grs.).

Not in Wilde: 130, 145 (⅓ of oz. of 432 grs.?), 178, 184, 187, 199, 208, 215 (half oz. of 432 grs.?), 241, 289, 301, 303 (¾ oz. of 405 grs.?), 345, 396 (oz.?), 487, 509 (1¼ oz.?), 547 (1⅓ of oz.), 606 (1½ oz. of 405 grs.?), 630 (1⅓ oz. of 420 grs.?), 740, 753 (1¾ oz.), 1093 (2½ oz.?), 1190, 1210 (3 oz. of 405 grs.), 1267 (3 oz. of 422 grs.?), 1322, 1641 (4 oz. of 410 grs.), 1730 (4 oz. of 432 grs.?), 1836, 1836 (4½ oz. of 410 grs.?), 1940 (5 oz. of 388 grs.? or 4¾ oz. of 410 grs.?), 1980 (5 oz. of 396 grs. or 4¾ oz. of 410 grs.?), 2201, 6144 (15 oz. of 410 grs.?), 13557 (33 oz. of 410 grs.?).

Fibulae: 56 (4 crosachs), 179, 180 (⅖ oz. of 400 grs.?), 415 (oz.), 600 (1½ oz. of 400 grs.?), 1231 (3 oz. of 410 grs.), 1345 (3½ oz. of 432 grs.), 1596 (4 oz. of 399 grs.?), 2301 (5¼ oz. of 400 grs.), 2536 (6 oz. of 422 grs.), 17200 (43 oz. of 400 grs.?), 8092 (20 oz. of 404 grs.), 19440 (48 oz. of 405 grs.).

Not in Wilde: 61, 106 (¼ oz.), 170, 170 (⅖ oz. of 425 gr.), 191, 196 (½ oz.?), 207, 209 (½ oz.), 248, 275 (⅔ oz. of 411 grs.), 315 (¾ oz.?), 379 (oz.), 542 (1⅓ oz.?), 557 (1⅓ oz.?), 586 (1½ oz.?), 649 (1½ oz. of 432 grs.?), 1187 (3 oz. of 396 grs.?).

Gorgets: 1160 (3 oz. of 387 grs.?), 2020 (5 oz. of 404 grs.?), 3091 (8 oz. of 386 grs.?), 3444 (8 oz. of 430 grs.?).

The result of an examination of the foregoing weights is to show that in all probability the vast majority of them were made on a standard much lighter than the Roman ounce of 432 grs., which was in full use in mediaeval Ireland. We saw that the Roman ounce had been only 420 grs. down to the Second Punic war, and I suggested that originally it was of the same weight as the Sicilian talent 390-405 grs. Can we observe a similar increase in the Irish ounce? The ounce of 400-410 seems to point to a time when Kelt and Scandinavian had a common higher unit of similar weight corresponding to the value of a slave464, just as the Sicilian and Macedonian talent of three ox units represented the same slave unit.

I shall now give the weights of the various ornaments of gold found in England, Wales and Scotland which are preserved in the British Museum. For these I am indebted to the great kindness of Mr F. L. Griffith of the Anthropological department.

Torques with rings.

Boxton, Suffolk, torque band twisted. 1·038 (2½ oz. of 415 grs.) with double ring. Weight 24·8 grs.

(A ring of 8 parallel sections, bronze plated with gold, injured, weighs 111 grs.; the locality is not known, but it seems connected with this class. Probably Irish, one in Wilde’s catalogue of 7 sections.)

Another double ring, Devonshire, weighs 563 grs. (1⅓ oz. of 420 grs.).

Lincolnshire torques; 1454 grs. (3½ oz. of 415 grs.), coiled band 119½. Quadruple ring, 93½ (¼ oz.?), another similar 93.

Cambridgeshire torques (not in B. M.) 1944 (5 oz. of 387? or 4¾ oz. of 410), rest in B. M. viz.:—bracelet 613 (1½ oz. of 412 grs.), two treble rings linked together, combined weight 358, double ring, weight 132 (⅓ oz.), another 131½, two others similar but smaller are each 68 (⅙ oz.).

Wales. Two plain bracelets, near Beaumaris, Anglesea, 1028 (2½ oz. of 410 grs.); 420 (1 oz.), crescent-shaped gorget, Caernarvon, 2861 (7 oz. of 410 grs.).

Scotland. Noard, near Elgin, torques formed of a plain twisted band, 207 (½ oz.): 215 (½ oz.): 192 (½ oz.): 119 grains.

The evidence points to an ounce of 420 grs. It is worth noting that this is just 5 times the weight of the latest British coins, 84-82 grs.

Whence then did the Britons obtain this pre-Roman standard? Was it of native development or borrowed from some other people? By Britons we must be careful to express not all the natives of Britain. They fall most certainly into at least two groups. I. The Kelts in the East and South East. II. The barbarous inhabitants of the interior, who subsisted by hunting and fishing, and who were probably of that Iberic race, which spread over all Western Europe before the advance of the Aryans. It is only with the first group that we are immediately concerned. They almost exclusively possessed the art of coining, as is shown by the area over which British coins are found. Furthermore Caesar tells us of the close relationship of the first group to the Gauls, as is shown by their tribal names, language and customs. In addition their coinage is similar. Now there can be no doubt as regards the source from whence the Gauls derived their coinage. As they got the art of writing from the Phocaeans of Massilia (founded circ. 600 B.C.), so likewise did they gain the art of money-stamping from the same famous town, as has been completely demonstrated long since. People are inclined at once to assume that the Gauls and Britons got their weight standards also from Marseilles. There is certainly some evidence to support this belief. Thus the gold torque lately found in Jersey weighs 11500 grs., which is exactly the mina of the Phocaic system at a time when 57½ grs. went to the drachm. Again we have seen that there were a considerable number of gold ornaments in Ireland and Britain which weigh 224-216 grs. This is the Phocaic (or Phoenician) stater. But the question is not so simple as it might appear at first sight in relation to the weight system, as will appear most readily by a short survey of the history of the monetary system of Massilia.

I. The earliest coinage consists of silver, small divisions of the Phocaic drachm (58-54 grains Troy). These have various symbols on the obverse, but have uniformly the incuse square on the reverse. These may be placed after 500 B.C. “Notwithstanding their archaic appearance, it does not seem that these little coins are much earlier than the middle of the 5th century.”

II. Next comes a series, chiefly obols for the most part with head of Apollo on obverse, and a wheel on reverse, the latter probably a development of the earlier incuse square. They are mostly obols of 13-8 grains.

III. About the middle of the 4th century the drachm first appears with the head of Artemis on obverse and a lion on the reverse, weighing 58-55 grains.

Now over all Gaul, and far into Northern Italy, and the valleys of the Alps, as far as the Tyrol, the coinage of Massilia made its way and was abundantly imitated. In fact these imitations formed the entire medium of those regions until the Roman conquest. The imitations of the little coins with Apollo and the wheel as reverse are found right into the north of France, and in England.

Did the Kelts borrow their 13½ grain unit from the 13 grain obol of Massilia, or is it of far earlier growth? The Etruscans used a unit of 13½ grs. in the 4th century B.C., and we find the Massaliotes having almost the same. Is the true answer this? All over Western Europe the ox unit of 135 grs. of gold was subdivided into 10 parts each of 13½ grs. These 10 parts corresponded to 10 sheep, the regular value of a cow. There was also a higher unit from Greece to Gaul and Britain corresponding to the slave. There were fluctuations in their worth in various times and places, but on the whole there was a tendency to raise the weight of the higher unit (ounce). But it is natural that the Kelts may have taken over into their system certain units from the Phocaic system which they used as multiples of their own smaller units, just as the Teutonic peoples took the Roman pound into their own system, and the natives of West Africa made the Spanish dollar the multiple of their own native weights, based on seeds. Some idea of the relative ages of Keltic gold ornaments may perhaps be got from applying the criterion of weight standard to them.

Footnotes

1 Metrologische Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfüsse und Masse des Alterthums in ihrem Zusammenhange. Berlin, 1838.

2 χρύσεα χαλκείων, ἑκατόμβοι’ ἐννεαβοίων.

3 Iliad, XXIII. 750.

4 Victor A. L. Morier, Murray’s Magazine, August, 1889, p. 181.

5 Trans-Caucasia, p. 410 (Engl. trans. 1854).

6 Pollux, IX. 73, τὸ παλαιὸν δὲ τοῦτ’ ἦν Ἀθηναίοις νόμισμα καὶ ἐκαλεῖτο βοῦς, ὅτι βοῦν εἶχεν ἐντετυπωμένον. εἰδέναι δ’ αὐτὸ καὶ Ὅμηρον νομίζουσιν εἰπόντα ἑκατόμβοι’ ὲννεαβοίων.

7 Cf. Aesch. Agam. 36; Theognis 815. Cp. τὰν ἀρετὰν καὶ τὰν σοφίαν νικᾶντι χελῶναι, a proverb (given by Pollux IX. 74) alluding to the Tortoise coins of Aegina; and Menander (Al. 1), παχὺς γὰρ ὗς ἔκειτ’ ἐπὶ στόμα.

8 ἡ γλαῦξ ἐπὶ χαράγματος ἢ τετραδράχμου, ὡς Φιλόχορος· ἐκλήθη δὲ τὸ νόμισμα τὸ τετράδραχμον τότε [ἡ] γλαῦξ· ἦν γὰρ ἡ γλαῦξ ἐπίσημον καὶ πρόσωπον Ἀθηνᾶς, τῶν προτέρων διδράχμων ὄντων, ἐπίσημον δὲ βοῦν ἐχόντων.

9 Plutarch, Solon, c. 15.

10 Hultsch, Reliquiae Scriptorum Metrologicorum, I. 301, τὸ δὲ γαρ’ Ὁμήρῳ τάλαντον ἴσον ἐδύνατο τῷ μετὰ ταῦτα Δαρεικῷ. ἄγει δ’ οὖν τὸ χρυσοῦν τάλαντον Ἀττικὰς δραχμὰς β’, γράμματα ζ’, τετάρτας δηλαδὴ τεσσάρας.

11 Iliad, XVIII. 507, 8,
κεῖτο δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι δύω χρυσοῖο τάλαντα,
τῷ δόμεν, ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴπῃ.

See Appendix A for a linguistic proof that the two talents were for the Judge.

12 Ancient Law, p. 375.

13 ἀνδρὶ δὲ νικηθέντι γυναῖκ’ ἐς μέσσον ἔθηκεν,
πολλὰ δ’ ἐπίστατο ἔργα, τίον δέ ἑ τεσσαράβοιον.

14 Od. I. 430.

15 Iliad, IX. 12 seqq.

16 Il. XXIII. 262 seqq.

17 Of course amongst the lowest races of savages such as the aborigines of Australia, even barter is almost unknown. Each man makes his own stone implements from the greenstone which is everywhere in abundance, his own clubs and boomerangs, whilst Nature supplies all his other wants.

18 Whymper’s Alaska, p. 225.

19 Morier, Murray’s Magazine, August, 1889, p. 181.

20 Jevons, Money, p. 24.

21 Tribes of California, p. 21.

22 Op. cit., p. 335.

23 Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, Vol. I. 386.
They counted the Cacao nuts by 8000 and to save the trouble of counting them they reckoned them by sacks, every sack being reckoned to contain 24,000. Cf. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I. p. 44.

24 G. M. Dawson, ‘Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878,’ p. 135 B (Geological Survey of Canada), Montreal, 1880.

25 F. Magnússon, Nordiske Tidskrift for Oldkyndighed, II. 112.

26 Wanderings in a Wild Country, or Three Years among the Cannibals of New Britain (London, 1883), p. 55.

27 For shell money in the Caroline Islands cf. Kubary’s Ethnographische Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Karolinen Archipels (Leipzig, 1889); in the Pelew Islands cf. Karl Semper, Die Pelau Inseln (Leipzig, 1873), p. 60; and for shell money in general cf. R. Stearn’s Ethno-conchology (Washington, 1889).

28 Jevons, Money, 25.

29 Terrien de la Couperie, Coins and Medals, p. 193.

30 Terrien de la Couperie, Coins and Medals, p. 199.

31 Yule’s Translation, Vol. II. p. 70.

32 Gill, River of Golden Sand, II. p. 77.

33 Yule’s Translation, Vol. II. p. 45.

34 So the Irish sed, the most general name for chattel, originally meant simply an ox.

35 Cochin-Chine Française. Excursions et Reconnaissances, XIII. (1877), p. 296-8.

36 Excursions et Reconnaissances, XIII. No. 30 (1887), p. 296-304.

37 M. Aymonier, Cochin-Chine. Excursions et Reconnaissances, Vol. X. No. 24 (1885), pp. 233 seqq.

38 Ibid. p. 317.

39 Rig-Veda, Mandala, VII. 90. 6, VIII. 67. 1-2, VI. 47, 23-4.

40 Vendidâd, Fasgard, VII. 41 (Darmesteter’s translation in Sacred Books of the East).

41 Vendidâd, Fasgard, IX. 37.

42 Ibid. IV. 2.

43 Hakluyt Society, 1857, p. 35.

44 For larins cf. Prof. Rhys Davids, “On the Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon” (Numismata Orientalia, Vol. I. 68-73). Mr Rhys Davids makes no mention of the bronze fish-hooks, but there are a number of them in the British Museum.

⁴⁵ I am indebted to the kindness of Mr A. Galetly of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art for the drawing from which the figure here shown is reproduced, as also for the drawing of the Calabar wire money and West African axe money figured lower down. My friend Mr J. G. Frazer (one out of countless kindnesses) called my attention to all three objects.

46 Haxthausen, Transkaukasia II. p. 30 (Engl. Trans. p. 409).

47 Il. XXIII. 485.

48 Oecon. II. 21.

49 II. 18.

50 Annals of the Four Masters, Anno 106 A.D. (O’Donovan’s ed.).

51 Ancient Laws of Wales, p. 795.

52 O’Donovan’s Supplement to O’Reilly, s.v. Lacht: Senchus Mor, I. 287.

53 Thorpe, Laws of the Anglo-Saxons, I. 357. Cunningham, History of English Commerce, I. 117.

54 Illud notandum est quales debent solidi esse Saxonum: id est, bovem annoticum utriusque sexus, autumnali tempore, sicut in stabulum mittitur, pro uno solido: similiter et vernum tempus, quando de stabulo exiit; et deinceps, quantum aetatem auxerit, tantum in pretio crescat. De annona vero bortrinis pro solido uno scapilos quadraginta donant et de sigule viginti. Septemtrionales autem pro solidum scapilos triginta de avena et sigule quindecim. Mel vero pro solido bortrensi, sigla una et medio donant. Septemtrionales autem duos siclos de melle pro uno solido donent. Item ordeum mundum sicut et sigule pro uno solido donent. In argento duodecim denarios solidum faciant. Et in aliis speciebus ad istum pretium omnem aestimationem compositionis sunt. Capitulare Saxonicum, II. Migne, XCVII. 202.

55 Schive and Holmboe, Norges Mynter (Christiania, 1865), pp. I.-III.

56 G. Hoffmann, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Vol. II. (1887) p. 48.

57 Schliemann, Mycenae, and Tiryns, p. 354.

58 Il. XVIII. 401 πόρπας τε, γναμπτάς θ’ ἕλικας, κάλυκάς τε, καὶ ὅρμους.

59 Homer. Epos, 279-281 (2nd ed.).

60 Hesychius s.v. ἕλικες explains them as earrings (ἐνώτια), or armlets, anklets (ψέλλια), or rings (δακτύλιοι). Eustathius on Iliad XVIII. 400 explains them as ἐνώτια ἢ ψέλλια παρὰ τὸ εἰς κύκλον ἑλίσσεσθαι, “earrings or armlets (anklets), so called from being rolled up” (helissesthai). Cp. Ebeling, Lexicon Homericum, s.v. ἕλιξ.

61 Keary, Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Coins, I. p. vii. From beag Mr Max Müller derives buy in spite of a phonetic difficulty.

62 Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are in the collection of my friend Mr R. Day, F.S.A., of Cork. The others are in my own possession.

63 Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. X. Here is the description and weight of the rings (which I have been enabled to figure by the kindness of Mr John Murray):

Metal	Description	Weight
		Grammes	Grains Troy
Silver	Plain ring	8·8	137
Gold	Spiral	8·5	132
″	″	9·9	153
″	″	10·8	167
″	Plain ring	15·9	248
″	″	16·5	257
″	″	19·0	297
″	″	19·4	303
″	Spiral	20·5	320
″	″	21·5	335
″	Plain ring	22·0	340
″	Spiral	29·3	452
″	″	39·0	612
″	″	39·5	617
″	″	41·5	643
″	″	42·2	654
″	″	42·3	655
″	″	42·8	662

64 Cf. Keary’s Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum, p. 6.

65 Strabo iii. p. 155. ἀντὶ δὲ νομίσματος οἱ λίαν ἐν βάθει φορτίων ἀμοιβῇ χρώνται ἢ τοῦ ἀργύρου ἐλάγματος ἀποτέμνοντες διδόασιν.

66 Gordon Lang, Travels in Western Africa (1825), Prefatory Note.

67 The specimen figured was brought home about 30 years ago and is now in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art.

[68] The specimens here figured are in the splendid collection of my friend Mr R. Day, of Cork.

69 This information I owe to Lieut. Troup.

70 I am indebted to Messrs James Booth and Co. for this information.

71 Dapper Description de l’Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686) p. 367. “Le bois rouge de Majumba et la pao de Hiengo de Benguela tiennent aussi le lieu de monnaie: on en coupe des morceaux d’un pied de long; on leur met une certaine taxe selon laquelle le prix des vivres se règle.”

72 Peter Kolben, Present state of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 262.

73 R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the Madi or Moru Tribe of Central Africa,” Transactions of Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XII. p. 303 seqq.

74 Voyage au Darfour, Mohammed Ibn Omar el Tounsy (translated by Perron), Paris, 1845, pp. 218, 315.

75 Voyage au Darfour, p. 316.

76 Ibid. p. 319.

77 Voyage au Darfour, p. 321.

78 Voyage au Ouadai, Mohammed Ibn Omar el Tounsy (French translation by Perron), p. 559.

79 Elliot’s Alaska, p. 8. This is an interesting parallel to the ancient tradition that the Carthaginians employed leather money. (Vide Smith’s Dict. of Geogr. I. 545.)

80 Il. XXIII. 826.

81 Il. XXIV. 230-2.

82 Timaeus 12.

83 B. G. v. 12.

84 199.

85 Schrader. Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 260.

86 Odyssey, XXIII. 198.

87 Cunningham, Hist. of English Commerce, I. p. 117.

88 Il. XXI. 41.

89 Od. XV. 460.

90 Prescott, Mexico, p. 234.

91 Schrader, p. 255.

92 Schrader, op. cit. p. 255.

93 Polybius II. 19.

94 W. Deecke, Etrusk. Forschungen, p. 5.

95 Herod. IV. 49.

96 Ausland, 1873, No. 39.

97 Arist. Θαυμ. 833 b. 14, φασὶ δὲ ἐν τοῖς Βάκτροις τὸν Ὦξον ποταμὸν καταφέρειν βωλία χρυσίου πλήθει πολλά.

98 Herod. IV. 18.

99 Herod. III. 116, λέγεται δὲ ὑπὲκ τῶν γρυπῶν ἁρπάζειν Ἀριμάστους ἄνδρας μουνοφθάλμους.
For the gold-fields of India, cf. Dr Valentine Ball’s excellent chapter (IV.) in his Geology of India.

100 Herod. IV. 25.

101 Herod. IV. 71, ἀργύρῳ δὲ οὐδὲν οὐδὲ χαλκῷ χρέωνται.

102 Strabo, XI. p. 499, παρὰ τούτοις δὲ λέγεται καὶ χρυσὸν καταφέρειν τοὺς χειμάρρους, ὑποδέχεσθαι δ’ αὐτὸν τοὺς βαρβάρους φάνταις κατατετρημέναις καὶ μαλλωταῖς δοραῖς· ἀφ’ οὖ δὴ μεμυθεῦσθαι καὶ τὸ χρυσόμαλλον δέρος.

103 Strabo, XIV. p. 680.

104 Herod. I. 93, πάρεξ τοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Τμώλου καταφερομένου ψήγματος.

105 XIII. 625 sq.

106 Herod. VI. 46 sq.

107 Strabo, 331.

108 Herod. IX. 75.

109 Strabo, 618. 29. Didot.

110 Cf. Isaiah xlv. 14.

111 The Debae of Agatharchides and Artemidorus are held by almost all scholars to be the people of Ptolemy’s Θῆβαι πόλις, i.e. Dhahabân, from Dhahab, gold, with term.-ân.

112 Strabo, 661. 45. Didot.

113 Diodorus Sic. II. 50. 1 sq.

114 This story about their connection with Boeotia doubtless arose from the confusion between Δέβαι and Θῆβαι.

115 Diod. Sic. III. 45. 4.

116 His description of the size of the largest nuggets of gold varies slightly; in his second reference he compares them to “royal nuts” (κάρυα βασιλικά), which are generally admitted to be walnuts, though walnuts are sometimes also called “Persian nuts” (κάρυα Περσικά), the latter name reminding us of the derivation of walnut itself; in the first passage he likens them in size to chestnuts (κάρυα κασταναικά) or κασταναῖα, the name being said to be derived from Castanaea, a city of Pontus. It would seem from this then that Diodorus got his accounts from two slightly different sources. Strabo has been so cautious as not to give us any specific epithet for the large nut, which we may accordingly regard as we please either as a chestnut or a walnut. There can be no doubt about the fruit to which Strabo compares the medium-sized nuggets. The mespilon, Latin merpilum (from which comes the French nèfle), is undoubtedly the medlar, whilst perhaps the most likely meaning for the smallest of the three fruits is olive-stone.

117 Diodorus, III. 12-14.

118 Mansfield Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, Vol. I. p. 405 (London, 1853).

119 For similar ways of trading in Africa in modern times see Rawlinson’s note ad locum.

120 Herod. IV. 49.

121 Strabo, 173. 34-49, Didot.

122 Ibid. 178 Didot.

123 Th. Mommsen (Nordetruskische Alfabete, p. 250, seqq.) gives an admirable summary of the metallurgical history of this region.

124 Strabo, 218.

125 Pliny, XXXIII. 4. § 78, extat lex censoria Victumularum aurifodinae, qua in Vercellenai agro cavebatur, ne plus quinque M hominum in opere publicani haberent.

126 Strabo, 205.

127 Th. Mommsen, Die nordetruskischen Alfabete, p. 223; Pauli, Altitalische Forschungen, p. 6.

128 Strabo, 191.

129 Hucher, L’Art Gaulois, 19.

130 We must then in all probability place the first striking of the Gaulish imitations of the Philippas about 150 B.C., rather than as is usually stated about 250 B.C.

131 Strabo, 187.

132 Strabo, 146.

133 Diodorus, v. 27.

134 Strabo, 190.

¹³⁵ Both are from coins in my own possession; A found near Mildenhall (Suffolk) in 1884, cf. Dr Evans, Ancient British Coins, Pl. XXIII. 4; B at Potton in Bedfordshire, 1888; cf. op. cit. Pl. B. 8.

136 Strabo, 191.

137 Caesar, B. G. V. 12, pecorum magnus numerus. Utuntur aut aere aut nummis aureis aut taleis ferreis ad certum pondus examinatis pro nummo. Nascitur ibi plumbum album in mediterraneis regionibus, maritimis ferrum, sed eius exigua est copia, aere utuntur importato.

138 Caesar, B. G. II. 4.

139 W. Ridgeway, “The Greek Trade Routes to Britain” (Folklore, March 1880, p. 23).

140 Strabo, 199, leaves out tin here although he mentions it when quoting from Posidonius. The reason is that after the tin-mines of Northern Spain had been developed by Publius Crassus, Caesar’s lieutenant, the British tin trade ceased.

141 Strabo, page 201.

142 IV. 151.

143 Herodotus, I. 163-4.

144 Strabo, 147.

145 Strabo, 146.

146 Strabo, 146 sq.

147 Diodorus, v. 35.

148 Marsden’s History of Sumatra, p. 172.

149 Pliny, H. N. XXXIII. 4, 21 aurum arrugia quaesitum non coquitur sed statim suum est; inueniuntur ita massae; necnon in puteis denas excedentes libras; palacras Hispani, alii palacranas, iidem quod minutum est balucem uocant.
May the French paille (in the phrase pailles d’or), Ital. paluola, Span. palazuola, all used technically of gold, be derived from pala, the old technical term, rather than from palea, chaff?

150 Herod. IV. 11.

151 How trade was carried on in early days may be well illustrated from Torres Straits of to-day. (Haddon, “The Western Tribe of Torres Straits,” Journal of Anthrop. Inst. XIX. p. 347.)
Dance masks made of turtle shell (340) occasionally used as money.
If a Muralug man wanted a canoe he would communicate with a friend at Moa, who would speak to a friend of his at Badu; possibly the Muralug man might himself go to Badu, or treat with a friend there. The Badu man would cross to Mabuiag to make arrangements, and a Mabuiag man would proceed to Saibai.
If there was no canoe available at the latter place word would be sent on, along the coast, that a canoe was to be cut out and sent down.
The canoe would then retrace the course of the verbal order and ultimately find its way to Muralug. The annual payment for a canoe was say three dibi dibi or goods of about equal value. There were three annual instalments.
There is no money in the Straits; but certain articles have acquired a generally recognized exchange value, a value which is intrinsic, and not irrespective of the rarity of the material or the workmanship put into it. These objects cannot be regarded as money; they are the round shell ornaments (dibi dibi, shell armlet, wai wai, dugong, harpoon, wap, and canoe). A good wai wai is the most valuable possession; the exchange of a wai wai was a canoe, or harpoon. Ten or twelve dibi dibi was considered of equal value to any of the above. A wife was the highest unit of exchange, being valued at a canoe, or a wap or wai wai. “The intermediaries (in the purchase of a canoe) are paid for their services ‘by charging on,’ the amount depending on individual cupidity, or they may be recompensed for their trouble by presents from the purchaser” (p. 841).

152 [Aristotle,] De Miris Auscult. 104-5 (839ᵃ 34 seqq.).

153 Pind. Isth. V. 22 sq. μυρίαι δ’ ἔργων καλῶν τέτμηνθ’ ἑκατόμπεδοι ἐν σχερῷ κέλευθοι | καὶ πέραν Νείλοιο παγᾶν καὶ δι’ Ὑπερβορέους.

154 Ol. III. 31 sq.

155 Ol. III. 13 sqq.

156 Pind. Pyth. X. 29 sqq.

157 Herod. IV. 32.

158 Herod. IV. 13.

159 Herod. IV. 33.

160 Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. Graec. Vol. I. p. 807.

161 Cf. Sallust, Jug. 18.

162 They derived it from λύγξ and οὖρον. The difference in colour between the Baltic and Ligurian amber found an easy explanation, the latter was regarded as the solidified urine of the female lynx, the former of the male animal. Pliny, H. N. XXXVII. 2, § 34.

163 Cf. Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, 466. Von Sadowski, Die Handelstrassen der Griechen und Römer, p. 15.

164 Il. V. 720 seqq.

165 Il. XXIII. 826 seqq.

166 Il. XII. 433-7,
ἀλλ’ ἔχον, ὤς τε τάλαντα γυνὴ χερνῆτις ἀληθής,
ἤ τε σταθμὸν ἔχουσα καὶ εἴριον ἀμφὶς ἀνέλκει
ἰσάζουσ’ ἴνα παισὶν ἀεικέα μισθὸν ἄρηται.
ὦς μὲν τῶν ἐπὶ ἶσα μάχη τέταται πτόλεμός τε κ.τ.λ.

Dr Leaf, in his introduction to Book XII., when calling attention to various marks of lateness in this book, says: “It has further been remarked with some truth that the numerous similes, though beautiful in themselves, are often disproportionately elaborated and lead up to points which are almost in the nature of an anti-climax.” But the use of the word ἀληθής in an entirely un-Homeric sense seems to make it almost certain that these lines are of late date.

167 Cf. Plautus, Merc. II. 3. 63. Virg. Georg. I. 390, carpentes pensa puellae.

168 Mr J. G. Frazer gives me the following interesting note:

As to the cutting off a child’s hair and weighing it against gold or silver, the facts are these.

(1) Among the Harari in Eastern Africa when a child is a few months old, its hair is cut off and weighed against silver or gold money; the money is then divided among the female relations of the mother.

Paulitschke, Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Anthropologie der Somâl, Galla und Hararî (Leipzig, 1886), p. 70.

(2) Mohammed’s daughter Fâtima gave in alms the weight of her child’s hair in silver.

W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in early Arabia, p. 153.

(3) Among the Mohammedans of the Punjaub a boy’s hair is shaved off on the 7th or 3rd day after birth, or sometimes immediately after birth. Rich people give alms of silver coins equal in weight to the hair.

Punjab Notes and Queries, I., No. 66.

(4) When the Hindus of Bombay dedicate a child to any god or purpose, they shave its head and weigh the hair against gold or silver.

Id. II. No. 11.

(5) In the inland districts of Padang (Sumatra) three days after birth the child’s hair is cut off and weighed. Double the weight of hair in money is given to the priest.

Pistorios. Studien over de inlandsche Huisponding in de Padangsche Bovenlanden, p. 56; Van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra, p. 268.

(6) There is the Egyptian custom, for which we have the evidence of Herodotus, II. 65, and Diodorus, I. 8.

169 F. L. Griffith, “Metrology of the Medical Papyrus Ebers,” Proceed. of Soc. Bibl. Arch. June 1891.

170 Hultsch, Metrol. Scrip. 299, τὸ Μακεδονικὸν τάλαντον τρεῖς ἦσαν χρύσινοι.

171 Catalogue of Greek Kings of Bactria, p. lxix.

172 Catalogue of Greek Kings of Bactria, p. lxvii.

¹⁷³ Lepsius, Denkmäler, 331.

174 Brugsch, Op. cit. I. 386.

175 Münz- Mass-und Gewichtswesen in Vorderasien, p. 80 seqq.

176 Lenormant, La Monnaie dans l’Antiquité, I. 103 seqq.

177 Metrol.², p. 375.

178 Horapollo, I. 11, Πάρ’ Αἰγυπτίοις μονάς ἐστιν αἱ δύο δραχμαί.

179 Deecke, Etrusk. Forsch. II. p. 1. Head, Op. cit. p. 12.

180 Head, Op. cit. p. 747.

181 Τὸ μέντοι Σικελικὸν τάλαντον ἐλάχιστον ἴσχυεν, τὸ μὲν ἀρχαῖον, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης λέγει τέτταρας καὶ εἴσκοσι τοὺς νούμμους τὸ δὲ ὕστερον δυοκαίδεκα, δύνασθαι δὲ τὸν νοῦμμον τρία ἡμιωβόλια. (Hultsch, Reliq. Metrol. Scrip. 300.)

182 Cf. Hucher, L’Art Gaulois, p. 19 and Pl. I.

183 Histoire de la Monnaie Romaine, I. 236.

184 Étude des Monnaies de l’Italie antique.

185 De Rep. II. 35, 60.

186 X. 50.

187 Aulus Gellius, XI. 1. 2. 3; Plutarch, Poplic. 11, says a cow = 100 ὀβολοί, a sheep 10 ὀβολοί.

188 Pollux, IX. 80, εὐθὺς πρίω μοι δέκα νόμων μόσχον καλάν.

189 Theocr. IX. 3, μόσχως βουσὶν ὑφέντες.

190 Mr Head (Coinage of Syracuse), Numismat. Chronicle, New Series, Vol. XIV., thinks that under Dionysius the Elder (406-367 B.C.) and his successors gold was to silver as 15:1 at Syracuse, whilst in the time of Agathocles (317-289 B.C.) it was as 12:1. We can however hardly take the evidence of the coin weights as sufficient, when we consider the extraordinary devices to which Dionysius resorted to raise money, causing coins of tin to pass as silver, making the silver coins bear a double value etc. as is related by Aristotle, Oeconomica, II. 21.

191 Op. cit. 26.

192 Livy XXXIV. 1. Valer. Max. 9. 1. 3.

193 Head, Op. cit. 160.

194 Mommsen (Blacas), Histoire de la Monnaie romaine, III. 275.

195 Pertz, Monumenta Historica Germaniae, Vol. III. Lex Alamannorum, lib. sec. LXXX. summus bovis 5 tremisses valet cett.

196 Pertz, Op. cit. Leges Burgundiorum, p. 534: pro bove solidos 2 cett.

197 Schive and Holmboe, Norges Mynter (Christiania, 1865), pp. i-iv.

198 Herod. VI. 57. See evidence of this collected by Stengel, Die griechische Sakralaltertümer, pp. 29 sq. 81 sq. (Iwan Müller’s Handbach, Vol. V. pt. iii.)

199 Hist. Animal. X. 50, τά γε μὴν ἱερεῖα ἑκάστης ἀγέλης αὐτόματα φοιτᾷ καὶ τῷ βωμῷ παρέστηκεν, ἄγει δὲ ἄρα αὐτὰ πρώτη μὲν ἡ θεός, εἶτα ἡ δύναμίς τε καὶ ἡ τοῦ θύοντος βούλησις. εἰ γοῦν ἐθέλοις θῦσαι οἶν, ἰδού σοι τῷ βωμῷ παρέστηκεν οἶς, καὶ δεῖ χέρνιβα κατάρξασθαι· εἰ δὲ εἴης τῶν ἁδροτέρων καὶ ἐθέλοις θῦσαι βοῦν θήλειαν ἢ καὶ ἔτι πλείους, εἶτα ὑπὲρ τῆς τιμῆς οὔτε σὲ ὁ νομεὺς ἐπιτιμῶν ζημιώσει οὔτε σὺ λυπήσεις ἐκεῖνον· τὸ γὰρ δίκαιον τῆς πράσεως ἡ θεὸς ἐφορᾷ. καὶ εὖ καταθεὶς ἵλεων ἕξεις αὐτήν· εἰ δὲ ἐθέλοις τοῦ δέοντος πρίασθαι εὐτελέστερον, σὺ μὲν κατέθηκας τὸ ἀργύριον ἄλλως, τὸ δὲ ζῷον ἀπέρχεται, καὶ θῦσαι οὐκ ἔχεις.

200 Egypt under the Pharaohs (2nd edit. Engl, transl.), Vol. II. p. 199.

201 Sir Rutherford Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon, I. 281.

202 Marco Polo, Yule’s Transl. II. pp. 62 and 70.

203 Aegypten und ägyptisches Leben in Alterthum, p. 611.

204 1 Kings x. 21.

205 2 Chron. i. 15.

206 2 Chron. i. 17.

207 Sacred Books of the East, Vols. V., XVIII., and XXIV.

208 Report of the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into the recent changes in the relative values of the precious metals. 1st Report, p. 60 (1866).

209 This is almost exactly the weight of the örtug, into 3 of which the ora (ounce) of 410 grs. was divided. The örtug of gold being 136·7 grs., and the value of a cow being 128 grs. of gold, it is hard not to believe that there was a connection between them. (See App. C.)

210 See above, p. 24.

211 J. Silvestre, “Notes pour servir à la recherche et au classement des monnaies et des médailles de Annam et de la Cochin-Chine Française.” Excursions et Reconnaissances, No. 15 (1883), p. 395.

212 H. C. Millies, Recherches sur les monnaies des Indigènes de l’Archipel Indien et de la péninsule Malaie (La Haye, 1871).

213 Sir Thomas Wade’s Colloquial Chinese Course, I. p. 213 (2nd ed.).

214 J. Silvestre, Op. cit. p. 308 seqq.

215 J. Mours, Le Royaume du Cambodge, I. p. 323 (Paris, 1883).

216 This coin bears on one side the sacred bird Hangsa, on the other a picture of an ancient palace of the kings.

217 E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos. Saigon, 1885.

218 For an account of the various kinds of Siamese coins of the bullet shape cf. Msg. Pallegoix, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam, I. 256 (Paris, 1854).

219 E. Aymonier, Cochin-Chine Française. Excursions et Reconnaissances, Vol. X. No. 24 (1885), p. 317.

220 Aymonier, ibid.

221 This mode of estimating the age of the buffalo by the length of its horns may throw some light on the young ox suis cornibus intructus of the Marseilles inscription (p. 143).

222 XXIII. 850 sq.

223 Od. XXI. 76.

224 E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos, p. 33.

225 History of the Indian Archipelago by John Crawfurd, F.R.S. Vol. I., p. 271.

226 P. 275.

227 History of Sumatra by William Marsden, F.R.S. (London, 1811), p. 171.

228 R. W. Felkin, ‘Notes on the Madi or Moon tribe of Central Africa.’ Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XII. pp. 303, seqq.

229 H. T. Colebrooke, On Indian Weights and Measures (Miscellaneous Essays edited by Prof. E. B. Cowell, 1873), Vol. I. 528-543.

230 Numismatic Chronicle, IV. 131 (N. S.).

231 Thomas, Initial Coinage of Bengal, II. p. 6 (Royal Asiatic Journal, Vol. VI.).

232 Algebra with Arithmetic and Mensuration translated from the Sanskrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara by H. T. Colebrooke (London, 1817).

233 Down almost to the present day a system of currency, similar to that shown in the Līlāvati prevailed in Assam. “Gold continues to pass current in small uncoined round balls, usually weighing one Tola,” there was a silver coinage also, and cowries passed as money. W. Robinson, Descriptive Account of Assam, pp. 249 and 267 (London, 1841).

234 Martini, Metrologia, p. 770. Formerly the nashod = 3 habbi of ·063 gram which is just the weight of the barley grain, whereas ·047 the weight assigned to the gendum is that of a grain of wheat.

235 Queipo, Essai sur les Systèmes Métriques et Monétaires des anciens peuples I. 360 (Paris, 1859).

236 Ancient Laws of Ireland, Vol. IV. 335, (Book of Aicill), O’Donovan’s Supplement, s.v. pingiun.

237 Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain, II. 58.

238 Ruding, op. cit. I. 369.

239 Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverwaltung, II. p. 30.

240 Fragm. ap. Hultsch, Metrol. Script. I. 248, ἡ δὲ δραχμὴ κέρατα ιη͵. ἄλλοι δὲ λέγουσιν· ἔχει γραμμὰς τρεῖς... τὸ γράμμα ὀβολοὺς β͵. ὁ δὲ ὀβολὸς κέρατα γ͵. τὸ δὲ κερὰτιον ἔχει σιτάρια δ͵.

241 Hultsch, Op. cit. II. 128.

242 Recueil de travaux relatifs à la Philologie et l’Archéologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne, Vol. X. fasc. 4, p. 157.

243 Bosman, Guinea, Letter VI. (Pinkerton’s Voyages, Vol. XVI. p. 374).

244 Although I have made many enquiries and Dr Thiselton Dyer of Kew has taken much trouble in the matter, I am unable to give the reader the botanical names of the Taku and Damba. Dr Dyer thinks the Damba is our old friend the Abrus precatorius, the Indian ratti, confirming the opinion I had previously formed from its weight. These seeds are commonly known as crabs’ eyes.

245 Op. cit. 373. “The fetiches they cast in moulds made of a black and heavy earth into what form they please.” (p. 367.)

246 Ellis, History of Madagascar, I. p. 335.

247 Op. cit. I. p. 6.

248 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, p. 44.

249 Prescott, Peru, p. 56.

250 Nissen, “Griechische und römische Metrologie” (Iwan Müller’s Handbuch der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft I. 663 seq. or separately, Nordlingen, 1886).

251 “Das älteste Gewicht,” 1889, pp. 1-9, 34-43.

252 The whole series of these ancient weights was some years ago subject to a careful process of weighing in a balance of precision by an officer of the Standard Department and the result was published by Mr W. H. Chisholme in the Ninth Annual Report of the Warden of the Standards 1874-5, where a complete list of all of them may be found.
All the more important pieces had however been weighed many years before, and it need only be stated that the results of the process of re-weighing under more favourable conditions are in the main identical with those formerly arrived at by Queipo and the late Dr Brandis.

253 Metrologie², p. 393.

254 Étalons pondéraux primitifs et lingots monétaires (Bucharest, 1884), p. 49.

255 Soph. Antig. 1038 seqq.

κερδαίνετ’, ἐμπολᾶτε τόν πρὸς Σάρδεων
ἤλεκτρον, εἰ βούλεσθε, καὶ τὸν Ἰνδικὸν
χρυσόν.

256 I. 94.

257 Pollux, IX. 83.

258 Histoire de la Monnaie Romaine, I. 15.

259 Herod. I. 14.

260 Hultsch, Metrol.² 579.

261 Head, op. cit. XXXVI.

262 Head, op. cit. XXXVI.

263 Thuc. II. 13.

264 Ol. I. 75: Nem. IV. 46.

265 VIII. 375, ὠνομάζετο δ’ Οἰνώνη πάλαι, ἐπῴκησαν δὲ αὐτὴν Ἀργεῖοι καὶ Κρῆτες καὶ Ἐπιδαύριοι καὶ Δωριεῖς.

266 VI. 22. 2, Ὀλυμπιάδι μὲν τῇ ὀγδοῃ τὸν Ἀργεῖον ἐπήγαγον Φείδωνα τυράννων τῶν ἐν Ἔλλησι μάλιστα ὑβρίσαντα κ.τ.λ.

267 Φείδωνος δὲ τοῦ τὰ μέτρα ποιήσαντος τοῖς Πελοποννησίοισι καὶ ὑβρίσαντος κ.τ.λ.

268 Ἔφορος δ’ ἐν Αἰγίνῃ ἄργυρον πρῶτον κοπῆναί φησι ὑπὸ Φείδωνος, ἐμπόριον γὰρ γενέσθαι, διὰ τὴν λυπρότητα τῆς χώρας τῶν ἀνθρώπων θαλαττουργούντων ἐμπορικῶς, ἀφ’ οὖ τὸν ῥῶπον Αἰγιναίαν ἐμπολὴν λέγεσθαι.

269 Strabo VIII. 358, Φείδωνα δὲ τὸν Ἀργεῖον, δέκατον μὲν ὄντα ἀπὸ Τημένου, δυνάμει δὲ ὑπερβεβλημένον τοὺς κατ’ αὐτόν, ἀφ’ ἧς τήν τε λῆξιν ὅλην ἀνέλαβε τὴν Τημένου διεσπασμένην εἰς πλείω μέρη, καὶ μέτρα ἐξεῦρε τὰ Φειδώνια καλούμενα καὶ σταθμοὺς κὰι νόμισμα κεχαραγμένον τό τε ἄλλο καὶ τὸ ἀργυρον.

270 Pollux Onom. X. 179, εἴη δ’ ἂν καὶ Φείδων τι ἀγγεῖον ἐλαιηρόν, ἀπὸ τῶν Φειδωνίων μέτρων ὠνομασμέον, ὑπὲρ ὧν ἐν Ἀργείων πολιτείᾳ Ἀριστοτέλης λέγει.

271 This enables us to understand why it was that in the truce at Pylus it was stipulated (probably by the Spartans) that they should be allowed to send in 2 Attic (not Peloponnesian) choenikes of barley meal for each of their men daily. By this arrangement the beleaguered men got a larger ration.

272 πάντων δὲ πρῶτος Φείδων Ἀργεῖος νόμισμα ἕκοψεν ἐν Αἰγίνῃ· καὶ δοὺς τὸ νόμισμα καὶ ἀναλαβὼν τοὺς ὀβελίσκους, ἀνέθηκε τῇ ἐν Ἄργει Ἥρα, ἐπειδὴ δὲ τότε οἰ ὀβελίσκοι τὴν χεῖρα ἐπλήρουν, τουτέστι, τὴν δράκα, ἡμεῖς, καίπερ μὴ πληροῦντες τὴν δράκα τοῖς ἓξ ὀβόλους δραχμὴν αὐτὴν λέγομεν παρὰ τὸ δράξασθαι.

273 Φείδων ὁ Ἀργεῖος ἐδήμευσε τὰ μέτρα... καὶ ἀνεσκεύασε καὶ νόμισμα ἀργυροῦν ἐν Αἰγίνῃ ἐποίησεν (l. 30).

274 Head op. cit. XXXVIII.

275 Op. cit. 153.

276 Op. cit. XXXVIII.

277 Of course it is quite possible that the Persians issued coins in Egypt after their conquest, but these coins cannot be regarded as really Egyptian.

278 Herod. I. 62.

279 Head, op. cit. p. XL. Professor Percy Gardner (Types of Greek Coins, p. 2), regards the Euboic standard as 130, which he thinks was raised to 135 grs. by Solon when the latter introduced (as he supposes) the Euboic system at Athens.

280 Head, Coinage of Syracuse, p. 71.

281 Arist. Oeconomica, II. 21.

282 Head, op. cit. p. 26.

283 Chautard, Imitations des monnaies au type esterling (Nancy, 1871).

284 Mr D. B. Monro, Historical Review, January, 1886.

285 Il. II. 867.

286 Od. XV. 460.

287 Od. XV. 470.

288 It is more probable however that Chalkos copper got its name from the place (Chalcis) where it was first found in Greece. The name Chalcis may itself be connected with χαλκίς, an owl.

289 Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol. I. p. 219.

290 Schliemann, Tiryns, pl. II. Helbig, Das homerisches Epos², p. 79.

291 Report of the British Association, 1883, p. 21.

292 Νάφε καὶ μέμνασ’ ἀπιστεῖν, ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν, Epicharmus.

293 Boeckh, Metrol. Untersuch. p. 32.

294 Head, op. cit. XXVIII.

295 “Griech. und röm. Metrologie” (in Iwan Müller’s Handbuch der klass. Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. I. p. 684).

296 Head, op. cit. XXIX. Madden’s Jewish Coinage, p. 277.

297 Horapollo I. 11, παρ’ Αἰγυπτίοις μονάς ἐστιν αἱ δύο δραχμαί. μονὰς δὲ παντὸς ἀριθμοῦ γένεσις. εὐλογῶς οὖν τὰς δύο δραχμὰς βουλόμενοι δηλῶσαι γύπα γράφουσι, ἐπεὶ μήτηρ δοκεῖ καὶ γένεσις εἶναι, καθάπερ καὶ ἡ μονὰς.

298 W. M. Flinders Petrie, Naukratis, p. 75. It is with extreme reluctance that I must refuse to follow Mr Petrie, who for careful accuracy and scientific method stands at the head not only of metrologists but of archaeologists in general. But it seems to me that in his method of arriving at his weight-units from the weighing of weight-pieces he has overlooked one very important factor. False weights and balances have prevailed in all ages and countries, and we can hardly wrong the ancient Egyptians if we suppose that a certain number of their nation were not as honest as they might have been in their dealings. The variations in the weights of his specimens given by Mr Petrie may very well be due to false weights. And it must be carefully noted that frauds were not only perpetrated by means of light but also by means of too heavy weights. Whether the Jews learned to cheat when they sojourned in the land of Goshen or not, we cannot say, but that they used too heavy as well as too light weights is plain from the denunciations of the prophets: thus Amos (viii. 5), “When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn? and the sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?” See also Ezekiel xlv. 10. But the practice of cheating with too heavy as well as with too light weights is best seen in Deuteronomy xxv. 13; “Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small; thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. Thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have.” It seems hardly likely that of the 516 weights found by Mr Petrie at Naukratis all were “perfect and just” weights. It is thus quite possible that the variations from what there is evidence to suppose is the normal standard, whether they be those of excess or deficiency, may be accounted for, at least in part, by this consideration. Mr Petrie’s method, if applied to natural products such as certain kinds of seeds, will of course give the truest possible result, but when the factor of human knavery enters, his method is at once open to serious drawbacks.

299 Erman, Aegypten und Aegypt. Leben, p. 611.

300 We also find mention of a weight called the pek, which weighed ·71 grammes (11 grains), and was the ⅟₁₂₈ part of the uten. Hultsch, Metrol.² p. 37, regards it as a provincial Ethiopian weight. Its awkward relation to the kat and uten seem to show that it did not form part of the genuine Egyptian system.

301 The large copper coins of the Ptolemies of 1450-1350 grs. Troy (the flans of which were turned in a lathe) were almost certainly struck on the native uten.

³⁰² This weight (in my own possession) said to have come from India, and almost perfect, weighed 4·29 grammes.

303 III. 89, τοῖσι μὲν αὐτῶν ἀργύριον ἀπαγινέουσι εἴρητο Βαβυλώνιον σταθμὸν τάλαντον ἀπαγινέειν, τοῖσι δὲ χρυσίον ἀπαγινέουσι Εὐβοϊκόν· τὸ δὲ Βαβυλώνιον τάλαντον δύναται Εὐβοΐδας ἑβδομήκοντα μνέας.

304 If, as is held by some of the best critics, this is a late passage, there is an a fortiori argument against the early use of the mina.

305 Is it possible that the so-called Ducks are only degraded forms of bull-head weights? The ears and horns were dropped as being inconvenient (see bull-head weight, p. 283), and at a later time when the tradition of their origin had been lost, the shapeless lump was adorned with a bird’s head to serve as a handle. All the large weights from Nineveh are without any head; and it is but very rarely even on the small haematite weights that the duck’s head is found fully formed.

306 As no better selection of these weights could be made than that of Mr Head, I have followed his description. Cf. R. S. Poole, in Madden’s Jewish Coinage, p. 261 seqq., and the Report of the Warden of the Standards, 1874-5, for a full account of these weights.

307 The Manah is of course the Meneh so familiar from Belshazzar’s vision, mene, mene tekel upharsin (Daniel v. 25), which the best scholars follow M. Clermont-Ganneau (Journal Asiatique, 1886) in interpreting as a mina, a mina, a shekel, and the parts of a shekel.

308 Prof. Sayce (Academy, Dec. 19th, 1891) publishes a weight from Babylonia inscribed “One maneh standard weight, the property of Merodach-sar-ilani, a duplicate of the weight which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, the son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, made in exact accordance with the weight [prescribed] by the deified Dungi, a former king.” This confirms my contention that the mina is prior in date to the talent.

309 Cf. Plautus, Persa.

310 Brandis, 20-38.

311 Head, XXIX.

312 Berosus. Synkellos 30, 6 (Eusebii chronic, ed. Alfr. Schoene vol. I. col. 8): ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν Βηρωσσὸς διὰ σάρων καὶ νήρων καὶ σώσσων ἀνεγράψατο· ὦν ὁ μὲν σάρος τρισχιλίων καὶ ἑξακοσίων ἐτῶν χρόνον σημαίνει, ὁ δὲ νῆρος ἐτῶν ἑξακοσίων, ὁ δὲ σῶσσος ἑξήκοντα. Fragm. Script. Hist. Graec.

313 Hultsch, op. cit. p. 407.

314 Recueil des travaux relatifs à la Philologie et l’Archéologie Egyptiennes et Assyriennes, Vol. x. fasc. 4, p. 157.

315 Kaeji in Fleckeisen’s Jahrbücher, 1880, first calls attention to this word.

316 Hultsch, Metrol.², p. 131.

317 Rig Veda, Mandala, VI. 47, 23-4.

318 Herod. III. 96.

319 For 20 pieces of gold (εἴκοσι χρυσῶν) LXX.

320 Gen. xx. 16.

321 Judges xvi. 5.

322 Judges ix. 4.

323 Judges xvii. 2-4.

324 Joshua vii. 21.

325 Cf. Buxtorf and Gesenius sub voce.

³²⁶ A is from Beirut, in the Greville Chester Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, of white and yellow crystalline stone; wt. 32·160 gram. (a very slight chip from the base); on the base is engraved a rude ibex and another figure. B is from Persia, slightly chipped on side of head, yellowish white stone, veined with red, like jasper; wt. 22·450 gram.; on the base are two ibexes. I am indebted for this information to Mr A. J. Evans, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, by whose kindness I am likewise enabled to give representations of the weights.

327 Madden’s Jewish Coinage, p. 7.

328 Exod. xxx. 13. Levit. v. 15, etc.

329 The question of the date at which certain documents were written or took their final shape is of course important. But it does not at all follow that a document written at a later period cannot contain traditions of real historical value. Thus here we find Chronicles, placed quite late by the critics, gives the weight in shekels, whilst Kings, supposed to be far earlier, gives it in minas.

330 The mere question as to whether the 200 shekels is far more than the average crop of hair can weigh, does not concern us. If the writer wished to exaggerate the amount of Absalom’s hair he would naturally make the shekel as heavy as possible, and say that the weight was in the heavy or royal shekels, employed for merchandize.

331 Exod. XXX. 23-4.

332 Antiq. III. 8, 10.

333 Pollux, IX. 59, observes that when χρυσοῦς stands alone, στατήρ is always to be understood.

334 Exod. XXX. 13.

335 Hist. V. 3.

336 Hultsch, Metr. Scrip. s.v. Lupinus.

337 In Gesenius’ Lexicon, II. 88; II. 144, it is suggested that the gerah is the lupin.

338 Antiq. III. 6, § 7, λυχνία ἐκ χρυσοῦ... σταθμὸν ἔχουσα μνᾶς ἑκατὸν, ἂς Ἑβραῖοι μὲν καλοῦσι κίγχαρες, εἰς δὲ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν μεταβαλλόμενον γλῶσσαν σημναίνει τάλαντον.

339 Even granting that the parts of Exodus (the priestly Code) took their present form in post-Exile times it is perfectly possible that the metrological data contained therein are based on a genuine old tradition, just as Homer, although in its present shape differing much in linguistic forms from what must have been its original, gives us an archaic talent quite different from those in use when it took its final shape.

340 2 Kings v. 5.

341 LXX. τρίτον τοῦ διδράχμου.

342 We are unfortunately unable to gain any definite knowledge from Ezekiel xlv., as v. 12, which gives the weight system, is confused, and there is a great discrepancy between the Hebrew and Greek texts. Though it is a prophetic passage, there is no reason for supposing that the prophet did not clearly understand the standard weight system of his time (600 B.C.), for his account of the metric system is singularly clear. It is best to give the whole passage as it appears in the Revised Version: “Thus saith the Lord God: Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice; take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God. Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of an homer, and the ephah the tenth part of an homer: the measure thereof shall be after the homer. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels shall be your maneh.” (vv. 9-12.) One thing is clear at least, and that is that the passage is a protest against over-exaction, and we may infer that the weight system here mentioned is for precious metals, seeing that there is no mention made of the talent. The shekel is to be 20 gerahs, that is, the shekel of the Sanctuary. If the princes had sought to exact payment in royal shekels instead of the old shekel, and also to make the maneh of silver contain 60 shekels instead of 50, we can see every reason for the cry of the oppressed being loud.
The confusion in the Hebrew text may be due to the fact that there were two manehs in use, that of 50 shekels for gold and silver, and that of 60 shekels for other commodities. The Septuagint version is perfectly capable of explanation on the principles which I have indicated. The LXX. runs thus: καὶ τὰ στάθμια εἴκοσι ὀβολοί, πέντε σίκλοι, πέντε καὶ σίκλοι, δέκα καὶ πεντήκοντα σίκλοι ἡ μνᾶ ἔσται ὑμῖν. So Tischendorf.
There is a MS. (Cod. Al.) reading οἱ πέντε σίκλοι, καὶ πέντε καὶ οἱ δέκα σίκλοι. Tischendorf’s text can hardly be right, πέντε καὶ σίκλοι, δέκα καὶ πεντήκοντα contain two most unnatural collocations. δέκα καὶ πεντήκοντα is absolutely absurd as a way of expressing 60. εἶς καὶ πεντήκοντα up to ἐννεα καὶ πεντήκοντα to express 51 to 59 are reasonable and found universally, but to add on 10 to one of the main multiples of 10 in the decimal system is a method unknown, and is just as absurd in Greek as it would be if in English we were to say 10 and 50, meaning thereby 60. Again in the previous clause, the words πέντε καὶ point to some other numeral such as 10, or 20, as necessarily following. This is obtained by taking the MS. reading πέντε καὶ δέκα σίκλοι, καὶ πεντήκοντα, κ.τ.λ. Now the LXX. gives the plural στάθμια for “shekel”: στάθμια means the actual weights employed in weighing the amounts of gold or silver so weighed. Ezekiel is describing the various weight-units to be employed: “And the weights are 20 gerahs (lupins), the five shekel weight, the fifteen shekel weight, and fifty shekels shall be your maneh.” The article οἱ is very rightly used before πέντε, for it refers to the well known multiple of the shekel, of which we spoke above when dealing with the Bull’s-head weight. The same explanation may probably be given of the fifteen shekel weight. The maneh of 50 shekels of 20 gerahs each is the old maneh of the Sanctuary (Period II.), not the royal maneh which contained 100 light shekels.
Now turning to the Hebrew version we find “twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels and fifteen shekels,”the sum of which makes a maneh of 60 shekels, or the royal Assyrian and Hebrew commercial maneh. It is also to be observed that the position of fifteen is unnatural; it ought to come in the series before “twenty” and “five and twenty.” Fifty stands in the corresponding place in LXX. Has the Hebrew text altered 50 into 15 so as to obtain a total of 60? But there is another question; Why do we find “five” and “fifteen” stand first in LXX., and “twenty” and “twenty five” in Hebrew? On the theory, that of the Septuagint translators, that the prophet is describing a series of weight-pieces, it is quite simple. Combine the numbers of both versions, and place them in order thus: 1 shekel, 5 shekels, 15 shekels, 20 shekels, 25 shekels (½ maneh), 50 shekels (maneh). This gives a rational explanation of how the discrepancy arose. The LXX. translated from a text which probably ran thus, 5 shekels, 10 shekels, 15 shekels, and went no further with the series. For it is not at all improbable that the reading οἱ δέκα is due to the fact that after οἱ πέντε σίκλοι stood οἱ δέκα, which was followed by οἱ πεντεκάιδεκα σίκλοι. The Jews of a later date, knowing only of the commercial mina of 60 shekels, left out some of the numerals, and altered 50 into 15 to make up 60 shekels.

343 Herod. III. 89, seqq.

344 Metrol.², p. 420.

345 Metrol.², p. 153.

346 Head, op. cit. p. 789.

347 The amount of gold in electrum varies greatly. Pliny, H. N. XXXIII. 4. 23, ubicumque quinta argenti portio est, et electrum uocatur. The Carthaginian electrum probably came from Spain (cp. p. 94).

348 Head, op. cit. p. 2.

349 Pliny, H. N. XXXIV.

350 Herod. I. 94, πρῶτοι δὲ ἀνθρώπων, τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν, νόμισμα χρυσοῦ καὶ ἀργύρου κοψάμενοι ἐχρήσαντο.

351 Julius Pollux, IX. 83.

352 Head, op. cit. p. 544.

353 H. N. XXXIII. 4. 23, ubicumque quinta argenti portio est, et electrum uocatur.

354 River of Golden Sand, II. p. 78.

355 Head, op. cit. p. 545.

356 Ibid. p. 503.

357 Pollux, III. 87, εὐδόκιμος δὲ καὶ ὁ Γυγάδας χρυσὸς καὶ οἱ Κροίσειοι στατήρες: ix. 84 sq., ἴσως δὲ ὀνομάτων καταλόγῳ προσήκουσιν οἱ Κροίσειοι στατῆρες καὶ Φιλίππειοι, καὶ Δαρεικοὶ, καὶ τὸ Βερενικεῖον νόμισμα καὶ Ἀλεξανδρεῖον, καὶ Πτολεμαικὸν καὶ Δημαρετεῖον, κ.τ.λ.

358 Annuaire de Numismatique, 1884, p. 119.

359 Zeitschr. für Assyriologie. Vol. II. 48 (1887).

360 Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1883-4, p. 87.

361 IV. 166, Δαρεῖος μὲν γὰρ χρυσίον καθαρώτατον ἀπεψήσας ἐς τὸ δυνατώτατον νόμισμα ἐκόψατο.

362 Or. XII. 70 τρία τάλαντα ἀργυρίου καὶ τετρακοσίους κυζικηνοὺς καὶ ἑκατὸν δαρεικοὺς καὶ φιάλας ἀργυρίου τέσσαρας.

363 Thuc. VIII. 28; Xen. An. I. 1. 9; I. 3. 21; I. 7. 18; V. 6. 18; VII. 6. 1; Cyrop. V. 27; Dem. XXIV. 129; Aristoph. Eccl. 602; Arrian Anab. IV. 18. 7; Diod. XVII. 66, etc.

364 Plutarch, Cimon, X. 11, φιάλας δύο, τὴν μὲν ἀργυρείων ἐμπλησάμενον Δαρεικῶν, τὴν δὲ χρυσῶν.

365 Thes. XXV., ἔκοψε δε νόμισμα βοῦν ἐγχαράξας.

366 p. 27 (ch. 10) (Kenyon’s ed.), ἐν μὲν οὖν τοῖς νόμοις ταῦτα δοκεῖ θεῖναι δημοτικά, πρὸ δὲ τῆς νομοθεσίας ποιησάσθαι τὴν χριῶν ἀποκοπήν, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα τήν τε τῶν μέτρων καὶ τῶν σταθμῶν καὶ τὴν τοῦ νομίσματος αὔξησιν. ἐπ’ ἐκείνου γὰρ ἐγένετο καὶ τὰ μέτρα μείζω τῶν Φειδωνείων, καὶ ἡ μνᾶ πρότερον ἔχουσα παραπλήσιον ἐβδομήκοντα δραχμὰς ἀνεπληρώθη ταῖς ἑκατόν. ἦν δ’ ὁ ἀρχαῖος χαρακτὴρ δίδραχμον. ἐποίησε δὲ καὶ σταθμὸν πρὸς τὸ νόμισμα τρεῖς καὶ ἑξήκοντα μνᾶς τὸ τάλαντον ἀγούσας, καὶ ἐπιδιενεμήθησαν αἱ μναῖ τῷ στατῆρι καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις σταθμοῖς.

367 I have translated the παρὰ [μικρὸν] of Kaibel and Wilamowitz instead of Kenyon’s παραπλήσιον. According to Plutarch (Solon. 15) the old (silver) mina contained 73 drachms. The apparent discrepancy is easily explained. In the prae-Solonian mina there were 70 drachms of 92 grs. each. Plutarch writing at a later time took the number of drachms of 92 grs. in the post-Solonian mina of 6750, which is just 73. The information supplied by the Polity is evidently older and better.

368 The. Reinsch needlessly regards ἦν δὲ ὁ ἀρχαῖος κ.τ.λ. as an interpolation.

369 Kaibel and Wilamowitz read σταθμὰ instead of σταθμὸν.

370 Pollux IX. 59.

371 Pollux IX. 58 ἔχων στατῆρας χρυσίου τρισχιλίους.

372 Thuc. (I. 27) speaks of Corinthian drachms not staters; and (V. 47) of Aeginetic drachms.

373 Cp. p. 214.

374 P. Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, passim.

375 Comparetti, Leggi antiche della città di Gortyna in Creta, 1885; Museo Italiano II. 195, no. 39: ibid, II. 222. Roberts, Greek Epigraphy, p. 53.

376 Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 1888, p. 405 seqq. (where he gives an engraving of a stater so countermarked). Mr B. V. Head (Numism. Chron. 3rd ser. IX. 242) in a notice of this paper lends his great authority to the support of Svoronos’ view.

377 Head, op. cit. 450, who quotes Marquardt’s Cyzicus, p. 45.

378 Fishermen offered to Poseidon the first tunny they caught (Athen. p. 346), but this was simply an offering of first fruits and not because the tunny was sacred.

379 Zeitschrift f. Numismatik, X. 144 seqq.

380 The tunny is a very large fish, usually four feet long, and is hardly likely to have been sold by the basketful.

381 Apud Stephanum Byzant. s.v. Τένεδος.

382 X. 14. 1.

383 Iliad, XXIII. 850-1,
Αὐτὰρ ὁ τοχευτῇσι τίθει ἰόεντα σίδηρον,
κὰδ δ’ ἐτίθει δέκα μὲν πελέκεας, δέκα δ’ ἡμιπέλεκκα.

384 No doubt the axe was often used as a religious emblem; double-headed axes borne in procession are seen on Hittite sculptures (Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de l’Art dans l’antiquité, IV. p. 637). It was also the symbol of Dionysus at Pagasae. So amongst the Polynesians we find processional axes as well as real ones like our sword of state as contrasted with real swords.

385 Ib. 882-3,
ἀν δ’ ἄρα Μηριόνης πελέκεας δέκα πάντας ἄειρεν,
Τεῦκρος δ’ ἡμιπέλεκκα φέρεν κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας.

386 Although Mr Frazer (Golden Bough, I. 8) has given abundant evidence to show that kings were in some places worshipped as gods, no one can maintain that the Persians, who were Zoroastrians, would have treated their king as a god.

387 The electrum coins with the lion’s head with open jaws formerly ascribed to Miletus are now assigned to the Lydian king Alyattes by M. J. P. Six, Num. Chron. N. S. Vol. x. 185 seqq. (1890).

388 Head, Op. cit. 6. 88.

389 Lindsay, Survey of the Coinage of Ireland, p. 6 seqq.

390 Il. VII. 468 seqq.

391 A. Dobbs, Account of Hudson’s Bay (1744).

392 Politics II. 1257 B ὁ γὰρ χαρακτὴρ ἐτέθη τοῦ πὸσου σημεῖον.

393 Plutarch, Solon 18.

394 Ibid. 23 Εἰς μὲν γε τὰ τιμήματα τῶν θυσιῶν λογίζεται πρόβατον καὶ δραχμὴν ἀντὶ μεδίμνου· τῷ δ’ Ἴσθμια νικήσαντι δραχμὰς ἔταξεν ἑκατὸν δίδοσθαι, τῷ δ’ Ὀλύμπια πεντακοσίας· λύκον δὲ τῷ κομίσαντι πέντε δραχμὰς ἔδωκε, λυκιδέα δὲ μίαν, ὧν φησιν ὁ Φαληρεὺς Δημήτριος τὸ μὲν βοὸς εἶναι, τὸ δὲ προβάτου τιμήν.

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:
ταύτηι δὲ δώσεισ κε[ῖ]νο τὸ ἕτερον ζεῦγοσ
κόσου; πάλιν πρήμηνον ἀξίαν φωνὴν
σεω<υ>τοῦ.

        Κ. στατήρασ πέντε ναὶ μὰ θεοὺσ φο[ι]τᾶι
ἡ ψάλτρι’ <Εὐ>έτηρισ ἡμέρην πᾶσαν
λαβεῖν ἀνώγουσ’· ἀλλ’ ἐγώ μιν [ἐχθα]ίρω
κἢν τέσσαράσ μοι δαρεικοὺσ ὑπόσχηται
ὁτεύνεκέν μευ τὴν γυναῖκα τωθάζει
κακοῖσι δέ[ν]νοισ. ει... χρείη.

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.

460 Solon 23, see p. 324 supra.

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.