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om town to town both in ons prevalent among the y do out of a compound questions full of perwith our existing stock

are genuine Greek, and even occurs in Homer, which it subsequently nite, but small, weight. in Greece seems of mna, or mina, which no root in the Greek as also been discovered yphic writing of Egypt, this word points to the their scale of weight: t analogy between the and Egypt, to warrant one common originare told by Herodo pylonians the sun-dial,

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the gnomon, and the division of the day into twelve hours: and M. Boeckh, in one of the most learned sections of the Metrologie (iv. 4) has traced the diffusion of the worship of Mylitta, or Aphrodité Urania, original in Assyria, through the intermediation of the Phenicians, to Greece, Asia Minor, and Sicily.

In the fifth chapter of his work, M. Boeckh investigates the value of the Babylonian talent-weight as compared with the Grecian. Herodotus, in his enumeration of the tribute-money paid by the various regions subject to the kings of Persia, states that the greater number of them were directed to pay in silver, a given number of Babylonian talents; while the Indians were required to pay in gold, a certain number of Euboic talents: and he then adds that the Babylonian talent was equivalent to 70 Euboic minæ (Herod. iii. 89). The total sums however, as Herodotus states them, do not precisely coincide with the items of his estimate: but there is a confusion either in the calculations of the historian, or in the text, which cannot be rectified by the aid of our present MSS., and we are only enabled to see that the estimate of 70 Euboic mine is lower than the real value of the Babylonian talent.

Two other statements are found, of the value of the latter: Pollux gives it at 70 Attic talents, Ælian at 72 Attic talents. That the number 72 is more exact than 70, is a reasonable presumption: but if we attach to Attic talents the value of the Attic money talent as established by Solon, the three statements of Herodotus, Pollux, and Ælian, will become absolutely irreconcileable for the Euboic talent was a weight decidedly and considerably larger than the Solonian Attic talent. But the three statements come into complete harmony when we interpret the Attic talents, as stated by Pollux and Ælian, to mean “grea Attic talents,' as they are called by Dardanus the ancient Metro logue that is, Attic talents as they stood before the reduction o Solon. It is ascertained not merely by the evidence of Dardanus but by the still more incontrovertible testimony of a published Athenian inscription, that the "great Athenian talent and mina' continued in exclusive use at Athens, as weights, for severa centuries after Solon-that the debasement introduced by tha legislator applied only to the coins, drachmæ, obols and thei

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multiples, together with the mina and talent cons niary denominations apart from actual weight. and talent underwent, by the enactment of Solon, to that of the English pound during successive pound originally contained a full pound weight of and its signification both as money and as weigh but in process of time the standard was lowered, a meaning was greatly changed, while its meaning mained unaltered. We know by the evidence of above alluded to, that the mina as weight-the co as it was formally denominated-was required to v nian standard drachmæ: and it will be shewn p exact weight had originally been 1388 of such drac

Construed in this very rational and admissible accounts of Herodotus, Pollux, and Ælian, respect the Babylonian talent will be found concurrent. according to the common scale-viz. 60 minæ, and of its own: and it is equivalent to 72 Euboic mina 138 Solonian standard drachmæ. In other words to 10,000 of these Solonian drachmæ,-the preci Æginæan talent, according to the express announce being in the proportion of 5: 3 to the Solonian sta lating by this proportion, the standard weight of a Eginæan drachma (the 6000th part of a Babyloni talent) ought to be 112.295 English grains Troy. entitled to expect any remaining actual coins to be weight, since almost every state in antiquity coined standard, even when the standard continued lega and we must allow besides for loss arising from But it is remarkable that the Persian silver dari British Museum, adjusted as they doubtless were lonian scale by which the silver tribute was measu a weight of 224 English grains Troy, or a little ab exact weight which they ought to have as Babyloni didrachms.

In the sixth chapter of his work, M. Boeckh elaborate examination of the Hebraic, Phenicia system of weight and money: and he establish

alent considered as pecuweight. The Attic mina of Solon, a change similar uccessive centuries. Our weight of standard silver, as weight was identical; wered, and its pecuniary meaning as weight reidence of the inscription t-the commercial mina, ired to weigh 138 Soloshewn presently that its such drachmæ. missible sense, the three , respecting the value of ncurrent. It is divided næ, and 6000 drachme

oic mine each weighing er words, it is equivalent he precise value of the nnouncement of Pollux, nian standard. Calcu ght of a Babylonian or Babylonian or Æginæan Troy. We are hardly as to be of full standard Ey coined below its own Led legally unchanged; g from wear and tear. wer darics, now in the ess were to the Babys measured, do exhibit ittle above-nearly the abylonian or Æginæan

Boeckh enters into an henician, and Syrian, tablishes on probable

grounds, that the scale followed in these countries even from very early times, agreed with and was borrowed from the Babylonian. The Hebraic talent had 60 minæ, and 3000 holy shekels or didrachms: of the latter, the best and heaviest specimens now remaining approach so very near to the normal weight of the Babylonian or Æginæan didrachma, that we may confidently reckon them as having been originally the same (c. vi. § 3). It appears however, that the subordinate divisions of the Hebraic scale were not coincident with those of the Æginæan, which portioned the drachma into 6 obols: the Hebraic holy shekel or didrachm was divided into 20 gera, and the common shekel or drachma (the half of the holy shekel) into 10 gera: thus rendering a gera the equivalent of an Attic obolus (vi. 3 and vi. 5). M. Boeckh gives in c. vi. § 7, the weight of a number of different coins, some of various Syrian kings, others of the Phenician cities. The heaviest and least worn amongst them come so near to the normal weight of the Æginæan didrachm as to authorise the conclusion that they were intended to conform to it: and there are several conformable coins, belonging to the Sicilian city of Panormus, which raise an inference that the same standard of weight and money had passed from Tyre to its colony Carthage.

was

That both the Euboie talent with its subdivisions, and the Babylonian talent with its subdivisions, were in use throughout the Persian empire, is proved by the fact that the tributes to government were required to be paid in them. I may remark however, that it is very doubtful whether the Persian tribute paid in coined money. Herodotus tells us, that it was the practice of the great king's officers to melt the silver and gold which they received in payment of tribute, and to pour it into large earthenware jars: as soon as the metal cooled, the jars were broken: portions were then detached from the mass when there was occasion to make disbursements3. We know farther from the same historian, that the gold and silver in the treasury of Kroesus was principally, if not entirely, uncoined. There

* Herod. iii. 96. Τοῦτον τὸν φόρον θησαυρίζει ὁ βασιλεὺς τρόπῳ τοιῷδε. Ες πίθους κεραμίνους τήξας κατεγχέει· πλήσας δὲ τὸ ἄγγος, περιαιρέει τον

κέραμον· ἐπεὼν δὲ δεήθῃ χρημάτων, κατακόπτει τοσοῦτο ὅσου ἂν ἑκάστοτε δέηται.

4 Herod. vi. 125.

could be no advantage in receiving coin when it wa be melted: moreover, the coins, which the grea receive at one extremity of his large empire, wou able for payments at the other extremity, or even The object of the requisition was a given weight weighed according to the Euboic, or smaller talent, according to the Babylonian, or larger talent, for shall have occasion to revert to this point, which noticed by M. Boeckh, when I come to speak of t between Antiochus and the Romans.

Both the Babylonian and the Euboic scale of from Asia, probably through the medium of Pl Greece: the former being adopted principally in and the Dorian states: in Boeotia, Phokis, Thessal and Krete. M. Boeckh adds Achaia to the list: sage of Hesychius, on which he relies, is obscur factory 5. The conventions between Athens, Arg Mantineia, in the Peloponnesian war, respecting troops, were stipulated in Æginæan drachmæ and the reckoning of the assembled Amphiktyonic co ried on in Æginæan staters or didrachms. T sibly have been other scales in some Grecian ci neither with the Æginæan, the Euboic, and the have no distinct information concerning any suc now remaining, of those Grecian states which foll næan standard, do not exhibit a full proportion o the Æginæan and the Attic drachma: their actu decidedly below it. On the ground of this inferi Hussey, in his instructive Treatise on the Ancien Measures, disputes the correctness of Pollux, in portion of 5:3, a statement hitherto universally which M. Boeckh successfully vindicates. That sta fessed to follow the Æginæan scale, should neve

5 Hesych. παχείῃ δραχμῇ· τὸ δίδραχ μον· 'Αχαιοί. When the Achæan confederacy first established itself extensively in Peloponnesus, the cities composing it were bound by a special resolution to use

the same weights and Polyb. ii. 37.

47;

6 Thukyd. v. len. v. 2, 21. Boec Græcarum, No. 1688

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hen it was destined to
the great king might
ire, would be unsuit-
or even at the centre.
weight of fine metal;
er talent, for the gold;
ent, for the silver. I
, which I do not find
eak of the conventions

cale of weight passed n of Phenicians, into pally in Peloponnesus Thessaly, Makedonia, the list: but the pas obscure and unsatisns, Argos, Elis, and especting the pay of mæ and trioboli; and wonic council was cars6. There may posrecian cities coinciding and the Attic: but we any such. The coins ich followed the Ægiportion of 5:3 between eir actual weight falls inferior weight, Mr. Ancient Weights and x, in giving the proersally admitted, and That states which prod nevertheless coin a

ghts and measures and coins.
. v. 47; also Xenoph. Hel
Boeckh. Corp. Inscrip.

No. 1688.

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