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parison with each other, so as to elicit valuable communion and transition of ideas between the embraces the weights and measures prevalent th countries known to us in the ancient world. Baby nicia, Judæa, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, and Rome: rative metrology of these nations is presented analogous to the Vergleichende Grammatik of 1 to the extensive family of the Indo-Germanic lang bits the diffusion of institutions, originating in t civilization of Babylon, to the neighbouring countr of settled ordinances and commerce was more re

Though this transition must have taken place corded history, and, therefore, in a manner which fathom, yet the reality of the fact is sufficientl lasting and ascertained results. In cases where measures of two different nations are found to and definite ratio one to the other,—either exactly multiples and parts of each other, we may fairly that the one has borrowed from the other, or tha rowed from some common source, (Metrol. c. ii the ratio is inaccurate, or simply approximative, it as accidental and undesigned.

I request particular attention to this distin precise ratio, and a ratio merely approximative, w lays down very clearly, and which he justly a cardinal principle of his metrological reasoning extent, he has succeeded in exhibiting an analogy and hitherto unknown, between the metrical and of the various countries to which his work relat at the same time add, that there are several o which appear to me very imperfectly supported which are not to be reconciled with the evidenc so obscure and perplexed from beginning to er means wonderful.

In investigating the subject of the ancient v sures, in so far as they afford evidence of com logous proceeding between the different nations great point to be attended to is the normal

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valuable proofs of early
veen them. His book
alent throughout all the
Babylon, Syria, Phe-
Come: and the compa-
sented to us in a way
ik of Bopp, in regard
nic languages; it exhi-
ng in the very ancient
countries whose period

more recent.

en place anterior to re-
r which we cannot now
ufficiently proved by its
where the weights and
und to be in a precise
- exactly equal, or exact
y fairly presume, either
, or that each has bor-
ol. c. ii. § 3.) Where
ative, it is to be treated

distinction between a
ative, which M. Boeckh
stly announces as the
To a great
sonings.
nalogy, both interesting
al and statical systems
A relates. But I must

eral of his conclusions
ported, and some even
In a subject
vidence.

to end, this is by no
ient weights and mea-
of communion or ana-
ations of antiquity, the
mal system as it was

fixed by law, abstracting from those imperfections which attended the execution of it in detail. All mechanical processes in antiquity were carried on far more loosely and inaccurately than they are at present: pieces of money, as well as weights and measures, were both less durable and less exact, in spite of the solicitude of the ancient governments. We know by the evidence of inscriptions, with respect to Athens, that normal weights and measures were preserved under custody of a public officer in the chapel of the Hero Stephanephorus; that copies of these were made and distributed for private use; and that strict watch was directed to be kept for the purpose of excluding fraudulent or incorrect weights and measures in the shops and the market1. The case was similar at Rome, and seemingly also at Jerusalem (Metrol. c. ii. § 3). In this manner the theoretical perfection of the standard was maintained in the minds of the people as it was when originally adopted, in spite of imperfect execution in practice.pin

M. Boeckh enters upon his subject, in the third chapter of the work, by an investigation of the Roman liquid measure, quadrantal or amphora, in its relation to the Roman pound weight. According to the Silian plebiscite, as reported by Festus, the legal definition of a quadrantal was, a vessel containing 80 pounds weight of wine or water: the congius being one-eighth part of it, and containing 10 pounds weight of the same. By this regulation the dimensions of the vessels containing liquids were made dependent, not upon cubical measurement, but upon weight, like the imperial gallon in England. Now the Attic liquid measure called xous, was the exact equivalent of the Rocongius; and the Attic μerprns, the largest unity of liquid measures at Athens, contained 12 xóes, and was equivalent to 14 amphora, or quadrantalia. Such a definite ratio does undoubtedly indicate either some common original from which both systems must have been deduced, or an imitation of one of them by the other. M. Boeckh seeks to deduce both one and the other from the East, where it will be presently shewn that the Chaldæans at Babylon had adopted in very early times

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a system of determining their cubic measures by ence to a given weight.

"If," (he says, iii. 4, p. 26) "we regard this weights and measures, based upon a given weight is the keystone of the Roman system-and if we c cation of this water-weight backwards to the chi the ancient world-we shall find a connection re organic between the systems of the different peop and we shall arrive at last at the fundamental and measure in the Babylonian system; so tha tion is found to be verified in all its consequenc To give some preliminary intimation of this-I the Grecian (or, more accurately, the Æginæan) pound are in the ratio of 10:9: the Æginaan po Æginæan mina: but the cubical measures stood ratio of the weights; and therefore the Grecian cu the Roman as 10: 9-and as the Roman cubic pounds of rain-water, so also the Grecian cubic Grecian or Æginæan pounds, equal to 40 Æginaa unity of weight (in Greece) however is, not 40 mina or a talent. In the original institutions of the peo every thing has its reason, and we find scarcely at arbitrary nevertheless, this unity of weight, the coincide with the unity of measure-neither with nor with any other specific cubical denomination. cidence reveals itself at once, as soon as we d Babylonian cubic foot, standing as it does in the the German cubic foot, weighs 60 Æginæan mi lonian minæ = 1 Babylonian talent) of rain-water

M. Boeckh here promises more than his volu to realise. He does, indeed, satisfactorily shew lonian talent was identical with, and was the o of, the Æginæan talent, and that the standar weight was strikingly and curiously similar in and in Greece. But he has not, I think, ma with regard to the Grecian measures, either of le city, and his proof of the ratio of 3: 2 between and the Grecian foot will be found altogether

sures by ultimate refer

gard this relation of the
weight of water, which
d if we carry the appli-
the chief measures of
mection really and truly
ent people of antiquity,
mental unity of weight
so that this supposi-
nsequences and details.
his-I shall shew that
inæan) and the Roman
æan pound is half the
s stood normally in the
-cian cubic foot was to
cubic foot weighs 80
cubic foot weighs 80
Eginaan mine. The
10 minæ, but 60 minæ,
he people of antiquity
rcely any thing purely
nt, the talent, does not
- with the cubic foot,
nation. But the coin-
we discover that the

7 the ratio of 3:2 to
n minæ (= 60 Baby-
-water."

volume will be found
shew that the Baby-
he original prototype
ndard and scale of
in Asia, in Egypt,
made out the like
f length or of capa-
een the Babylonian
er defective. Nor

has he produced adequate evidence to demonstrate, either the ratio of 10 9 between the Grecian or Æginæan pound and the Roman pound or that of 1:2 between the Æginæan pound and the Æginæan mina-the ratio between the Grecian cubic foot and the Roman cubic foot, too, as also that between the Grecian cubic foot and any given Grecian weight, is, as he proposes it, inadmissible. In fact, there is no such thing (properly speaking) as an Æginæan pound weight: nor is there any fixed normal relation between Grecian weight and Grecian measures, either of length or of capacity, though there is a fixed normal relation between Babylonian weight and Babylonian measures, as also between Roman weight and Roman measures.

The Greek scale of weight consisted of the talent, the mina, the drachma, and the obolus: the talent consisting of 60 minæthe mina of 100 drachmæ-the drachma of 6 obols. The scale of weight in Sicily and Italy was essentially and originally different, having for its unit the pound-always divided into twelve ounces, except in central Italy, north of the Apennines, where it contained only ten ounces. These denominations were universal throughout Sicily and Italy, though the pound, in one part of Italy and another, was not the same absolute weight, any more than the talent in Greece. M. Boeckh, as well as all other writers on the subject, recognises this radical distinction between the Hellenic population on the one hand, and the earliest inhabitants, both of Italy and Sicily, on the other, in respect, both to the denomination and divisions, of the statical and monetary scale. And I may here remark, that the supposition of identity of Pelasgian race between the original population of Epirus, and that of the south-eastern regions of Italy, announced with confidence by Niebuhr, and adopted by K. O. Müller, becomes open to doubt from our finding no mention of pound weight or ounce weights among the Epirots. The Corinthian colonies on the coast of Epirus-Leukas, Anaktorium, and Ambrakia, as well as the island of Korkyrapursued a system of coinage purely Hellenic, consisting of talents, minæ, and drachmæ. But the Corinthian colony of Syrakuse, as well as every other Hellenic establishment, either in Sicily or Italy, adopted a mixed system, in which talents, minæ, and drachmæ, were blended together with pounds and ounces-not according to

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any one uniform principle, but varying from town t Italy and Sicily. The statical denominations preval Italian and Sicilian Greeks, arising as they do out of two systems originally distinct, present question plexity, and such as can hardly be solved with our of information.

The words talent, drachma, and obolus, are genu of Grecian origin: the first of the three even occ though in a sense quite different from that which bore in Greece-denoting, seemingly, a definite, but But the systematic graduation of weights in Gree date later than the Odyssey; and the word mna, forms the central point of the scale, has no root language. It is of Chaldaic origin, and has also by Champollion among the ancient hieroglyphic w (Metrol. iv. 2. p. 39). The etymology of this wo quarter from whence the Greeks received their so and it will be found that there is sufficient analo scales adopted in Greece, Judæa, Phenicia, and E a belief that all of them were derived from one co the Chaldaic priesthood at Babylon. We are to tus, that the Greeks adopted from the Babylonian

precise or definite n
is noticed in them-
φορεύς are of unkno
scale of dry measur
as the Hesiodic poer
logue of Women, a
by the occurrence of
which only belongs
a technical denomi
See the story of M
Hesiod ap. Strab.
ed. Gaisf. xiv.

Μύριοί εἰσιν ἀριθ
μέδιμνος.

The word μέδιμνος the same family which is said to be t root. (Curtius, De Formatione, Ling Ratione habitâ, p.

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