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THE ORIGIN OF METALLIC CURRENCY AND WEIGHT STANDARDS.
THE ORIGIN OF METALLIC CURRENCY AND WEIGHT STANDARDS.
London: C. J. CLAY and SONS , CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, Ave Maria Lane . Cambridge: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. New York: MACMILLAN AND CO. THE ORIGIN OF METALLIC CURRENCY AND WEIGHT STANDARDS BY WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN QUEEN’S COLLEGE, CORK, LATE FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟϹ Ἢ <ΒΟὟϹ Ἢ> ὟϹ ἊΝ ΕἼΗ ΜΈΤΡΟΝ ἉΠΆΝΤΩΝ. CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1892 [ All Rights reserved. ] Cambridge: PRINTED BY C
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
The following pages are an attempt to arrive at a knowledge of the origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards by the Comparative Method. As both these institutions played a not inconsiderable part in the development of civilization, it seemed worth while to approach the subject from a different point of view from that from which it had been previously studied. Hitherto Numismatists when studying the Origins of Coinage had confined themselves to the materials presented to them in the earlie
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The Homeric Talent.
The Homeric Talent.
In the Homeric Poems, which cannot be dated later than the eighth century B.C. , there is as yet no trace of coined money. We find nevertheless in those Poems two units of value; the one is the cow (or ox), or the value of a cow, the other is the Talent (τάλαντον). The former is the one which has prevailed, and does still prevail, in barbaric communities, such as the Zulus of South Africa, where the sole or principal wealth consists in herds and flocks. For several reasons we may assign to it pr
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The wider question of Weight-standards in general.
The wider question of Weight-standards in general.
But results far more important than merely the determination of the value of Homeric commodities may be obtained as regards the weight-standards of Europe and their congeners in Asia. For by taking as our primitive unit the cow or ox, we may be able to give a much more simple account of the genesis of those standards than that which hitherto has been the received one. We have found the Homeric ox and talent identical with the didrachm or stater of the Euboic-Attic standard. All the silver coinag
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CHAPTER II. Primitive Systems of Currency.
CHAPTER II. Primitive Systems of Currency.
Let us here propound the doctrine which seeks to obtain an explanation of the origin for weight-standards more in accordance with the facts of history and the process of development as exemplified both in ancient and modern times. In early communities [17] all commodities alike are exchanged by bartering the one against the other. The man who possesses sheep exchanges them for oxen with the man who possesses oxen, the owner of corn exchanges his commodity for some implement or ornament of metal
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CHAPTER III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE OX AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD.
CHAPTER III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE OX AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD.
Let us now take a general survey of the results of our observations. First of all it is apparent that the doctrine of a primal convention with regard to the use of any one particular article as a medium of exchange is just as false as the old belief in an original convention at the first beginning of Language or Law. Every medium of exchange either has an actual marketable value, or represents something which either has or formerly had such a value, just as a five-pound note represents five sove
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CHAPTER IV. Primaeval Trade Routes.
CHAPTER IV. Primaeval Trade Routes.
There can be little doubt that from the extreme West of Europe to Northern India, or rather to China and the Pacific shore, there was complete intercourse in the way of trade, from the most remote epochs. In the lake dwellings of Switzerland are found implements of Jade, a stone which is not found at any spot in Europe; in fact the nearest point from which the material was fetched must have been Eastern Turkestan on the borders of China [151] . If in neolithic days such communication existed bet
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CHAPTER V. The Art of Weighing was first employed for Gold.
CHAPTER V. The Art of Weighing was first employed for Gold.
We have seen in the preceding pages that from the Atlantic seaboard right across into Further Asia the ox was universally spread, and from a period long before the daybreak of history already formed the chief element of property amongst the various races of mankind which occupied that wide region. We have likewise seen that gold was very equally distributed over the same area, being ready to hand in the still unexhausted deposits in the sands of rivers. And lastly we have seen that from the most
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CHAPTER VI. The Gold Unit everywhere the value of a Cow.
CHAPTER VI. The Gold Unit everywhere the value of a Cow.
We have now proved four things: (1) the general distribution of the ox throughout our area, (2) its universal employment as the unit of value throughout the same region, (3) the equable distribution of gold throughout the same countries, and (4) that gold is the first of all commodities to be weighed. Our next step will be to show that gold was weighed universally by the same standard, and that this standard unit in all cases where we can find record was regarded as the equivalent of the ox or t
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CHAPTER VII. The Weight Systems of China and Further Asia.
CHAPTER VII. The Weight Systems of China and Further Asia.
We have now found that within the area where our weight standards arose the ox was universally diffused, and regarded as the chief and most general form of property and medium of exchange; that over the same area gold was found to be more or less equally distributed in antiquity; that the metallic unit is found in all cases adapted to the chief unit of barter, whether that be ox or reindeer, beaver skin, or squirrel, as soon as peoples have learned the use of metal; and finally that over our spe
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CHAPTER VIII. How were Primitive Weight Units fixed?
CHAPTER VIII. How were Primitive Weight Units fixed?
We have seen that the Chinese system of weights is based upon natural seeds of plants, and we have actually found the wild hillsmen of Annam and Laos weighing their gold dust by grains of maize and rice. But it may be urged by the advocates of a Babylonian scientific origin based on the one-fifth of the cube of the royal ell, which in turn is based upon the sun’s apparent diameter, that the Chinese names of weights are merely conventional terms taken from the name of certain seeds, and on the ot
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“The metric systems of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
“The metric systems of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
“The evidence afforded by ancient writers on the subject of weights and coinage is in great part untrustworthy, and would often be unintelligible were it not for the light which has been shed upon it by the gold and silver coins, and bronze, leaden and stone weights which have been fortunately preserved down to our own times. It will be safer, therefore, to confine ourselves to the direct evidence afforded by the monuments. “Egypt, the oldest civilized country of the ancient world, first claims
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“The Phoenician traders.
“The Phoenician traders.
“The Phoenician commerce was chiefly a carrying trade. The richly embroidered stuffs of Babylonia and other products of the East were brought down to the coasts, and then carefully packed in chests of cedarwood in the markets of Tyre and Sidon, whence they were shipped by the enterprising Phoenician mariners to Cyprus, to the coasts of the Aegean, or even to the extreme West. “Hence the Phoenician city of Tyre was called by Ezekiel (xxvii.) ‘a merchant of the people for many isles.’ “But the Pho
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“The Lydians.
“The Lydians.
“‘The Lydians,’ says E. Curtius ( Hist. Gr. I. 76), ‘became on land what the Phoenicians were by sea, the mediators between Hellas and Asia.’ It is related that about the time of the Trojan Wars and for some centuries afterwards, the country of the Lydians was in a state of vassalage to the kings of Assyria. But an Assyrian inscription informs us that Asia Minor, west of the Halys, was unknown to the Assyrian kings before the time of Assur-banî-apli, or Assurbanipal (circ. B.C. 666), who it is s
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The invention of coinage.
The invention of coinage.
The evidence of both history and numismatics coincides in making the Lydians the inventors of the art of coining money. At first sight it may seem surprising that none of the great peoples of the East, whose civilization had its first beginning long ages before the periods at which our very oldest records begin, should have developed coined money, acquainted as they indubitably were with the precious metals, both for ornament and exchange. But a little reflection shews us that it has been quite
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The Greeks begin to coin money.
The Greeks begin to coin money.
The clever Greeks of Asia Minor, who formed the portal through which so many of the arts of the East reached the Western lands, were not slow to adopt, and by reason of their superior artistic taste to improve, the great Lydian invention. To the Ionic cities such as Phocaea and Miletus we must probably ascribe the credit of substituting artistically engraved dies for the rude Lydian punch-marks, and at a somewhat later period of inscribing them with the name or rather the initial of the people o
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Weight standards.
Weight standards.
“Silver was very rarely at this early period weighed by the same talent and mina as gold, but, according to a standard derived from the gold weight, somewhat as follows:— Gold was to silver as 13·3:1. This proportion made it difficult to weigh both metals on the same standard. That a round number of silver shekels or staters might equal a gold shekel or stater, the weight of the silver shekel was either raised above or lowered below that of the gold. The heavy gold shekel weighed 260 grains Troy
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The Silver Standards derived from the Gold Shekel[261].
The Silver Standards derived from the Gold Shekel[261].
I. From the heavy gold shekel of 260 grains: On the silver shekel of 230 grains the Phoenician or Graeco-Asiatic silver standard may be constructed: II. From the light gold shekel of 130 grains we get the so-called Babylonian or Persian standard: On the silver shekel or stater of 172·9 grains the Babylonic , Lydian , and Persian silver standard may be thus constructed:— It is desirable “to take note of the fact that in Asia Minor and in the earliest periods of the art of coining, (α) the heavy g
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The coin-standards of Greece Proper.
The coin-standards of Greece Proper.
Before we attempt to examine into the connection of the Homeric talent or ox unit, and the ancient systems of the East, it will be advisable to get a clear view of the coin-standards found in actual use in historical times, and to understand the common doctrine of the derivation of the same. As gold was not coined in Greece Proper until a comparatively late period, owing doubtless to the fact that there was no great supply of it to be had, and that all of it was required to meet the demand for p
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PART II.
PART II.
We are now in a position to approach the last stage in our task, that which deals with the growth and development of various weight-standards, all of which start from a common unit. Of necessity Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Italy will claim a chief share of our attention. The question now is, Shall we deal with these regions according to the priority of their civilization, that is, in the order in which I have just named them, or shall we rather adhere to the principle which has hitherto guided us
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Egypt.
Egypt.
As has been previously remarked, we are not concerned with the long battle still raging between Assyriologists and Egyptologists as regards the respective claims of Egypt and Babylonia to the invention of measure and weight-standards. Boeckh himself seems instinctively to have felt this difficulty. For whilst he took Babylonia as the birthplace and home of all the ancient systems, nevertheless he held that contemporaneously there must have existed a connection between Egypt and Babylonia in remo
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The Assyrio-Babylonian System.
The Assyrio-Babylonian System.
Fig. 23. Lion weight. Fig. 24. Assyrian half-shekel weight of the so-called Duck type [302] . A. Side view showing cuneiform symbol = ½. B. View from above. Much has been written in the last thirty years concerning what is known as the Assyrio-Babylonian system: in fact so much has been written that it is difficult to find out the data amidst the masses of theory. What then are the facts which we have to go upon? Whence do we get the name Babylonian ? Herodotus [303] tells us that when Darius im
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Phoenician Standard.
Phoenician Standard.
The total loss of the literature and records of the Phoenicians, and the fact that neither in their own country nor in the greatest of their colonies, Carthage, did they employ coined money until a comparatively late period, make the task of restoring their weight system very difficult if not hopeless. The silver standard called Phoenician or Graeco-Asiatic is the sole evidence to show that they employed as their unit for gold the heavy Babylonian shekel of 260 grs. On the other hand we have jus
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The Phoenician Colonies.
The Phoenician Colonies.
It is worth while before going further to enquire whether we can gain any light from the systems of weight employed by the famous daughter-cities of Phoenicia, such as Gades and Carthage. A weight bearing in Punic characters the name of the Agoranomos and the numeral 100 has been found at Jol (Julia Caesarea) in North Africa, but unfortunately it has suffered so much by corrosion from water and the loss of its handle that it is impossible to make any tolerable approximation to its original weigh
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The Persian Standard.
The Persian Standard.
We may adopt the generally received belief that the Persians, like the Medes and Babylonians, did not coin money (although they were probably acquainted with the Lydian stater) until after the conquest of Asia Minor and Egypt by Cyrus and Cambyses, and the reorganization of the empire by Darius the son of Hystaspes (522-485 B.C. ). For although the learned savants MM. Oppert and Révillout [358] hold that Daric (Δαρεικός) is unconnected with the name Darius (Δαρεῖος), an opinion supported by Dr H
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The Aeginetan Standard.
The Aeginetan Standard.
The desire to obtain 10 silver pieces equivalent in value to the gold ox-unit induced the Aeginetans, who were famous merchantmen, to make a silver system distinct from that of gold. Gold being to silver as 15:1, With the Aeginetans as with the Euboeans in their silver system, the ancient copper units of the nail and handful played an important part. The story of Pheidon [373] having hung up in the temple of Hera at Argos the ancient currency of nails of copper and iron as soon as he struck his
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Variation of Silver Standards.
Variation of Silver Standards.
The connection between the types on early silver coins of Greece and the earlier local units of value being probably such as I have indicated, we next approach the question of changes in the weight of the silver coins at various places and at various times. Besides the ordinary Euboic and Aeginetic standards we find others such as the Rhodian, and the Ptolemaic, the former so named because the island of Rhodes from the beginning of the 4th century B.C. ceased to strike tetradrachms of the full A
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Commercial Weight System.
Commercial Weight System.
We must now turn to the commercial weight system. As elsewhere, one of the chief commodities to come under such a system was copper, and the history of the weighing of this metal, as far as it can be learned, will be of great importance to us. Now we should naturally expect that at Athens, which had in later days but one standard for gold and silver, copper likewise would have been estimated on this unit. But, as a matter of fact, there were two distinct standards in use at Athens, as is proved
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The Sicilian System.
The Sicilian System.
In dealing with the Sicilian and Italian systems we must reverse the order of treatment of the metals, and as it is in the copper that we shall find the closest link between the Greek and those other systems, we shall therefore commence with that metal. On the Italian Peninsula and in Sicily we find a series of weight and monetary terms totally distinct from any found in Greece Proper. From this alone we may infer that, even before the settlement of any Greek Colonies in Magna Graecia and Sicily
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The Italian System. Bronze.
The Italian System. Bronze.
As the cow formed the highest unit in the monetary system of ancient Italy, so the lowest unit employed was a certain amount of copper called an as . We have already found the cow serving the same purpose in Sicily (as late as the time of Dionysius forming the rateable unit at Syracuse). The systems of Further Asia, where the buffalo stands at the head of the scale and the hoe or a piece of raw metal of a certain size stands at the bottom, form a perfect analogy in modern times. As far as its va
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Gold and Silver.
Gold and Silver.
Whilst in the infancy of coining the Sicilian silver litra was probably the same as the Aeginetic obol, that is about 16⅔ grs., the Aeginetic didrachm being probably treated as a decalitron (ten-litra piece), nevertheless after no long time the common Euboic standard of 135 grs. was employed at Syracuse and elsewhere, and we have the authority of Aristotle for the statement that the Corinthian stater was called a decalitron . Corinth, as we saw above, used the 135 grain unit for her famous Pegas
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Roman System.
Roman System.
Although it is not our concern to go into the history of Roman money, it is nevertheless necessary to give the reader a short sketch of its principal features in order to make the history of the Roman weight standards intelligible. First came oxen and sheep, which according to their age and sex bore definite relations to each other, and by which all other values were measured. From an early period (at least 1000 B.C. ) copper was in use, not yet however weighed, but estimated by the bulk, as I h
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Conclusion.
Conclusion.
It now simply remains to sum up the results of our enquiry. Starting with the Homeric Poems we found that although certain pieces of gold called talents were in circulation among the early Greeks, yet all values were still expressed in terms of cows. We then found that the gold talent was nothing else than the equivalent of the cow, the older unit of barter, and we found that the talent was the same unit as that known in historical times under the names of Euboic stater or Attic stater, and comm
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APPENDIX A The Homeric Trial Scene.
APPENDIX A The Homeric Trial Scene.
I would not return to so well-worn a theme, were it not that editors like Dr Leaf ( ad loc. ) still state that there is nothing in the language of the last line to hinder us from taking it either of the litigant or of the judge. Scholars have fixed their attention so closely on the words δίκην εἴποι that they have completely overlooked the qualifying ἰθύντατα. In modern courts of law we do not expect to hear the straightest statement of a case from advocates, but rather from the judge. The ancie
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APPENDIX B. What was the Unit of Assessment in the Constitution of Servius Tullius?
APPENDIX B. What was the Unit of Assessment in the Constitution of Servius Tullius?
Th. Mommsen in his Roman History ( I. 95-96 English Trans.) has laid down that land was the basis of assessment, on the analogy of the Teutonic hide . He makes the members of the First Class those who held a whole hide; and the remaining four classes were made up of those who held proportionally smaller freeholds. When Mommsen has once spoken, it is presumptuous to raise doubts. If however it can be shown that the Italians rather based their assessments on cattle, and that furthermore the statem
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APPENDIX C. Keltic and Scandinavian Weight Systems.
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 Lindsay [450]
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