History Of The Values Of The Precious Metals.—In Antiquity And In The
Middle Ages.
It is impossible to write a real history of the values of the precious
metals in ancient and medieval times: the sources of information are too
few. But it does seem possible to suggest some fragments and something of
the development of that history,(820) at least in outline.
Thus, for instance, the supply of the precious metals furnished by the
mines, in the earlier times of ancient history, was kept from entering the
market by the system which then prevailed everywhere, of hoarding treasure
by the state, by the temples etc., and later by great reserves of treasure
kept by individuals.(821) The revolutions in prices in ancient times were
produced as frequently by the sudden opening of such reservoirs, as by the
discovery of richer sources. Thus, for instance, such events as the
dissipation of Pericles’ treasures, the subsidies of the Persian kings,
the spoliation of many temples in consequence of declining religiousness,
the distribution of Persian treasures by Alexander the Great,(822) had a
vast influence on the undeniable rise in the price of Greek commodities in
the century succeeding the Peleponnesian war.(823) Later, it is said that
in Rome, the price of pieces of land was doubled by the influx of Egyptian
war-booty.(824) It is a remarkable proof of the undeveloped condition of
trade in the earlier periods of ancient history, that the perturbations in
prices were, apparently, at least, so entirely local. Phœnicia, Palestine
etc., must have experienced, in the age of Solomon, a formal deluge of the
precious metals, while Greece, for instance, was then, and for centuries
after, extremely poor in them.(825) It is not, on the whole, to be
doubted, that the value in exchange of the precious metals was on a
continual decline until the most flourishing time of the Roman
emperors.(826) During the middle ages, it seems to have stood much higher
again; because the great loss of treasure caused by the migration of
nations etc., the almost complete cessation of production at the mines,
and the slowness of the circulation of money, played a much more important
part than the decrease of trade.(827)(828)