THE ORIGIN OF
METALLIC CURRENCY AND
WEIGHT STANDARDS.
London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
[Illustration]
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. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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 earliest money of Lydia, Greece and Italy, and on the other hand the
Metrologists had almost completely limited their range of observation
to the systems of Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome. As the Comparative
Method has yielded such excellent results in the study of other human
institutions, I have endeavoured by its aid to get some new principles
which may throw some fresh light on the first beginnings of monetary and
weight systems.
The leading principle which I have here endeavoured to establish by the
Inductive Method, I had already put forward in a short paper, but there
are various other doctrines now published for the first time, such as the
origin of the earliest Greek coin types, the origin of the earliest Greek
silver coins, of the Greek Obolos, the Sicilian Litra, and Roman As, of
the Mina, and its sixty-fold the Talent.
In treating of the Distribution of gold and the priority of its discovery
to that of the other metals, I have been led to criticise the principles
of the science of Linguistic Palaeontology, which have gained such
currency in this country from Schrader’s _Prehistoric Antiquities of the
Aryans_, and from Dr Isaac Taylor’s popular little book, _The Origin of
the Aryans_. I have been led to conclude that Comparative Philology taken
alone is a misleading guide in the study of Anthropology.
From the nature of this work, a certain amount of polemic was inevitable;
but I trust that not a line will be found which contains anything which
could be offensive to the living, or is disrespectful to great scholars
now no more. I owe so much to the works of distinguished men, from whose
principles I am obliged to dissent, that I feel myself almost an ingrate
who assails his benefactors with the very means provided for him by their
labours.
It now only remains for me to thank many friends, who have aided me and
taken an interest in this work.
To Mr J. G. Frazer, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, I am under
obligations which I cannot adequately express in words. He has read
through the proofs of the whole of this work, and there is scarcely a
page which has not benefited from his most careful and acute criticism.
Besides this his vast knowledge of the manners and customs of barbarous
peoples has furnished me with many most valuable references, and his
fine Ethnological Library has been ungrudgingly placed at my disposal.
Professor W. Robertson Smith has read the proofs of those pages which
deal with Semitic systems, and Prof. J. H. Middleton those treating of
the Greek.
By their kind sacrifice of time and labour which have been robbed from
important works of their own, the many shortcomings of this book have
been rendered far less numerous than they otherwise would be, but of
course I alone am responsible for the manifold ones which remain.
I must also express my gratitude to Mr Head, Mr Wroth and Mr Grueber of
the Coin Department of the British Museum for their kindness and courtesy
in affording me every facility for studying the coins under their charge.
I have to thank the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for having
undertaken the publication of this work.
QUEEN’S COLLEGE, CORK,
_Christmas Eve, 1891_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
The Ox and the Talent in Homer 1
CHAPTER II.
Primitive Systems of Currency 10
CHAPTER III.
The distribution of the Ox and the distribution of Gold 47
CHAPTER IV.
Primaeval Trade Routes 105
CHAPTER V.
The Art of Weighing was first employed for Gold 112
CHAPTER VI.
The Gold Unit everywhere the value of a Cow 124
CHAPTER VII.
The Weight Systems of China and Further Asia 155
CHAPTER VIII.
How were Primitive Weight Units fixed? 169
CHAPTER IX.
Statement and Criticism of the Old Doctrines 195
PART II.
CHAPTER X.
The Systems of Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine 234
CHAPTER XI.
The Lydian and Persian Systems 293
CHAPTER XII.
The Greek, Sicilian, Italian and Roman Systems. Conclusion 304
Appendix A 389
Appendix B 391
Appendix C 394
Index 407
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIG. PAGE
1. Cowrie Shell 13
2. Wampum 14
3. Al-li-ko-chik 15
4. Burmese silver shell money 22
5. Chinese hoe money 23
6. Fish-hook money 28
7. Siamese silver bullet money 29
8. Silvered brass bars 30
9. Rings found in the tombs of Mycenae 37
10. Gold rings found in Ireland 38
11. West African axe money 40
12. Old Calabar copper-wire formerly used as money 41
13. Irish bronze fibulae and West African manillas 42
14. Ancient British Coins 93
15. Barbarous imitation of Drachm of Massalia 111
16. Gold Stater of Philip of Macedon 125
17. Persian Daric 126
18. Gold Stater of Diodotus of Bactria 126
19. Egyptian wall painting showing the weighing of gold rings 128
20. Regenbogenschüssel 140
21. Chinese knife money 157
22. Egyptian Five-Kat weight 240
23. Lion weight 245
24. Assyrian Duck weight 245
25. Weights in the form of Sheep 271
26. Coin of Salamis in Cyprus 272
27. Bull’s-head Five-shekel Weight 283
28. Lydian Electrum Coin 295
29. Coin of Croesus 298
30. Coin of Eretria 306
31. Coin of Cyrene with Silphium plant 313
32. Coin of Cyzicus with tunny fish 316
33. Coins of Olbia in the form of tunny fish 317
34. Coin of Tenedos with double-headed axe 318
35. Coin of Phanes, earliest known inscribed coin 320
36. Archaic Coin of Samos 321
37. Coin of Cnidus 321
38. Coin of Thurii 322
39. Coin of Rhoda in Spain 322
40. Tetradrachm of Athens 325
41. Vase from Cyrene, showing the weighing of the Silphium 326
42. Coin of Metapontum 327
43. Coin of Croton 328
44. Tortoise of Aegina 328
45. Coin of Boeotia with Shield 331
46. Coin of Lycia 332
47. Coin of Messana 336
48. Aes Rude 355
49. Bronze Decussis, with figure of Cow 356
50. As (_Aes grave_) 361
51. As (semi-uncial) 362
52. As, 3rd Cent. A.D. (_Third Brass_) 362
53. Didrachm of Corinth 362
54. Sesterce of First Roman Silver coinage 363
55. Didrachm of Tarentum 364
56. Romano-Campanian coin 377
57. Victoriatus 377
58. Sextans (_aes grave_) 379
59. Gold Solidus of Julian the Apostate 384
60. Tremissis of Leo I. 385
CHAPTER I.
THE OX AND THE TALENT IN HOMER.
ἮΜΟϹ Δ’ ΟΎΤ’ ἌΡ ΠΩ ἨῺϹ, ἜΤΙ Δ’ ἈΜΦΙΛΎΚΗ ΝΎΞ.
The object of this essay is to enquire into the origin of Metallic
Currency and Weight Standards. Since August Boeckh in his metrological
enquiries[1] put forth the idea that the weight standards of antiquity
had been obtained scientifically, all subsequent writers with scarcely
an exception have followed in the same path. This theory was undoubtedly
suggested by the fact that the French Republic had established a new
scientific metric system. Yet reflection might have shown scholars
that even the French system was not a wholly independent outcome of
science, for beyond doubt the _mètre_ and _litre_ and _hectare_ were only
varieties of older measures of length, capacity and surface, then for
the first time scientifically adjusted. The discovery of certain weights
of bronze and stone in the ruins of Nineveh, Khorsabad and Babylon lent
force to the theory of Boeckh; the imaginations of scholars were excited
by the marvellous remains of Chaldaean and Assyrian civilization which
had just been brought to light by Sir A. H. Layard, and they hastened to
conclude that in the mathematical science of Mesopotamia the source of
all weight-standards was to be found. Egypt however put in her claim to
priority, and standards based on the measurements of the Great Pyramid,
or on the weight of a given quantity of Nile-water, have entered the
lists against the astrologers of Chaldaea. This battle still rages hotly,
Assyriologists and Egyptologists hurling at each other statements drawn
from tablets and papyri, as regards the translation of which no two of
these savants are agreed. In spite of this all modern works on metrology
start with the systems of Babylon and Egypt and from these they derive
the systems of Greece and Italy. It would at least be more scientific
to move backwards from the known to the unknown, but beguiled by the
glamour of a “scientific” metrological system, scholars have turned their
backs upon scientific method. Whilst our knowledge of the Assyrian and
Egyptian weight systems is most imperfect, being derived from literary
monuments, or from inscriptions on weights not half understood, the
systems of Greece and Rome are known to us not simply from the vast
literatures written in languages thoroughly intelligible, but likewise
from the evidence of immense numbers of coins struck in gold and silver,
by the weights of which we are enabled to check off and substantiate the
literary sources.
As Greece coined money several centuries before Italy, and as its
literature reaches much further back than that of Rome, it is plain that
any sound enquiry into the origin of weight standards must commence with
Greece. We shall therefore without further preface proceed to investigate
the evidence afforded to us by the oldest Greek records.
_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 priority
in age as compared with the Talent. In the first place it represents
the most primitive form of exchange, the barter of one article of value
for another, before the employment of the precious metals as a medium
of currency; consequently the estimation of values by the cow is older
than that by means of a Talent or “weight” of gold, or silver or copper.
Again, in Homer, all values are expressed in so many oxen, as “golden
arms for brazen, those worth one hundred beeves, for those worth nine
beeves[2]” (_Il._ VI. 236).
The Talent on the other hand is only mentioned in Homer in relation to
_gold_ (for we never find any mention of a Talent of _silver_) and we
never find the value of any other article expressed in Talents. But the
names of monetary units hold their ground long after they themselves
have ceased to be in actual use as we observe in such common expressions
as “bet a guinea,” or worth a “groat,” although these coins themselves
are no longer in circulation, and so the French _sou_ has survived for
a century in popular parlance, and the _Thaler_ has lived into the new
German monetary system. Accordingly we may infer that the method of
expressing the value of commodities in kine, which we find side by side
with the Talent, is the elder of the twain.
Was there any immediate connection between the two systems or were they
as Hultsch (_Metrologie_², p. 165) maintains entirely independent? It
is difficult to conceive any people, however primitive, employing two
standards at the same time which are completely independent of each
other. For instance when we find in the _Iliad_[3] that in a list of
three prizes appointed for the foot-race, the second is a cow, the third
is a half-talent of gold, it is impossible to believe that Achilles or
rather the poet had not some clear idea concerning the relative value
of an ox and a talent. Now it is noteworthy that, as already remarked,
nowhere in the Poems is the value of any commodity expressed in Talents;
yet who can doubt that Talents of gold passed freely as media of
exchange? A simple solution of this difficulty would be that the Talent
of gold represented the older ox-unit. This would account for the fact
that all values are expressed in oxen, and not in Talents, the older name
prevailing in a fashion resembling the usage of _pecunia_ in Latin.
A complete parallel for such a practice can be still found at the present
moment among some of the Samoyede tribes of Siberia. Thus we read in
the account of a recent traveller: “He finally came to the conclusion
that for the consideration of five hundred reindeer, he would undertake
the contract. This I regarded as a very facetious sally on his part. The
reindeer however I found was the recognised unit of value, as amongst
some tribes of the Ostiaks the Siberian squirrel. For this purpose the
reindeer is generally considered to be worth five roubles[4].” Again
forty years ago Haxthausen[5] tells us that the Ossetes, a Caucasian
tribe dwelling not very far from Tiflis, although long accustomed to
stamped money, especially on the border of Georgia, kept their accounts
in cows, five roubles being reckoned to the cow. Here then in Siberia and
in the Caucasus, in spite of a long experience not merely of a metallic
unit, but of actual coined money, we still find values estimated in
reindeer, and in cows, the older units, just as in Homer they are stated
in oxen.
We shall likewise find that when the ancient Irish borrowed a ready made
silver unit (the _uncia_) from the Romans, they had to equate this unit
to their old barter-unit the cow, just as in modern times the wild tribes
of Annam when borrowing the _bar_ of silver from their more civilized
neighbours have had to equate it to their native standard, the buffalo;
facts in close accord with the well known derivation of Latin _pecunia_,
_money_ from _pecus_, English _fee_ from _feoh_, which still meant
cattle, as does the German _Vieh_, and _rupee_ (according to some) from
Sanskrit _rupa_, also meaning cattle.
Let us now see if we have any data to support this hypothesis. That most
trustworthy writer, Julius Pollux, says in his _Onomasticon_ (IX. 60):
“Now in old times the Athenians had this (_i.e._ the didrachm) as a coin
and it was called an ox, because it had an ox stamped on it, but they
think that Homer also was acquainted with it when he spoke of (arms)
‘worth an hundred kine for those worth nine[6].’ Moreover in the laws of
Draco there is the expression, to pay back the price of twenty kine: and
at the time when the Delians hold their sacred festival, they say that
the herald makes proclamation whenever a gift is given by any one, that
so many oxen will be given by him, and that for each ox two Attic drachms
are offered: whence some are of opinion that the ox is a coin peculiar to
the Delians, but not to the Athenians; and that from this likewise has
been started the proverb, an ox stands on his tongue, in case any man
holds his tongue for money[7].”
According to Pollux then the Attic didrachm, or at least a coin employed
by the Athenians (perhaps certain coins of Euboea), was called an ‘ox.’
Plutarch (_Theseus_, c. 25) goes further and asserts that Theseus struck
money stamped with the figure of an ox (ἔκοψε δὲ νὸμισμα βοῦν ἐγχαράξας),
and the Scholiast on the _Birds_ of Aristophanes (1106) quotes from
Philochorus, an Athenian antiquary of the third century B.C.[8], the same
account of the Attic didrachms being marked with an ox.
On the other hand the highest authorities on numismatics assert that the
Athenians never struck any such coins. Yet after making due allowance
for the additions made by Plutarch to the more crude statement of Pollux
and Philochorus, it is hard to conceive that such a belief could have
arisen without some foundation, and a probable solution may be found in
the fact that certain uninscribed coins, bearing the type of an ox-head,
which in recent years have been assigned to Euboea, are for the most part
found in Attica. We know that Eretria, and Chalcis, the great cities of
Euboea, were amongst the earliest places in Greece to strike money, and
it is quite possible, nay probable, that these Euboic coins formed (along
with the Aeginetan didrachms) the currency in use at Athens before the
time of Solon (B.C. 596). Why the name _ox_ was especially recollected in
after years as that of the earliest currency, we can readily understand;
the name derived from the old unit of barter would at once attach itself
to the coin which bore the image of the ox, and in the course of time
two traditions, one that the ancient unit was the ox, the other that the
first coins current at Athens bore the symbol of an ox, would merge into
one, and finally patriotic feeling would ascribe the first coinage to
Theseus, who was regarded as the father of so many Athenian institutions.
That, at all events, the name might be applied to a certain sum, or coin,
is rendered highly probable by the fact that Draco, with true legal
conservatism, retained in his code the primitive method of expressing
values in oxen. Now it is evident that the term, ‘price of twenty
oxen’ (εἰκοσάβοιον), must have been capable of being translated into
the ordinary metallic currency, whether that consisted of bullion in
ingots or coined money. The “cow” therefore must have had a recognized
traditional and conventional value as a monetary unit, and this is
completely demonstrated by the practice at Delos. Religious ritual is
even more conservative than legal formula, so we need not be surprised
to find the ancient unit, the ox, still retained in that great centre
of Hellenic worship. The value likewise is expressed in the more modern
currency. But we are not yet certain whether the two Attic drachms, which
are the equivalent of the ox, are silver or gold. Now Herodotus (VI. 97)
tells us that Datis, the Persian general (B.C. 490), offered at Delos
three hundred _talents_ of frankincense. Hultsch (_Metrol._ p. 129) has
made it clear that the talent here indicated must be the gold Daric,
that is the light Babylonian shekel. For if they were either Babylonian
or Attic talents, the amount would be incredible. Frankincense was of
enormous value in antiquity; wherefore Hultsch is probably right in
assuming that in the opinion of the Persian who made the offering, the
three hundred “weights” of frankincense, each of which weighed a Daric,
were equal in value likewise to 300 Darics. We shall see in a moment that
there was a distinct tradition that the Daric was a _Talent_, and that
the Homeric one. Now the gold Daric = two Attic gold drachms; but as the
cow at Delos also = two Attic drachms, and the offering of frankincense
at Delos is made in _Talent_, each of which is equivalent to two _gold_
Attic drachms, there is a strong presumption that this Talent is the
equivalent of the ox, and that the Attic drachms mentioned by Pollux are
_gold_. Besides, it is absurd to suppose that at any time two _silver_
drachms could have represented the value of an ox. Even at Athens, in
a time of extreme scarcity of coin, Solon, when commuting penalties in
cattle for money in reference to certain ancient ordinances, put the
value of the ox at _five_ silver drachms[9]. Moreover it is not at all
likely that the substitution of silver coin for gold of equal weight
would have been permitted by the temple authorities. But we get some more
positive evidence of great interest from the fragment of an anonymous
Alexandrine writer on Metrology, who says[10], “the talent in Homer was
equal in amount to the later Daric. Accordingly the gold talent weighs
two Attic drachms.” Here we can have no doubt that Attic drachms mean
_gold_ drachms. Are we wrong then in supposing that at Delos still
survived the same dual system which we found in Homer, the Ox and the
Talent? But that at Delos both were of equal value we can have little
doubt. For the ox = 2 Attic drachms = 1 Daric = 1 Talent = (130 grains
Troy). Who can doubt that at Delos was preserved an unbroken tradition
from the earliest days of Hellenic settlements in the Aegean? Modern
discovery comes likewise to our support, and we shall find that it is
probable that the gold rings found by Dr Schliemann in the tombs at
Mycenae were made on a standard of about 135 grs.
This identification of the ox and the Homeric Talent is of importance:
for it gives a simple and natural origin for the earliest Greek metallic
unit of which we read. It likewise incidentally explains the proverb,
βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ which dates from a time long before money was yet
coined, or even the precious metals were in any form whatever employed
for currency; it possibly explains why the ox was such a favourite type
on coins, without having to call to our aid recondite mythological
allusions; and it clears up once for all some interesting points in
Homer. In the passage of the _Iliad_ (XXIII. 750 sq.) already referred
to the ox is second prize, whilst an half-talent of gold is the third.
The relation between them is now plain; the ox = 1 talent, and the
half-talent = a half-ox.
The vexed question of the Trial Scene[11] can now be put beyond doubt.
In the _Journal of Philology_ (Vol. X. p. 30) the present writer
argued that the two talents represented a sum too small to form the
blood-price (ποινή) of a murdered man, and consequently must represent
the _sacramentum_ (or payment made to the Court for its time and trouble,
as in the Roman _Legis actio sacramenti_ described by Gaius, Bk. IV.
16), as proposed by that most distinguished scholar and jurist, the late
Sir H. S. Maine[12]. We know that the two talents are equal to two oxen,
but in the _Iliad_, XXIII. 705, the second prize for the wrestlers was
a slave woman “whom they valued at four oxen[13].” Now if an ordinary
female slave was worth four oxen (= four talents) it is impossible that
two talents (= two oxen) could have formed the bloodgelt or _eric_ of a
freeman. Probably four oxen was not far from the price of an ordinary
female slave. Of course women of superior personal charms would fetch
more, for instance, Euryclea,
“Whom once on a time Laertes had bought with his possessions,
When she was still in youthful prime, and he gave the price of twenty
kine[14].”
The poet evidently refers to this as an exceptional piece of extravagance
on the part of Laertes. We can likewise now get a common measure for
the ten talents of gold and the seven slave women who formed part of the
requital gifts proffered by Agamemnon to Achilles[15], and can form some
notion of the comparative value of the prizes for the chariot race and
other contests[16].
_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 coinage of Greece
proper was struck either on this standard or the Aeginetic, and what is
still more important for us it was on the Euboic-Attic standard alone
that gold was estimated in every part of Greece. Practically the stater
of this system was of the same weight as the famous Persian daric which
in historical times formed the chief coin-unit of all Asia from India to
the Aegean shores.