An essay on the ancient weights and money, and the Roman and Greek liquid measures, with an appendix on the Roman and Greek foot
Hussey, Robert,1801-1856
nrifiTT Itiin i (^p/^r^'t^ ss£<s ^-' r&^S AN ESSAY ANCIENT WEIGHTS AND MONEY, ROMAN AND GREEK LIQUID MEASURES, AN APPENDIX ROMAN AND GREEK FOOT. THE REV. ROBERT HUSSEY, MA. STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH. XPh &* Ka ^ avrbv alel navTos opuv \iirpov. PlND. Pyth. ii. 62. OXFORD, PRINTED BY S. COLLINGWOOD, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY, SOLD BY J. H. PARKER, ' AND BY J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON, LONDON. M.DCCC.XXXVI. ec64 Mbtt PREFACE. IT has long been complained, that there is no convenient work containing a good account of the ancient money. And most persons who have had experience in teaching must have seen the effect of this want upon those who learn, in the prevail- ing ignorance of the subject. It is a very com- mon thing, to find even those who are well in- formed on many points of scholarship and ancient history at a loss, whenever terms of money and weight occur. If these convey any ideas at all, they are often strangely inaccurate : drachma? and minae, or sestertii and sestertia, pass, all alike, for signs of value of precisely the same kind ; or, talents of money and talents of weight are mis- taken one for the other ; and thus coins, money of account, and weights, are mingled in the thoughts of the student in hopeless confusion. The author- ities, to which recourse is usually had for informa- tion, will not readily correct this : for they have mistakes of their own a ; and neither the method a One specimen may be quoted, which perhaps surpasses all in the skill with which it crowds many blunders in a small compass, if, at least, the English translation of the work may be trusted. Beausobre's Introduction, in the chapter on the Hebrew money, says, that the drachma was a silver coin rather less than the dena- rius, and weighing 8 or.. ; that the denarius weighed 10 oz. ; that a 2 iv PREFACE. of reckoning, nor the arrangement used in them, is well fitted to give knowledge in a clear and easy way. What, for example, can be worse chosen, than reckoning the weight of the talents in pounds of troy weight ? To which standard some readers would attach no definite idea of value, because they are not used to it; some, through inadvert- ency, would confound it with the common avoir- dupois standard, and thus overrate the result by nearly one fourth b . And the meagre tables, which commonly are the only things used, are often scarcely understood, and soon forgotten. Yet it cannot be said that there is a want of books full of information on this subject. Per- haps no one of the lesser branches of history and philology has had more written about it, than the ancient money. So early as 1675 Labbe, in his Bibliotheca Nuinmaria, made up a list of nearly 200 writers on the weights and money, beside a not much smaller number of authors on coins : and many works have been added since this was pub- lished. Few of these, however, are in form and design fitted for general use, as books of refer- ence ; and the few which are so are not now easy to get. It was to supply this want, therefore, that the present work was undertaken : and the object the sestertius was worth 2\d., the denarius y^d. ; and that there were minse of gold weighing ioo shekels, which, according to his own calculation, would amount to 3200 oz. b In Arbuthnot's tables, however, one mistake compensates for another, and in practice corrects it. He rates the Attic talent of weight at 56 lb. 1 1 oz. in troy weight, which is about one fourth too light ; but when it is taken, as it usually is, for common or avoirdupois weight, it is nearly the true weight. P R E F A C E. v which has been kept in view throughout is, to fur- nish students with a manual, containing in a com- modious shape all the information concerning weights and money, necessary for reading the clas- sical authors of the best ages. For the subject of the weights is inseparable from that of the money; not only, because they were originally the same, but also, because, afterwards, terms common to both meant things quite distinct, which, as has been already said, are often confounded. In a field already so well trodden, it would be absurd to make any pretensions to originality. The labours of former writers have been used with- out scruple : and the only novelty consists in con- densing and arranging what others have said be- fore. The aid of the coins, however, has been called in, wherever it could be done, to verify or correct the statements of authors : and a pretty large examination of them has enabled me, as I believe, to set right some few mistakes of long standing. But the work was not taken in hand for the sake of these. If any readers wish to go deeper into the subject, than a book for general use can lead them, the way will be shewn them, partly by the short account of writers on the an- cient money given in the introductory chapter, which was placed there for this purpose, and partly by the references in the margin of the book to the sources from which any information is drawn : although the multiplying these references unne- cessarily has been avoided, and many names left out of writers, who have followed each other in repeating some well-known fact or opinion. vi PREFACE. The plan of the work is very simple. The Greek weights are treated of first, beginning with the Attic, which are followed by those of the other standards. After these comes the Greek money, the Attic first, and then those coinages of the other states, which are either of importance enough to need notice on their own account, or may serve as samples of the separate currencies, from the value of which we may reckon the other species of Greek money. The gold money is de- scribed after the silver, and the copper after that ; for each of the three metals has a distinct history concerning its own circulation in Greece. The same order is followed in what relates to the Ro- mans and the Hebrews. The weights are com- puted first, and then the money : but the three metals are not thrown into different chapters, but discussed together, so far as is needful, under the general head of money. The calculation of the measures for liquids grew out of the settling of the weight of the Roman pound by means of the congius. The method is so simple, and the result so certain, if we mav trust the authority of the ancient writers who give the proportions, that it seemed fully worth while to add this table, although the work was not designed to embrace the ancient measures in general. The chapter on the measures of length forming the Appendix, is compiled from the best author- ities among modern writers on the subject. This, too, may perhaps seem an excrescence upon the original plan. And certainly, since the few tables of measures of length in general use are, upon PREFACE. vii the whole, correct enough for common purposes, there is not so great need of this as of the other calculations. But really there is a great want of information on the subject of the measures of length, as well as the weights and money ; which is reason enough for making this addition to a work intended to be generally useful. And, at the same time, it will be interesting to some, and profitable perhaps to many, to be presented with a short summary of the researches which have been made into this part of the subject, and to have not only the results, but also the methods of the calcula- tions set before them. Some objection may perhaps be made against the manner in which the ancient money is valued, namely, by comparing it with our own silver cur- rency ; because the latter passes for rather more than the true value, and therefore will lead to overrating the ancient coins. It is true that in reckoning large sums in ancient money, the differ- ence between the value in our silver coin and the value at the market-price of silver would be per- ceptible ; and if strict accuracy were required, it would sometimes be necessary to take account of this. But, practically, all our ideas of value are measured by the representatives of value to which we are accustomed, that is to say, by the coins current among us ; and if we wish to form in the mind a notion of the real value of the talent weight of silver money, we do so by thinking how many of our own shillings so much Greek or Roman silver coin is worth ; and this estimate is correct ; although if so large a sum were to be paid in VIII PREFACE. English money at this day, it would be reckoned by a different standard, namely, that of the gold currency. It is evident that the comparison with our silver money is, practically, the only way of valuing the small sums in ancient money, such as the single coins of silver. Moreover, it is to be considered further with regard to the large sums, that in late times they were sometimes (we do not know how often) paid in gold ; in which case they were reckoned by a comparison between gold and silver, in which gold was much lower than it now is ; so that, whenever this happened, the quantity of gold actually paid (as, for the worth of so many talents of silver, for instance) would exceed the value which the abovementioned method of valua- tion assigned to the ancient silver. But after all, the method used here cannot well lead to error ; because the value of the money is reckoned in all cases by finding the quantity of pure silver by weight in each species of coins ; of which the market price may be calculated, as easily as the worth of it in our own silver coin : and thus, although the latter is always taken for the tables, because, as has been said, it really measures our ideas of value, the other may be readily used if preferred. The decimal notation has been used, almost always, for the fractional parts, instead of vulgar fractions, for the greater convenience both of printing and reckoning. It is to be presumed that few readers will find this a difficulty. Engrav- ings, by way of specimens, of the coins described, have not been added, because they would have PREFACE. xi needed much time and trouble to prepare, and raised the price of the book ; while, at the same time, any good work on coins with plates would better answer the same purpose of shewing the figures of the ancient money ; and half an hour's sight of a good collection of coins would give more knowledge than either. That the work was composed in the hours which could be spared from somewhat laborious occupa- tions, is not more than has been said of many greater and well executed works. But, however trite the excuse, it may honestly be pleaded for defects or oversights ; for certainly the book would have had a better chance of being correct and complete, had not the preparation of it been often broken off by long intervals of time wanted for other things. Those who will take the trouble to follow up the subject, and examine the larger works upon it to any great extent, will not be likely to be very harsh critics : for they will know how dry and re- pulsive great part of the inquiry is, how full of perplexity, contradiction, and uncertainty, and how great is the difficulty of binding down such " Pro- teus" forms as the symbols of value in money terms in the chains of system. The knowledge of coins, indeed, takes a high sounding name, and " Numismatology" has followers who think it a " delightful science -" But few of those who have ventured far into the mazes of the ancient monies, c Sestini, too, calls it " questa nobilissima scienza." Sopra le Medaglie Relative alia Confederazione degli Achei, p. 21. b x PREFACE. have found many charms in the pursuit d ; in which the scales must often be the standard of taste, and arithmetic the rule of interpretation. Let therefore the attempt to separate truth from error on this " wearisome but needful" subject, and to bring it into order in a correct and conve- nient shape, be judged yvw/u] tjj apla-Ty. I beg leave, in conclusion, to express my thanks to those gentlemen, who have the care of such public collections of coins as I have consulted in the course of my inquiries. I owe this especially with regard to the British Museum, where, in fre- quent visits, I always met with a courtesy and attention worthy of that magnificent establish- ment. I owe much also to the kindness of the Librarian of the Bodleian Library. And at the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, and at the Royal Library at Munich, I found the greatest urbanity and readiness to assist me, by giving all possible information. d See Hotoman De Re Num. p. 1 06. and Pinkerton Pref. &c. Ch. Ch., Feb. 5, 1836. ERRATA. P. 3. 1. 23. for Villalpandi's read Villalpando's. P. 26. 1. 1 1. for 2.35 grains read 2.77 grains. P. 47. 1. ult. for mint price read price. P. 48. 1. 5. for mint price read price. P. 107. 1. 14. for Appendus read Aspendus. P. 145. 1. ult. for Achsea read Achaia. P. 18S. 1. 28. for kekkar read kikkar. P- 2 35- 1-3- for iraAawTTJs read iraKaio-TTjs. INTRODUCTORY INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. ■«• 1. JL HE ancient weights and money were a subject about which nothing was known, for some time after the revival of ancient literature in Europe. The value of the money, especially, seems to have been thought almost beyond the reach of inquiry ; though it is said, that the practice of collecting ancient coins had begun as early as the days of Petrarch a . Bude claims the honour of being the first, who undertook a thorough examination of this obscure and perplexing question b. It had been already moved, and in part discussed, by Hermolaus Barbarus and Angelus Politianus, who had " sowed the seeds of the inquiry in their commentaries :" but, if we may believe Bude* himself, no one who had then touched upon it, had understood any thing about it. Indeed some who wrote after him, or about the same time, bear witness to the ignorance then prevail- ing on the subject : Portius says d , few knew the mean- ■ Schlager, in a letter "tobi Werth oder Unwerth der Jiidischen Miinzen," quoted in Rasche Lex. Rei Num. vol. ii. p. 514. in Ebraeor. Num. *> De Asse fol. xi. ed. of 1516. c Agricola De Mens, et Pond. i. p. 2. d De Re Pecuniar. Antiq. Camerarius says, Portius wrote be- fore Bude" : Agricola says, after: " deinde Portio, jam edito libro Budsei, sua in lucem proferre.*' It appears from this, that Portius might have written as early as Bude ; but the latter published first: Portius does not appear to have seen Bude's work. This may ex- plain some of the disputes about originality on this subject. See Mr. Greswell's Early Parisian Greek Press, vol. ii. p. 50. B 2 INTRODUCTION. SECT. 2. ing of denarius, mina, talentum, veiy few what ses- tertia meant, and perhaps none could compare them with modern money: and Camerarius e speaks despair- ingly, of the attempt to obtain accurate results concern- ing the value of ancient money. Bude's great work, De Asse, was printed as early as 1516 f ; and the prin- ciples which he there laid down are, in great part, the foundation on which all writers after him have built. He brought together the most important passages from the classics, and on them constructed the system of ancient money ; and from the weight of a small num- ber of coins, computed an unit of value, from which all the money might be reckoned. There are, as might be expected, some mistakes in his system, which fur- ther inquiry in after times has corrected : one of these is, his reckoning the Roman pound to have contained 100 denarii. But if this error be set aside, it is re- markable how nearly his value of the Roman pound weight, agrees with those assigned by the latest and best calculators from the coins. 2. After Bude there soon followed many learned men, who trod in his steps. Portius, Alciatus, Agri- cola, Camerarius, and Cenalis S, laboured in the same cause ; and each contributed something, by further ex- amination of ancient writers and coins. But the coins seem to have been chiefly Roman h ; and the denarius e De Re Nummar. f De Rome de l'lsle says 1514. Pref. to Metrologie, p. 1. Labbe, in his Bibliothec. Nummar. gives the date of the work 1522; but his dates are sometimes incorrect. For more about Bude, see Mr. Greswell's Early Parisian Greek Press, vol. ii. g The early writers on the subject are enumerated in the second part of Labbe's Bibliotheca Nummaria. Many of their works will be referred to again in the next chapter. The most remarkable only are mentioned here. h These, that is, denarii, seem to have been more common then SECT. 3. INTRODUCTION. 3 and Attic drachma were generally reckoned equal, or, if there was a difference, the denarius was considered the largest '. Agricola is distinguished for having turned his attention to the important question, of the fineness of the metal of the coins : and he is the first who is related to have made experiments, for the sake of ascertaining this necessary point. About the mid- dle of this century appeared the Dialogues of Antonius Augustinus, afterwards archbishop of ArragOn: and be- fore the end of it, many more valuable works : among which are to be distinguished those, of Arias Monta- nus on the Hebrew money, in his Antiquitates Ju- daicae; Lucas Paetus,on the Roman weights and money; Aldus Manutius, on the drachma and sestertius ; Bo- din, in his Respublica ; Budelius, who collected toge- ther into one volume many works of others on the same subject ; the Historia Rei Numariae of Hostus ; Simler's vocabulary ; Massarius' account of the medi- cinal weights ; and Hotoman, De Re Numaria. 3. The seventeenth century added many more to the number of authors ; and before long a great advance was made, towards a more complete knowledge of the subject. Villalpandi's learned treatise, on the whole system of the ancient weights and measures, came out in 1603. This was followed by the works of Wase- rius, Ciaconius, Snell, and, in 1614, Brerewood ; which last, if remarkable for nothing else, deserves at least to be noticed, as the first attempt of an Englishman to draw up a system of ancient weights and money for himself. For the work which bishop Cuthbert Tun- stall is said to have composed, was but an abstract of than now. Fortius (who was of Vicenza) says, " nullam putem esse provinciam in qua aliqui ex his non reperiantur." Re Pec. Antiq. 1 Computed from that corrupt place in Livy, xxxiv. 52. B 2 4 INTRODUCTION. SECT. 3. Bude's; and that attributed to Henry Howard earl of Surrey, is altogether apocryphal. Scaliger's De Re Numaria, which was published in 1616, after his death, was one of the most valuable works that had yet ap- peared, for deep research into ancient writers upon the subject : particularly for bringing to light an unpub- lished work of Heron relating to weights and money ; and the extracts which Scaliger made from the manu- script, have been repeatedly quoted from him by later authors. Salmasius' book, De Usuris, in 1638, also contained a great deal of information concerning the ancient money. In 1642 Selden drew up a short ac- count of the different species of ancient money, and calculated the value of them in modern money ; but he did not publish it. It was found after his death, by a bookseller named Pitt, and printed in 1675. And not long after this, in 1643, appeared the great work of Gronovius, De Pecunia Vetere ; which, if it has not exhausted the subject, has at least served ever since for the standard book of reference, on all questions as to what the ancient writers have said concerning money. Mersennus, who made the ancient weights come into a kind of system of natural philosophy, produced his treatise De Mensuris et Ponderibus in the following year. All these writers, except perhaps the last named, had bestowed more pains on the examination of ancient authors, and collecting from them all the notices about money, than on the examination of the coins. But we come now to some who began to take up this latter part of the inquiry, and treat it with the attention which it deserved. Savot's " Discours sur les Medalles Antiques" is the fullest and best work that has yet ap- peared, on the quality and composition of the metals of the ancient coinages, and the relative values of the dif- ferent species of money : it contains also many accu- SECT. 4. INTRODUCTION. 5 rate observations and calculations of the weights of the coins. It was published in 1627. But the greatest step towards an exact valuation of the ancient money, was made by Greaves, Savilian Professor of Astro- nomy at Oxford, in his work on the Roman foot and denarius, published in 1647. He first proved and in- sisted on the true difference between the Attic drachma and the denarius, after having examined many speci- mens of each coinage : and founded his whole system of values more on calculations from the actual weight of the coins, than on the statements of ancient writers ; so as to make the former explain or correct the latter ; instead of the reverse, which was the plan generally followed hitherto k . Before the end of the same cen- tury appeared Bouteroue's Recherches Curieuses des Monoyes de France, which, though not directly con- cerned with the ancient money, as the name shews, still contained some information about it ; and two more works by Englishmen; that of Bernard, in 1688, which, though ill arranged, and dry and repulsive in form, is valuable for the many details in it concerning the coins which he weighed, and the short references to authorities on the subject ; and that of Bishop Cum- berland, which is a mere compilation. 4. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, in 1708, Eisenschmidt of Strasburg brought out an ex- cellent little work, De Ponderibus et Mensuris, on Greaves' principles. He had carefully examined many coins, as well as writers, and calculated the results with great exactness ; and he arranged the whole in a very judicious system, forming the best general manual on the ancient weights, money, and measures, which k Greaves is not named in Labbe's Bibliotheca Nummaria, though his book had been in print twenty-eight years when that was published. B 3 6 INTRODUCTION. SECT. 4. had been published up to that time. After him the knowledge of the subject rather went back ; at least the writers did. Arbuthnot first published a set of tables, about 1710 ; and afterwards added to them a copious treatise, which he allowed his son to publish in 1727. Meanwhile, in the interval between these two, Bishop Hooper had produced his Enquiry into the ancient measures, which Arbuthnot made some use of in his second publication. Neither of these works brought any new light to the question : neither of the authors seem ever to have examined any coins. The Bishop's system is learned, arbitrary, and theoretical : Arbuthnot does not deserve the praise either of accu- i-acy or deep research. He is indeed right in confess- ing, as he does in the preface, that his work contains many mistakes, but, unfortunately, wrong in saying that they may be easily corrected by the principles con- tained in the book itself. It is certainly remarkable, that when Greaves and Eisenschmidt had so clearly proved the difference between the Attic drachma and the denarius, Arbuthnot, whom one might really sup- pose never to have seen either coin, should pertina- ciously go back and make them exactly equal. It was impossible that any system should be correct, until this difference was understood. Yet Arbuthnot's book obtained a reputation above any work which had come out before it, which it deserved less than any. It was said at one time, to be " daily increasing in value ;" it was " in great vogue all over England ;" and was called " the so much celebrated work of Dr. Arbuth- " not 1 ." But what is really to be regretted, is, that it 1 See Smith's " Remarks/' in his De Re Nummaria, p. 142. Langwith's " Observations on Dr. Arbuthnot's Dissertations on "Coins," (published in 1747 by his wife, after his death,) were written with the intention of finding fault with that work : but they are not worth noticing. It seems as if Arbuthnot's calculations SECT. 5. INTRODUCTION. 7 has been the groundwork, or rather the very substance of all the tables of ancient weights and money, which have been in common use in schools and other places of teaching in England, from that time to this. The tables at the end of Lempriere's Dictionary, which are the common school authority (!), are all Arbuthnot's : Encyclopaedias follow him : writers on metals and money are content to take his calculations : and all the compilers of manuals of antiquities for young students, tread with implicit deference in his steps ; ovrccs ara- Xanroopoi tois ttoX\ois r\ OjTJyerj? t»J? aXtjdelai. 5. But towards the end of that century, the method of examining coins was taken up again, and the study of the ancient money placed on its proper footing, where Greaves and Eisenschmidt had left it. Many French writers now engaged in the inquiry, and fol- lowed it with characteristic energy. Barthelemy, Pauc- ton, Dnpuy, Le Beau, De la Nauze, and De Rome de l'lsle, all published something on the subject ; but only Paucton and de Rome de l'lsle attempted to embody sys- tematic works. Paucton's Metrologie is a bulky vo- lume, and valuable for bringing together much infor- mation from other writers ; but, with regard to the weights and money, inaccurate, and often theoretical ; for the author does not seem to have examined the an- cient coins. De Rome - de l'lsle's work, which has the same title, is, on the contrary, very valuable for con- taining accurate tables of the weights of a great num- ber of coins, and some weights ; but the attempt to reduce them to a system is an utter failure, from the were followed out of England too. For in Mann's Tavole delle Monete, de' Pesi, &c. published in the Opuscoli Scelti di Miiano, xii. p. 341, that part which relates to the value of ancient weights and money, compared with the English, agrees exactly with Arbuthnot. The date of Mann's work, which is only a compilation, is 1779. B 4 8 INTRODUCTION. SECT. 6. author's ignorance of the classics. He was not a scho- lar by education ; but got all his scholarship by five or six months of severe study, undertaken to enable him to verify the results obtained from the examination of coins m . As might be expected, he fell into many errors : still, his work is highly useful, on account of the exact statements of details in it, which are brought together from different quarters, both ancient and mo- dern. Barthelemy's inquiries were directed chiefly to the Attic money : and the results which he obtained, cause regret that he allowed himself to be deterred from carrying them further. Within the same period, inl771,Raper's Essay also appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society ; a work of which it is not too much to say, that it is the best attempt yet made, to combine a general view of the money of the Greeks and Romans in their best times, with an accurate statement of the proofs on which the system rests. But, unfortu- nately, it is lost to the general reader, by being buried in the mass of the reports of the Society before which it was read ; and for that reason, probably, it has been so often overlooked, and the values given in Ar- buthnot's inaccurate tables taken in preference to Ra- per's. Pinkerton's Essay too, which was a little later, deserves attention ; for it is full of information from one who had much knowledge of the subject on which he wrote : but it is diffuse, and not ahvays correct, and cannot at all supply the want of a manual for students in general. 6. Since this, few original works have appeared on the money and weights of the ancients. Eckhel's great work is concerned chiefly and properly with the im- pressions on the coins, or the Numismatology of the subject ; and so far, would be passed over in this ac- m Metrologie, Pref. p. xiv. note. SECT. 7. INTRODUCTION. 9 count, with the rest of that great number of authors in the same line. But his Prolegomena contains also much matter relating to the coinage, which bears di- rectly on our question ; and therefore he should be noticed. Letronne's work, published in 1817, contains an account of the examination of Roman coins made on a larger scale than any before ; and for that reason ranks among the most valuable. Payne Knight, who deserves to be named with honour, for having set right the old mistake about the coins of Egina, has given the results of some observations of his own upon coins, in the account of the coinage of Greece in the Prolego- mena to his edition of Homer. Wurm is named as the author of a small work on weights and measures ; but I have not been able to get a sight of it. And, lastly, Mr. Akerman has given a table of the weights and fineness of some Roman coins, in his late work on that subject. 7- After all, though so many have engaged in the inquiry, it is clear that the subject is far from being exhausted. It would be absurd to suppose that we could ever get a complete knowledge of all the systems of money and weight in use among the ancients : and indeed such knowledge is not wanted. But certainly a considerable part is both necessary and within our reach ; and much of this has been misunderstood. The early writers, who brought deep learning and great industry to the task, wanted many means which have since been brought to light : and they, moreover, were often too fond of building up systems on slight founda- tions ; in other words, according to the spirit of the age, they generalized without examining enough. One cause of wide spread error was, the confounding statements made by authors of different times ; as, when the values assigned to the drachma, were taken 10 INTRODUCTION. SECT. 7- as the true measure of it for any age indifferently. It was long before the coins were examined much, and longer before they were used to correct mistaken opinions about the weights. Greaves was the first who ascertained the real difference between the Attic drachma and the denarius. For, though others had perceived that they were not exactly equal , as Savot, for example, he was the first who put forward the in- equality in a proper light. Of those who came after, it is to be observed, that, since the first great pioneers of the inquiry, who ex- plored the ground of ancient literature, and first brought to light the principal passages of ancient authors re- lating to money and weights, they who have examined the coins most, have done most to advance the know- ledge of the subject. At the present day there is, per- haps, but little to be added to the stock of informa- tion collected by the prodigious learning of such men as Bude, Scaliger, and Gronovius. But they, and others who laboured in the same department with them, wanted a fuller knowledge of the actual state of the ancient coins : and though much has already been done to supply this want, by careful observation of many specimens now in existence, there is still room for more : and the further the examination of coins is carried, the more corrections or verifications of the statements of ancient, and the calculation of modern authors, shall we have ; and by so much shall we approach nearer to a full understanding of the subject. In order to carry the inquiry quite to the end, it would be necessary to have all the ancient coins described or registered by classes, with the weight of each coin set down, and the age and condition so distinguished, that the average weight of any one species, for a given age, might be ascertained at once, from the sight of a suffi- SECT. 8. INTRODUCTION. 11 cient number of good specimens. And then it would be further necessary to analyse enough of each class, for calculating the value of the metal, in order to estimate them in our own money. In some catalogues, as that of the Hunterian Museum, and Combe's of the British Museum, the weights have been set down in the man- ner required : but even in these, the comparative ages of the coins are not clearly distinguished. And very few experiments have yet been made, by assaying the Greek coins, for the purpose of finding out the standard of fineness. It has happened hitherto, that accurate knowledge on these points has been wanted for but few of the Greek coinages : but it is possible to extend this knowledge : and, in order to do so, it will be ne- cessary to examine and compare on a proportionably larger scale. Something of this kind is attempted in the following chapters : but the main object in view throughout has been, to make an useful manual, rather than to push the inquiry to the farthest point : and whoever will apply the principles there laid down, to the examining any number of coins systematically, will be able to add something to our knowledge of the an- cient coinages in general. 8. But with regard to the Greek weights, there is still some uncertainty : because, although the denomi- nations of weight and money had the same names, we do not know that they expressed the same quantity of weight. Professor Bockh's discovery, that there was in common use at Athens a second standard of weight, different from that of the money, might raise a ques- tion, whether there might not have been a like variety in any other state in Greece. And, if so, it would fol- low, that the calculations of weight from the coins must be confined to money only, not applied to any general terms of weight for weighing other things. 12 INTRODUCTION. SECT. 8. We have not yet the means of settling this doubt : for most of the proportions which the ancient writers as- sign between the different talents, belong to the money- stand ai-d only; and such as are known to relate to weight in general, as those given by Hesychius and Heron, are too loosely described, and of too late an age, for us to calculate from them any system for the early times of Greece. After all, it is a mere assump- tion, that the common standard of weight was not the same as the money standard, in most parts of Greece. There certainly were some common standards in gene- ral use ; and though separate states might have mea- sures of their own, there seem to have been some which had a kind of general circulation, and were understood and allowed in many places. When Herodotus speaks of a thousand talents' weight of alum u , we must sup- pose that his readers would at once have understood what measure he used, and known what was the quan- tity expressed. The talents of weight, therefore, cal- culated from the coinages of Egina and Thebes, or of Macedonia, Egypt, and Phoenicia, or any other which may be found regular and extensive enough to deter- mine the positive value of the unit of the scale, may be the talents which were commonly used in those countries respectively. And, at any rate, if this mode of calculating them be given up, there is nothing left but to confess, that there are no means of estimating them at all. n Herod, ii. 180. CHAPTER I. ATTIC WEIGHTS. Quaerenda pecunia primum est. Horat. Ep. I. i. 53. 1. A HE names of the Greek weights were also the names of sums of money : for all money with the Greeks was originally a certain weight of silver. The choice of silver for the metal of money was at first arbitrary ; and copper or gold might have been used ; in which case the same names of weights would have expressed very different ideas of value with equal pro- priety ; but after it had been settled that silver was to be the medium of circulation, the names of weights signifying a certain quantity of that medium, came to be used for symbols of definite ideas of value. This was equally the case, whether the weight of silver was actually formed into a single coin, like the drachma, and other small sums ; or was made up of many pieces of different sizes, as the mina or talent : in all cases it was money by being a certain weight of silver. As the money then was adjusted by the scale of the weights, the amount of the weights may be found from the money : and the knowledge of the exact weight of any one coin in the table of the money, provided only it be coined of the full weight, will enable us to calcu- late the amount of all the weights in the scale, and consequently, the value of all the corresponding deno- 14 ATTIC WEIGHTS. CH. I. minations of money. Many modes a of calculating the absolute value of the ancient Greek weights have been suggested, and some tried, but none with results so successful as those drawn from the weights of the coins. The subject therefore, will divide itself naturally into two heads ; first, the examination of the coins re- garded merely as weights, in order to deduce from them the amount of the Greek weights in terms of our own ; and, secondly, the examination of them as money, with respect to the fineness of the metal, and their proportion to our own money, in order to ascertain the value in our currency. 2. The Greek system of weights seems to have been at first simple and well devised : it contained only four distinct denominations, the talent, mina, drachma, and obol, compounded together with multiples of six and ten, a combination which admits of easy division. Wherever these four denominations were in use, they bore the same proportion to each other b : the talent contained sixty minae ; the mina a hundred drachmae ; and the drachma six obols : so that if a change was made in the value of any one, it was necessarily ex- tended through all. There were different standards used, not only in different countries, but also for different substances in the same country. But little however is known about this last variety ; as there are no means of determining the absolute value of such weights : it is only where the proportion of them to the money is given, that we can discover any thing certain about them : the ac- a They are enumerated by Agricola, De Restituend. Ponderib. et Mensur. p. 234 ; Savot, iii. 1 ; Eisenschmidt, i. 2 ; &c. b Pollux ix. 6. Suidas Takavrov. Heron. Scaliger de Re Numm. &c. SECT. 3. ATTIC WEIGHTS. 15 tual amount therefore depends on the money in all cases. 