MONEY
482
MONEY
ably be first introduced in their gross and unpurified state. A sheep, an ox, a certain quantity of corn, or any other article, would afterwards be bartered or ex- changed for pieces of gold or silver in bars or ingots, in the same way as they would formerly liavc been ex- changed for iron, copper, cloth, or anything else. The merchantis would soon begin to estimate their proper value, and, in effecting exchanges, would first agree upon the quality of the metal to be given, and then the quantity which its possessor had become bound to pay ■would be ascertained by weight. This, according to Aristotle and Pliny, was the manner in which the pre- cious metals were originally exchanged in Greece and Italy. The same practice is still observed in different countries. In many parts of China and Ab.yssinia the value of gold and silver is always ascertained by weight (Goguet, De VOrigine dfs Loix, etc.). Iron was the first money of the Lacedajmoniaus, and copper of the Romans. See Mktal.
In the many excavations which have been made in Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, no specimen of coined money has yet been discovered. Egyptian money was composed of rings of gold and silver; and in Assyria and Babylonia only clay tablets commemorating grants of money specified by icevjht have been found in consid- erable numbers; while in Phoenicia no pieces of an an- tiquity earlier than the Persian rule have yet come to light (Hawlinson, Herod, i, G8-t). Nor, indeed, is coined money found in the time of Homer, but traffic was pur- sued either by simple barter {Iliad, vii, 472 ; xxiii, 702 ; Odij.is. i, 430); or by means of masses of unwrought metal, like lumps of iron {Iliad, xxiii, 826; Odyss. i, 184) ; or by quantities of gold and silver, especially of gold {Iliad, ix, 122, 279; xix, 247; xxiii, 2G9; O'di/ss. iv, 129; viii, 393; ix, 202, etc.), which latter metal, called by Homer rdXavrov xpuaov, seems to be the only one measured by weight. Before the introduction of coined money into Greece by Pheidon, king of Argos, there was a currency of ojitXiaKoi, '-spits" or "skew- ers," six of which were considered a handful {cpaxf-nf)- Colonel Leake thinks that they were small pyramidal pieces ofsilrer {Xu7n. Chron. xvii, 203 ; Num. Ilellen. p. 1, appendix), but it seems more probable that they were nails of iron or copper, capable of being used as spits in the Homeric fashion. This is likely, from the fact that six of them made a handful, and that they were there- fore of a considerable size (Kawlinson, Herod App. i, 688). See ■Weights.
It is well known that ancient nations which were without a coinage weighed the precious metals, a prac- tice represented on the Egyptian monuments, on which gold and silver are shown to liave been kept in the form of rings (see cut under the art. Balancks). The gold rings found in the Celtic countries have been held to have had the same use. It has indeed been argued that this coidd not have been the case with the latter, since they show no monetary sj-stem ; yet it is evident from their weights that they all contain complete mul- tiples or i)arts of a unit, so that we may fairly suppose that the Celts, before they used coins, had, like the an- cient Egyptians, the practice of keeping money in rings, which tliey weighed when it was necessary to pay a fixed amount. We have no certain record of the use of ring-money or other uncoined money in antiquity excepting among the Egyptians. With them the prac- tice mounts up to a remote age, and was probably as constant, and jjcrhaps as regulated with respect to" the weiglit of the rings, as a coinage. It can scarcely be doubted that the highly civilized rivals of the Egyp- tians—the Assyrians and Babylonians— adopted, if they did not originate, this custom, clay tablets having been found specifying grants of money by weight (Kawlinson, Herod, i, (Wl); and there is therefore every probability that it obtained also in I'alestine, although seemingly unknown in (ireece in the time before coinage was tlicre I introduced. There is no trace in Egyjif, however, of i any different size in the rings represented, so that there I
is no reason for supposing that this further step was taken towards the invention of coinage.