Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/482

 442 APPENDIX. Pages 268-9. These two disks of terra-cotta may have been moulds for stamping cakes ; the material is not hard enough for the stamping of trinkets. Page 439. The ancients were not strangers to the idea of conventional money ; at Carthage they seem to have had a leather coinage. The most important text on the matter is the passage in the Socratean ^Eschines, (p. 78, ed. Fischer,) which may be thus translated : "We must, said Socrates, consider the value of silver They, the Carthaginians, made use of money like this ; in a small piece of leather they wrapped something the size of a stater, but what that something was none but the makers knew, a seal was stamped upon the leather which thereupon circulated like a metal coin. He who had most of such things was looked upon as having most silver and being the richest, but with us, however many a man might have, he would be no richer than if he had so many pebbles." The text is not very clear ; we can see that the Greek author did not very well under- stand the matter himself. Something of the kind must have existed at Carthage, but it is very likely that the idea of making use of such a means of exchange only occurred to its people after the Greeks had taught the Phoenicians how great the convenience of money might be.