Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/340

 324 HISTORY OF GREECE aggregate of spontaneous uniformities, in language, religion, sym- pathies, recreations, and general habits. We see both how Phei- don came to contract the wish, and how he acquired the power, to introduce throughout so much of the Grecian world an uni- form scale ; we also see that the Asiatic Dorians form the link between him and Phoenicia, from whence the scale was derived, just as the Euboic scale came, in all probability, through the Ionic cities in Asia, from Lydia. It is asserted by Ephorus, and admitted even by the ablest modern critics, that Pheidon first coined money " in ^Egina : " 1 other authors (erroneously believ- ing that his scale was the Euboic scale) alleged that his coinage had been carried on " in a place of Argos called Euboea." a Now both these statements appear highly improbable, and both are traceable to the same mistake, of supposing that the title, by which the scale had come to be commonly known, must neces- sarily be derived from the place in which the coinage had been struck. There is every reason to conclude, that what Pheidon did was done in Argos, and nowhere else : his coinage and scale were the earliest known in Greece, and seem to have been known by his own name, " the Pheidonian measures," under which de- signation they were described by. Aristotle, in his account of the constitution of Argos. 3 They probably did not come to bear the specific epithet of ^gincean until there was another scale in vogue, the JZuboic, from which to distinguish them ; and both the epithets were probably derived, not from the place where the scale first originated, but from the people whose commercial activity tended to make them most generally known, in the one case, the JEginetans ; in the other case, the inhabitants of Chalkis and Eretria. I think, therefore, that we are to look upon the Pheidonian measures as emanating from Argos, and as having 1 Ephorus ap. Strabo, viii. p. 376 ; Boeckh, Mctrologie, Abschn. 7, 1 : see also the Marmor Parium, Epoch 30. s Etymologicon Magn. Evj3oinbv vofiiffpa. 3 Pollux, Onomastic. x. 1 79. Etj; 6' uv Kal Qeiduv TI uyydov Mairipbv, aird rd-i i6uvi(jv fjtxrpuv uvofiaapevov, iiirlp uv iv 'Apyetwv Kokntla 'Aptarore- Atyf ?.eyei, Also Ephorus ap. Strab. viii. p. 358. /cat pirpa. it-evpe TU Qetduveta vaP.ov* utva /cat aTadfj.oi)f, aal vo^ia^a Ke^apu^evov, etc.