Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/187

 EUBOIC SCALE OF MONEY AND WEIGHT. 17] the Eretrians were worsted, though their city always maintained its dignity s the second state in the island. Chalkis was de- cidedly the first, and continued to be flourishing, populous, and commercial, long after it had lost its political importance, through out all the period of Grecian independent history. 1 3. Of the importance of Chalkis and Eretria, during tht fKsventh and part of the eighth century before the Christian era, we gather other evidences, partly in the numerous colonies founded by them, whicJ' I shall advert to in a subsequent chap- ter, partly in the prevalence throughout a large portion of Greece, of the Euboic sca 1 ^ of weight and money. What the quantities and proportions of ttiis scale were, has been first shown by M. Boeckh in his " Metro^ie." It was of Eastern origin, and the gold collected by Dareiusi in tribute throughout the vast Persian empire, was ordered to H> delivered in Euboic talents. Its divisions, the talent equal to 'ixty minse, the mina equal to one hundred drachms, the drachm eq-vil to six obols, Avere the same as those of the scale called ./Egir^an, introduced by Phei- don of Argos ; but the six obols of the Fjboic drachm contained a weight of silver equal only to five -ZEgin:n obols, so that the Euboic denominations, drachm, mina, nnd talent, were equal only to five-sixths of the same denominations in the ./Egi- nrean scale. It was the Euboic scale which pre^^iled at Athens before the debasement introduced by Solon ; whi~h debasement, amounting to about twenty-seven per cent., as h> been men- tioned in a previous chapter, created a third scab, called the A.ttic, distinct both from the -ZEgintean and Euboic, sending to the former in the ratio of 3 : 5, and to the latter, in the ~atio of 18 : 25. It seems plain that the Euboic scale was adopted by the lonians through their intercourse with the Lydians, 2 and cAer Asiatics, and that it became naturalized among their cities unc5,~ the name of the Euboic, because Chalkis and Eretria were th most actively commercial states in the -ZEgean, just as the su perior commerce of JEgina among the Dorian states, had given competition with and victory over Homer. (Sec the Certamen Horn, et He& p. 315, ed. Gottl.) 1 See the striking description of Chalkis given by DikteaHms in the Bioj 'E/Uu&>f (Fragment, p. 14G. cd. Fuhr). J Herodot. i. 94.