Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/137

 Finally, once in the prophet Ezekiel do we find food weighed, but evidently under special circumstances: "And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink" (iv. 10, 11). In any case we should expect to find traces of later usage in the writers of the age of the prophets, but from the directions regarding the amount of water, it is evident that we cannot take this passage as a proof of the ordinary practice of the time.

Unfortunately our oldest records of Roman life and habits go back but a short way before the Christian era, and hence we cannot get much direct information as regards the first objects which were sold by weight. We have already seen that in the time of Plautus (flor. 200 ) the habit prevailed of weighing wool out to the women slaves.

However, from the legal formula used in the solemn process of conveyance of real property (res mancipi) per aes et libram, we may perhaps infer that the scales were used for none but precious articles such as copper, silver and gold. That they were used for those metals there can be little doubt. On the other hand, as we find all kinds of corn sold at a later period by dry measure, such as the modius or bushel, we may with certainty conclude that such too had been the practice of the earlier period.

From the literary remains then of the Greeks, Hebrews and Latins, it is beyond all doubt that in the early stages of society nothing is weighed but the metals and wool (for the apportioning of tasks). In this the records of all three nations agree, whilst from Homer we learn that the Greeks were using gold by weight, when as yet neither silver, copper nor iron was sold or appraised by that process.

To proceed then to a people compared to whom the Greek and Hebrews in point of antiquity of civilization are but the upstarts of yesterday. The Egyptians seem to have used weight exclusively for the metals; the Kat and its tenfold the Uten seem always used in connection with metals, whilst corn is always connected with measures of capacity. The following