Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/152

 *crepancy. Thus Mommsen's view that silver was to copper as 288 : 1 gives us a most interesting result.

Let us now turn to Mr Soutzo's view on the same subject. He maintains that at no time was the relation between silver and copper greater than 120 : 1, basing his argument on the assumption (which we shall find to be against the statements of the ancient writers) that when the first silver denarius or 10-as piece was coined in 268, as the as at that time weighed only two unciae, or one-sixth of a pound, silver was to copper as 120 : 1. He also argues from the fact that in Egypt, under the Ptolemies, the same relations existed between silver and bronze. He likewise maintains that the relation between gold and silver in Italy and Sicily at this period was as 16 : 1, from which it follows that gold was to copper as 1920 : 1. This of course gives us as the value of a cow about 390 grains of gold, that is about three gold staters, or ox-units. We would certainly be able to prove that at no time or place in the ancient world was a cow of so great a value in gold.

I shall refrain from any discussion of the merits of either view for the present. I will only add one observation: Mr Soutzo (p. 17) regards the Italian weight standards as borrowed from the East, and starts with bronze as the earliest stage in the history of the weights. The only clearly defined unit of Roman growth according to him is the Centupondium, which he says is the same as the Assyrian talent. From this the Romans obtained their own libra or pound by dividing their talents into 100 parts instead of 60. We shall find hereafter that this is an untenable position, but meantime it is interesting to find the Centupondium, or sum of 100 asses taken by an unprejudiced writer as the basis of the Roman system in the light of the fact that the ancient Roman value of the cow is likewise 100 asses. If Mr Soutzo was right, our thesis finds complete support, as it would plainly appear in that case that, although the Italians received their weight-unit ready made, they found it nevertheless necessary to equate the new metallic unit so obtained to the cow, the older unit of barter.

In Sicily we have an opportunity not merely of finding the approximate value of a cow in gold without having to deal