Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/221

 *fore natural to find in Lydia, the land of gold, the first attempts at coined money.

"So far as we have knowledge," says Herodotus, "the Lydians were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin."

This statement is fully borne out by the evidence of Xenophanes , and also by the coins themselves, although some writers, e.g. Th. Mommsen, have held that it was in the great cities of Ionia, Phocaea and Miletus that money was first coined. "From the little we know of the character of this people (the Lydians) we gather that their commercial instinct must have been greatly developed by their geographical position and surroundings, both conducive to frequent intercourse with the peoples of Asia Minor, Orientals as well as Greeks."

About the time when the mighty Assyrian empire was falling into decay, Lydia, under a new dynasty called the Mermnadae, was entering upon a new phase of national life.

"The policy of these new rulers of the country was to extend the power of Lydia towards the West, and to obtain possession of towns on the coast. With this object Gyges (who, according to the story told by Plato, was a shepherd who owed his good fortune to the finding of a magic ring in an ancient tomb, and who was the founder of the dynasty of the Mermnadae, circ. 700) established a firm footing on the Hellespont, and endeavoured to extend his dominions along the whole Ionian coast. This brought the Lydians into direct contact with the Asiatic Greeks.

"These Ionian Greeks had been from very early times in constant intercourse, not always friendly, with the Phoenicians, with whom they had long before come to an understanding about numbers, weights, measures, the alphabet, and such like matters, and from whom, there is reason to think, they had received the 60th part of the heavy Assyrio-Babylonian mina as their unit of weight or stater. The Lydians on the other hand had received, probably from Carchemish, the 60th of the light mina.