Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/227

 wherever coined in Greece, was always on the Euboic standard, and there is likewise every reason to believe that gold bullion in the days before gold was coined was computed according to the same standard. Such at least was undoubtedly the case at Athens, as we learn from Thucydides, where he describes the resources of Athens both in coined and uncoined metal, and in the gold plates which overlaid the famous chryselephantine statue of Pallas Athene, the masterpiece of Pheidias, and the glory of the Acropolis; and such also, as we shall see, was the case, in the days of Solon.

All ancient accounts are agreed in the statement that Aegina was the first place in Hellas Proper which saw the minting of money. That island was famous from old time as the meeting-place of merchants, and as such under its ancient name of Oenone was glorified by Pindar. Its position rendered it a most convenient emporium, where the merchantmen of Tyre met in traffic the traders from both Peloponnesus and northern Greece. Tradition makes its population a very mixed one: "It was called Oenone," says Strabo, "in ancient times, and it was settled by Argives, Kretans, Epidaurians, and Dorians ." According to a fragment of Ephorus, to be referred to presently, it was owing to the barren nature of the soil that the natives turned to trade.

All Greek tradition is unanimous in representing Pheidon of Argos as the first to coin money in Hellas Proper, and to have done so at Aegina. Much obscurity enshrouds the history and the date of Pheidon, owing to the conflicting accounts of the historians. For our immediate purpose it would be quite sufficient to state simply that he cannot have lived later than 600, but in consequence of some prevailing doctrines with regard to the history of Greek weights being based on inferences (probably quite unwarrantable) which have been drawn from the statements given about this despot, we must take a more elaborate survey of the sources..]