Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/239

 rests upon the weight of some very early electrum coins (about 44 grs.) which have been found in the island of Samos, and of the earliest Euboean coins, Euboea and Samos having been two of the greatest colonizing and maritime powers of the Aegean Sea. Thus I think we may account for the fact that the towns of Euboea, when they began to strike silver money of their own, naturally made use of the standard which had become from of old habitual in the island, precisely in the same way as Pheidon in Peloponnesus struck his first silver money on the reduced Phoenician standard which was prevalent at the time in his dominions." But as a matter of fact the recognized Samian coins are of the Phoenician standard (220 grs.) in its slightly reduced state as found at Miletus (Head, op. cit. 515). This being so it would indeed be strange if the Euboeans from occasionally coming in contact with Lydian coins at Samos would have adopted that standard in preference to that in use in the great cities of Ionia with which their commerce directly lay.

(2) Why did the Euboeans take the Lydian gold standard of 130 grs. for their own electrum and silver instead of the Lydian silver standard of 172·9 grs.? According to Mr Head's view, as we have seen above, the early Lydian electrum was struck on the standard of 172 grs. (the so-called Babylonian silver) when meant for circulation in the interior of Asia Minor, but on the Phoenician standard for circulation in trade with the Greeks of the coast of Ionia.

(3) We may ask the question, why did the Euboeans if they were taking over a ready-made standard which had no relation to any standard which they themselves already possessed, adopt the gold standard of 130 grs. instead of the electrum and silver standard which was in use among all the Greek cities with which they traded?

We can now conveniently revert to the theory that the Aeginetan silver standard was a reduced Phoenician. Much has been written about degradation of coin weights and ''reduced standards''. It may be therefore well to clear our notions on the subject by asking ourselves what do we mean by such terms. Both the terms and the process are equally familiar to those at all acquainted with the history of mediaeval coinage.