Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/24

 from a time long before money was yet coined, or even the precious metals were in any form whatever employed for currency; it possibly explains why the ox was such a favourite type on coins, without having to call to our aid recondite mythological allusions; and it clears up once for all some interesting points in Homer. In the passage of the Iliad ( 750 sq.) already referred to the ox is second prize, whilst an half-talent of gold is the third. The relation between them is now plain; the ox = 1 talent, and the half-talent = a half-ox.

The vexed question of the Trial Scene can now be put beyond doubt. In the Journal of Philology (Vol. p. 30) the present writer argued that the two talents represented a sum too small to form the blood-price ([Greek: poinê]) of a murdered man, and consequently must represent the sacramentum (or payment made to the Court for its time and trouble, as in the Roman Legis actio sacramenti described by Gaius, Bk. 16), as proposed by that most distinguished scholar and jurist, the late Sir H. S. Maine. We know that the two talents are equal to two oxen, but in the Iliad, 705, the second prize for the wrestlers was a slave woman "whom they valued at four oxen ." Now if an ordinary female slave was worth four oxen (= four talents) it is impossible that two talents (= two oxen) could have formed the bloodgelt or eric of a freeman. Probably four oxen was not far from the price of an ordinary female slave. Of course women of superior personal charms would fetch more, for instance, Euryclea,

"Whom once on a time Laertes had bought with his possessions, When she was still in youthful prime, and he gave the price of twenty kine ."

The poet evidently refers to this as an exceptional piece of extravagance on the part of Laertes. We can likewise now.

See Appendix A for a linguistic proof that the two talents were for the Judge.] ]