Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/241

 also issued a coinage of tin, according to Aristotle, which he perhaps forced his subjects to take as equivalent to silver coins of like size. In later years again when Timoleon liberated Syracuse and the democracy was once more restored, the state issued a coinage of electrum instead of that of pure gold, which had previously been in currency, by this means making a profit of 20 per cent. It is hardly necessary to point out that whilst this coinage of Dionysius might pass for an artificial value within the dominions of Syracuse, the moment a Syracusan came to make payment to a foreign merchant, its factitious value vanished and the transaction took place according to the current value of the metals. So as long as the English penny remained of good weight and quality it found ready currency on the continent, and the potentates of Flanders issued numerous imitations of them known as esterlings, but when the English silver penny became debased all foreign imitations ceased. Now the Greek states of Greece Proper were very small in extent, and seldom had a very strong central authority. The area being limited it was absolutely necessary for them to have constant dealings with their neighbours. It would have been difficult for any government in republican times to have forced on its citizens a debased silver currency, and even had this been possible, any benefit derived therefrom would have been counterbalanced by the great drawback arising to trade. If Athens had reduced her famous "Owls" or as they were otherwise called "Maidens" (from the head of Pallas Athena), by five grains, her credit would have suffered and her merchants have gained nothing by it, as the balance would have been at once resorted to, and allowance would have had to be made on each coin of the new debased standard. We who live in modern times are too apt to forget the readiness with which men in older days had resort to the scales, although at this moment large transactions in gold between bankers and financiers are carried out by weight. Only so late as the beginning of this century, when the gold coinage of the country was in a wretched state, every farmer and