Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/246

 on or equated to the older unit of barter. Through the sacerdotal tradition of Delos we were enabled to fix the value of the Homeric Talanton at 2 gold Attic drachms, or a Daric (135-130 grains Troy). Next came the standards used in historical Greece. (1) The Euboic (135 grains Troy) used for silver in the great Euboic towns, in Corinth, in Athens from the time of Solon, and as a matter of course in the Chalcidian and Corinthian colonies, and employed as the sole unit for gold in all parts of Greece Proper at all periods; (2) the Aeginetic (200-195 grains) employed in Peloponnesus, in Boeotia and Central Greece. We learned that the Euboic standard coincided with the Homeric Talanton, thus finding the Greeks of historical times using the same standard universally for gold which they had employed long before the introduction of the art of coining from Asia, and partly using this same standard for silver, whilst in other states they employed a standard for the latter metal, which was based on the gold unit, simply dividing the amount of silver equivalent to it into ten parts instead of fifteen.

We then put the question, "Is it rational to suppose that the Greeks borrowed in the 7th century along with the art of coining from Asia a standard which they themselves already long since possessed?"

At the time when I first put this view forward, I was unable to offer any concrete proof of the existence of such a standard on Greek soil before the introduction of coined money, although the literary evidence was of the strongest kind. Since then I have been enabled to obtain some data of considerable importance. I have already (Chap. ) described the rings and spirals of gold and silver found at Mycenae, and shewn that they were not improbably made on a standard of 135 grs. We have thus found some definite evidence of the existence of a gold and possibly a silver standard, corresponding to the standard used for both metals in after ages under the name of the Euboic or Attic. It may of course be argued that though found on Greek soil, they are not really Greek in origin. For instance there may be certain indications of Egyptian art and influence in these pre-historic remains, such as the frieze discovered in the Palace at Tiryns of alabaster inlaid with