Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/276

 *fore, be weighed on the same standard as gold. This would continue until, in the course of years, a time came when the relation between gold and silver had become fairly fixed over all Asia Minor. We know that in the beginning of the 5th cent. gold was to silver as 13:1 (or rather 13·3 : 1). Herodotus, in the celebrated passage in which he describes the organisation of the Persian empire into satrapies, and details the amount of tribute appointed by Darius for each, tells us that the gold was reckoned at thirteen times the value of silver. Now for ordinary purposes of exchange this relation would be extremely inconvenient, and the more accurate relation of 13·3 : to 1 would be still more so. It became thus desirable to fix some separate standard for silver by which a convenient number, such as 10, of silver ingots would be equal to the gold ingot of the ox-unit standard. Metrologists are wont to speak of the desirability of being able to exchange a round number of talents of silver for a talent of gold. But not even in the palmiest days of the wealthy Orient lands was the ordinary individual so rich that he felt any inconvenience in the way of exchanging talents of gold and silver. The Great King might deal out talents as he pleased, but his subjects were chiefly concerned with the exchange of silver and gold shekels. I have made this remark because it appears to me that many of the misconceptions connected with this whole subject have arisen from scholars concentrating all their attention on the talent, and taking it as their point of departure.

The Babylonians arrived at their silver standard as follows:

1 gold shekel of 130 grs. was worth 1730 grs. of silver (130 × 13·3), since gold was to silver as 13·3 : 1.

130 grs. gold = 1730 grs. silver.

They divided this amount of silver by 10, and thus:

1 gold shekel of 130 grs. = 10 silver shekels of 173 grs.

As we stated already, Herodotus says that the Babylonian talent was equal to 70 Euboic minas, that is, one-sixth more than the Euboic talent. The latter contained 390,000 grs. Troy, therefore the Babylonian ought to give 455,000 grs. If we multiply our silver shekel by 50 and then by 60, we shall