Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/277

 obtain a total amount for the talent of silver of 519,000 grs. Unfortunately several inaccuracies have crept into the text of Herodotus, numerals always being especially liable to corruption in MSS. He seems, however, to have regarded the relation of the Euboic to the Babylonian talent as about that of 5 : 6, and also to have estimated the current weight of the Persian silver piece at about 162 grs. Troy. But there can be little doubt that the full standard weight of the Babylonian silver shekel was 169 grs. (or, according to Mr Head, 172·9 grs.).

From this it is easy to construct the Babylonian silver system, which was employed in Lydia and in the Persian empire.

1 shekel = 169 grs. 50 shekels = 1 mina = 7450, 60 minae = 1 talent 447000.

From the double gold shekel was formed another silver standard known as the Phoenician.

Gold being to silver as 13 : 1,

1 double shekel of 260 grs. = 3380 grs. silver, 3380 grs. silver = 15 shekels of 225·3 grs.

As this silver standard is found in the same area as the double gold shekel, I have thought it best to follow the usual derivation, but at the same time it is worth pointing out that it may have been gained directly from the light shekel.

The light shekel (which in the form of coined money appears either as the gold of Croesus, or the Daric), in the case of the Babylonian system was made equal to ten silver didrachms, or 20 drachms known under the name of Sigli; it likewise is equal in value to 15 Phoenician didrachms of 112·6 grs. Thus, whilst in one region they obtained a silver unit, ten of which would be an equivalent to the gold unit, in another they formed a silver unit, 15 of which would be equivalent to the same gold unit of 130 grs. In each case a number convenient for purposes of exchange was substituted for the extremely unmanageable number 13 (or still more intractable 13·3) of the older system, according to which silver was made into ingots of the same size as those of gold.