Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/339

 of Melitaea, perhaps even the owl ([Greek: chalkis]) on coins ascribed to Chalcis in Euboea. These considerations will serve to show that we may expect many things on coins besides religious symbols. Thasos was famous for its wine, and accordingly the wine-cup is a regular adjunct of its coins, either standing alone, or held in the hands of old Silenus, who quaffs therefrom a "draught of vintage that hath been cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth." All who have read Horace remember the fame of the wines of Chios, and accordingly the wine-jar is a regular adjunct of the mintage of that island. Now there is proof that the trade in wine was of extreme antiquity, if not in the islands just mentioned, at least in Lemnos, and that that trade was carried on by barter, for we read in Homer how "many ships stood in from Lemnos bringing wine, which Euneos the son of Jason had sent forward, whom Hypsipyle had borne to Jason shepherd of the folk, but separately for the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the son of Jason gave wine to be fetched, a thousand measures. From thence used the flowing-haired Achaeans to buy their wine, some with copper, some with glittering iron, some with hides, others with the kine themselves, others again with slaves ." From what we have seen in an earlier chapter it is clear that a measure of wine would have a known value in relation to the various articles here enumerated. Thus in North America where the beaver skin was the unit, a gallon of brandy = 6 skins, a brass kettle = 1 skin, an ounce of vermilion = 1 skin and so on. In other words, the ordinary currency with which the Lemnians would purchase wares from other people who had no wine of their own would be wine, the unit of which was the measure (which elsewhere I have tried to show was the cup [Greek: depas], Smith's Dict. Antiq. s.v. Mensura). This measure would be the size of the vessel ordinarily employed for wine, probably much the same as the two-handled vase out of which Silenus is seen drinking on coins of Thasos.

With the introduction of silver currency nothing is more likely than that an effort would be made to equate the new