Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/360

 silver on a standard a few grains lighter than the gold unit in use (the Persian Daric), and the electrum stater of 217 grs. Space forbids our going through all the cities of the Ionian coast in detail, but the principle which we have laid down and illustrated from the currency systems of several leading states is sufficient to indicate the method by which we would explain the fluctuations in the silver standards employed at different times in various states. The Daric is the universal gold unit of all this region; by its side is the electrum stater usually of 217 grs. and most probably the equivalent in value of the pure gold coin of 130 grs.: along with them we find singular fluctuations in the silver currency; towns that are close neighbours employing different systems contemporaneously.

There is, however, one state which cannot be passed over without more particular reference. At an earlier page I spoke of the gold mines of Thasos, which had attracted the attention of the Phoenicians at a very early time. But, in addition to the mineral wealth of their own island, the Thasians drew a huge annual revenue from their mines on the mainland. Although the first influence in the island was Phoenician, and the Thasians themselves were Ionians from Paros, instead of finding the Phoenician standard employed for its silver coins, we see them striking their archaic coins on the so-called Babylonian system. Under the supremacy of Athens this standard fell so much that it eventually coincided with the Attic (138 grs.) or even was lower. The Thasians, after revolting from Athens in 411, struck gold coins for the first time; these were on the Euboic or ox-unit standard (consisting of half-staters and thirds). But about the same period they began to coin silver on the so-called Phoenician of 220 grs. It is indeed strange that in the early age, when the Phoenician tradition was still strong, they did not employ the 220 grs. standard, but only resorted to it after employing for a long period the Babylonian and Attic standards. It is evident that in Thasos, as elsewhere, there had existed the same gold unit for untold generations, else at the very time when they revolted from Athens and adopted a new standard for their silver, they would not have struck gold on what is