Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/362

 of copper of a definite length and thickness. If we can believe the statement of Ephorus given by Strabo that Phidon of Argos established a weight as well as a measure system for the Peloponnesians (although Herodotus is silent as regards weights), it is not at all improbable that, taking this story in conjunction with the dedication of the old bar money by Phidon in the temple of Hera, we have here a genuine tradition of the superseding of the bars of metal, the value of which simply depended on their dimensions, by a system based essentially on weight. It is plain that, as copper was weighed both at Aegina and Athens by the Aeginetic silver standard, copper most probably was never estimated by weight until after the forming of the separate silver standard in the way already described.

We have previously noticed the fact that the two principal terms applied to silver coins, drachm and obol, give clear indications that they have been borrowed from an ancient system of copper (just as we shall presently find that the denarius, the special term employed for their silver currency by the Romans, owes its origin to the ancient copper as). If further proof were required, it is afforded by the name employed for the subdivisions of the obol. The latter at Athens was divided into 8 chalci or coppers ([Greek: chalkoi]). The smallest silver coin at Athens was the half-obol, but in some places names, Trichalcum, Tetrachalcum, etc. were given to copper coins. Now, as the Aeginetan obol weighed about 16-1/2 grs. and the Attic 11-1/4, the former is one-third greater than the latter. But we shall see shortly that as the Attic obol has 8 chalci, the Aeginetan must have had 12, from which it follows that the ancient copper obol or bar used in Aegina, throughout Peloponnesus, and at Athens, and probably throughout Boeotia, was everywhere the same. The Sicilian System.

In dealing with the Sicilian and Italian systems we must reverse the order of treatment of the metals, and as it is in the copper that we shall find the closest link between the Greek and those other systems, we shall therefore commence with that metal.