Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/364

 full original weight, as far as the weight of the copper coins is concerned. On the other hand, any calculation based on the relative values of copper and silver has been up to the present unsatisfactory, owing to the great uncertainty which still prevails, Mommsen making the relation in the earlier period stand as 288 : 1, whilst Mr Soutzo thinks it never can have been higher than 120:1.

The latter view I have already proved to be untenable when we apply the test of the value of cattle, and it was made probable that in the 5th century silver was to copper as 300:1. From this it will be possible to show that the full weight of the copper litra was originally about 4900 grs.

Any effort to determine the original weight of the copper litra by a new method calls for a merciful consideration, even though it too may fail. Whilst the original weight of the litra is still a matter of doubt, we are fortunately completely acquainted with the method of its subdivisions. The litra was divided into 12 parts called Ungiae, Unciae or Onciae, a name which is no other than the Latin Uncia. This at once brings us face to face with the Roman copper system, where the as was the higher unit, and was divided into 12 unciae (ounces). But there are other striking coincidences of nomenclature. Thus 1/6 of the as was called sextans; one-sixth of the litra is called Hexâs, and the Triens and Quadrans are paralleled by the trias and tetras although there is a difference in the application of these terms. Then the five-twelfths of the as is Quincunx; the same fraction of the litra is Pentonkion. We have plainly therefore a common Italo-Sicilian copper system, the terms of which were adopted and Graecised by the settlers in Italy and Sicily.

Now we have already adverted to the fact that the earliest Sicilian towns which coined money, Naxos, Zancle and Himera, although Chalcidian colonies, yet employed the Aeginetic standard, whereas we might naturally expect them to follow the Euboic. This would give the maximum of 16-1/2 grs. for the silver obol. Now according to Pollux, Aristotle in his lost treatise on the constitution of Agrigentum says that the litra is