Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/366

 half-penny. The Greek coinage has preserved for us but faint traces of the various steps in the degradation of the copper obol, but, as we have already seen, we find the Sicilian copper litra in various stages of its decadence from 990 grs. down to 200 grs. Again, whilst no trace has as yet been found of obols at all in the archaic shape of rods, or anything approaching it, we find in Sicily at Agrigentum litrae which are in form distinct survivals of an earlier stage when the litra, like the obol, was a rod or bar of copper. These are very strange looking lumps of bronze made in the shape of a tooth with a flat base, having on one side an eagle or eagle's head and on the other a crab, while on the base are marks of value (tetras, trias, hexas). The uncia is almond-shaped with an eagle's head on one side, and a crab's claw on the other. As we found the Chinese knife shrinking up into a shorter and thicker mass until at last it only survives in the round cash, so in all probability we here find the Sicilian litra in its mid course from its original full size and shape to that of the ordinary round copper coin of a later age. That the shape of the original copper unit of the Italians was that of a rod or bar we shall now proceed to demonstrate in the case of the Roman as. ''The Italian System. Bronze.''

As the cow formed the highest unit in the monetary system of ancient Italy, so the lowest unit employed was a certain amount of copper called an as. We have already found the cow serving the same purpose in Sicily (as late as the time of Dionysius forming the rateable unit at Syracuse). The systems of Further Asia, where the buffalo stands at the head of the scale and the hoe or a piece of raw metal of a certain size stands at the bottom, form a perfect analogy in modern times. As far as its value and divisional system go, we have identified the Sicilian litra with the ancient Hellenic