Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/384

 the native side only employed for gold and silver) and of a system of measurement employed for bronze, certain features derived from the special silver units in use would be introduced into the new system, which afterwards became universal for weighing all commodities. The term Sicilicus employed for the quarter-ounce is good evidence for this hypothesis. Its name seems to mean simply Sicilian. In weight it was about 108 grs. Now, didrachms struck on such a foot are found in the Greek cities of south-western Italy, at Velia, Neapolis and at Tarentum, after the time of Pyrrhus. Did the Romans, who must have carried on by weight all dealings in silver up to 268, treat such coins as quarter-ounces, and ultimately take the name of the coin (wrongly connecting it with Sicily) to designate the quarter-ounce? In like fashion it was probably discovered that the Aeginetic obol of the Greek colonists was about equal in weight to the line (scriptulum) which is one-twenty-fourth of the inch (uncia) of copper. Thus as there are 24 nomi in the Sicilian talent, so there are 24 scriptula in the Roman uncia. These considerations help to explain the relations which existed between the nomos (Aeginetic obol), sestertius, and scruple.

Mr Soutzo gives a very different account of the nomos. Starting with the Egyptian hypothesis he makes all the Italian weight systems of foreign origin. He thus makes the Roman libra the 1/100 of a Roman talent, which he seems to identify with a light Asiatic talent. Starting with the talent he supposes that on Italian soil it was divided into 100 librae instead of 60 heavy or 120 light minae, as in the East. Each of these librae or pounds was divided into 12 ounces, and each ounce into 24 fractions. He holds likewise that the Italians adopted from the East the use of bronze "comme matière première de leurs échanges," at the same time as they obtained the first germs of civilization and their first weight