Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/78

 *tact long before they ever reached the Allia or sacked Rome? The Italian dialects were still employing the form of the word with s. Why should the Gauls have taken the form of the word with which they must have come least in contact in their invasion of Italy in preference to that used amongst the other Italians? Finally comes the irresistible evidence of Polybius that when the Gauls invaded Italy their only possessions consisted of their cattle and an abundance of gold ornaments, both of which could be easily transported from place to place.

Again, we can argue forcibly that it is contrary to all experience for primitive peoples to suddenly exhibit so strong a predilection for metals, or objects of which they have not had previous knowledge, as the Gauls showed in their rapacious demands that the ransom of Rome should be in gold. The legend that Brennus threw his sword into the scales, and ordered them to make up its weight in addition to the stipulated sum, shows, if it is true, that the Gauls were well acquainted with the art of weighing, which would be only gained from a long knowledge of the precious metals. The solution of the difficulty involved in the Keltic or can be readily found. The Iberians in Spain had long been skilled in the working and use of the precious metals. Tradition told how Colaeus of Samos, the first of the Greeks who ever sailed to Spain, brought back a fabulous amount of precious metal, and that the Phoenicians when they first traded in that region found silver so plentiful that in their greed for gain, when the ship could hold no more, they replaced their anchors by others made of that metal. The Phocaeans had traded with Iberia and Gaul from the end of the 7th century, Massalia had been founded by this bold people about 600 Are we to suppose that in all those centuries when the Kelts are in constant contact with the Iberians, and when already all Keltike, Helvetia, Northern Italy and even perhaps 'the remote Britanni,' were in constant touch with the traders of Massalia, the Kelts waited to learn the use of gold and silver until 400? The Basque name for gold is urrea. It is quite possible that the Keltic