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134
ANNUAL REGISTER\
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(Greek script)), or the thick drachm".
This talent was used at Corinth, as appears by a passage in A. Gellius, where the Corinthian talent is valued at 10000 Attic drachma +: and as Corinth was a place of great trade, it was probably used in most of the cities of the Peloponnesus.
If the Attic drachm weighed 66 1/2 Fdoy vrains, the Eginean should weigh 110 5/6; which, to avoid fractions, and because our Attic drachm is rather undersized than otherwise, I shall call 111.
There are Macedonian coins, struck before Philip coined gold, that answer to this standard. One of Philip, in the Pembrooke collection, weighs 224 grains. Mr. Duane hath a silver coin, of either the first or second Alexander, which weighs 447 1/2 grains; three of Philip, of 221 each; another of Philip, of 223 1/4; and a fifth, 223 3/4. The mean drachm from these six coins is 111 1/4 grains, which comes as near to the Eginean drachm, as can be expected from so small a number of silver coins. Therefore, the Eginean talent must have been the standard of the Macedonian money, till Philip changed it.
The Euboic talent certainly came from Asia; for, Herodotus tells us, the kinds of Persia weighed their gold by that talent +. In the same place he informs us, that the Babylonian talent weighed 70 Euboic minas. Pollux says, it weighed 70 Attic minas +. There-
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fore the Euboic talent should be equal to the Attic. But AElian tells us, it weighed 72 Attic minas ||; and if so, the Euboic talent should be heavier than the Attic, in the proportion of 72 to 70.
An article in the treaty between the Romans and Etolians, recorded by Polybius [[paragraph symbol]], whereby the latter were to pay a certain number of Euboic talents, in silver of Attic sineness, seems to favour this inequality of the two talents: for, had they been equal, there would have been no occasion to specify the quality of the silver by the standard of one country, and its weight by that of another.
But, if the Euboic talent was the standard used in the commerce between Greece and Asia (as it seems to have been) both countries were concerned to keep it up to its just weight; which was a sufficient reason for the preference given to it by the Romans, whether the Attic talent was equal to it or not.
And there is a circumstance very strongly in favour of their equality, which is, that if Philip changed the money-standard of his own country, with a view to the invasion of Asia, (as is highly probable), he certainly adopted the standard of the daric, which was the Euboic talent, by which the kings of Persia weighed their gold. But his money answers to the Attic talent, as I have shewn above.
For the YEAR 1772. 135
Of the Value of the ancient Greek and Roman money.
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It does not appear that either the ancient Greeks or Romans allayed their money, but coined the metals as pure as the refiners of those times could make them: for though Pliny mentions two instances of the contrary at Rome *, the example was not followed, till the later emperors debased the coin: and his expression, miscentur aera falsa: monetae shews he thought the practice illegal.
Though the ancients had not the art of refining silver, in so great perfection as is now practiced, yet, as they mixed no base metal with it, and esteemed what they coined to be fine silver, I shall value it as such.
Sixty-two English shillings are coined out of 11 ounces 2 p. wt. Troy of fine silver, and 18 p. wt. allay. Therefore, the Troy grain of fine silver is worth 62/111ths of a farthing. Hence the Attic drachm of 66 1/2 grains will be found worth little more than nine-pence farthing; the obole, a little more than three-halfpence; and the chalcus, about 7/9ths of a farthing.
But, for the reduction of large sums to English money, the following numbers are more exact:
L (pounds) s. (shillings) d. (?)
The Attic drachm - 0. 0. 9,286
The mina - 3. 17. 4,600
The talent - 232. 3. 0
Hence the mina expressed in pounds sterling and decimals of a pound will be L3,869; the talent L232,15.
The Romans reckoned by Asses
*Pliny Nat. Hist. L. XXXIII.c.3. & c. 9.
+ See Gronovius, De pecunia vetere, L. I. c. 4.
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before they coined silver, after which they kept their accounts in Sesterces. The word Sestertius is an adjective, and signifies two and a half of any substantive to which it refers. In money matters its substantive is either As, or pondus ; and sestertius As, is two Asses and a half; sestertium pondus, two pondera and a half, or 250 denarii +.
When the denarius passed for ten asses, the sesterce of 2 1/2 asses was a quarter of it; and the Romans continued to keep their accounts in these sesterces long after the denarius passed for 16 asses; till growing rich, they found it more convenient to reckon by quarters of the denarius, which they called nummi, and used the words nummus and sestertius, indifferently as synonymous terms, and sometimes both together, as sestertius nummus; in which case, the word sestertius, having lost its original signification, was used as a substantive; for sestertius nummus was not two nummi and a half, but a single nummus of four asses.
They called any sum under 2000 sesterces so many sestertii, in the masculine gender; 2000 sesterces they called duo or bina sestertia, in the neuter; so many quarters making 500 denarii, which was twice the sestertium; and the said dena, vicena, &c. sestertia, till the sum amounted to a thousand sestertia, which was a million of sesterces. But to avoid ambiguity, they did not use the neuter sestertium in the singular number, when the whole sum amounted to no
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