to its own laws, as the name imports. After the subjugation by Rome, the few favoured cities which were allowed still to coin money, used the term autonomous upon their coins, to express their possession of this privilege, but it is never found on early coins.

2nd. REGAL coins are such as were issued by sovereigns, and which passed current throughout the state in common with the special coinage of each particular city.

3rd. GENERAL coins, which are such as were coined by the general government of a state to circulate throughout its full extent, and which bear the name of the state only, and not that of any city; such coins were issued even in monarchic states, and bear only the national name, and not that of the sovereign. Those of Epirus of this class are very fine.

THE WEIGHTS, DENOMINATIONS, &C., OF GREEK GOLD COINS. That gold was first coined into money in Lydia, or among the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, previous to the existence of a silver coinage in European Greece, appears the most probable conjecture, after the comparison of a variety of somewhat conflicting authorities; and the period of the first use of coined money occurred, as previously stated, not long after the time of Homer, probably near the commencement or middle of the eighth century B. C.

The weight of the earliest gold coins known has formed a kind of model standard, or trunk, from which all subsequent coinages have branched out. The original unit was the stater—the term implying a standard, doubtless a wellknown and generally accepted weight, by which gold had previously passed in barter, and by weight, before it was stamped as coin,-a process which Aristotle clearly states was adopted to save the trouble of continual weighing.

Homer, in referring to values of gold, speaks of the TaλAVTOV (talanton), a term originally derived from a generic term for weight, which meant a pair of scales, as well as a definite weight; but the term in Homer does not appear to correspond with the later talent as described by more recent authors. The stater was equal in weight to two drachmæ of silver, and of the value of twenty; and the following table

will enable the reader to understand the relative weight of the stater, the drachma, &c., according to the Athenian standard:

So that a talent contained 6000 drachmæ, and when a talent of gold is spoken of, the term refers to the weight, not the value. A talent of gold in weight would therefore be equivalent to 120,000 silver drachmæ, or twenty talents of silver. But the weight of the unit which formed the base of the scale, whether the drachma or the talent, varied in different states, and there was a small talent, which more especially referred to gold, sometimes termed the Sicilian talent.

The earliest coins of Lydia (see Plate I.), supposed by some to have been the celebrated Crasians, or coins of Croesus, weigh about 124 grains each; and some of the earliest coins of Ionia appear to have been of precisely the same standard, the double stater (No. 1, Plate I.,) weighing 248 grains.

The weight of the stater of Cyzicus was about 180+ grains, and passed for twenty-eight Attic drachmæ, though possibly only worth twenty drachmæ of the corresponding silver standard of Cyzicus, the gold stater being commonly considered as a didrachma, or double drachma, in weight, and twenty drachmæ in value. The modern intrinsic value of a stater of Cyzicus, at the present price of gold, would be (calculating the number of drachmæ it passed for) 11. 2s. 6d.

Two staters of Lampsacus, in the British Museum, are about 129 grains, a trifle more than the weight of the Daric.

The stater of Phocea weighed about 127 grains, and seems also to be of the standard of the Daric, but the more ancient pieces are heavier.

See derivation of drachma, and obolus, chap. ii.

None of the existing staters of Cyzicus come quite up to this weight, which is calculated with reference to that of the Daric.

The Attic standard, as established by Solon, according to which the celebrated gold coinage of Philip of Macedon was regulated, gave the weight of two drachms (of 66 grains each) to the gold stater; but as gold was issued so late, and in such small quantities by the Athenians, it cannot be considered as belonging to the coinage, and is only referred to here on account of the Athenian standard of monetary weight having eventually formed the basis of most of the gold coin issued after the Macedonian reigns of Philip and Alexander.

By the weight given above of the various gold staters, it will be seen that the original standard of the earliest gold coinages varied greatly in different states; the unit upon which it was based, the drachma, being heavier in one state than another. The Asiatic standards of monetary weight eventually became those upon which the later silver coinages of Greece were founded, and it is believed that the Babylonian standard was that upon which those of the Greeks were more immediately based, as it accords with that of Ægina, the earliest monetary standard of European Greece. The connexion may be traced in the following manner :

The heavy stater of Cyzicus was evidently based upon the Babylonian standard, and with the well-accredited gold coin of that state the Æginetans made their early silver coinage agree in weight. As a proof, if we take the average weight of the oldest gold Cyzicenes known, we shall find it to be about 180 grains, or rather more. Now the oldest didrachms of Ægina, supposed to be the oldest Greek coinage of silver, though estimated theoretically at more, generally average about 183 grains-a sufficient approximation to prove this coinage to have been founded upon the older gold standards of Asia, especially that of Cyzicus, which agrees with the Babylonian. When a lighter drachma was adopted at Athens by Solon, weighing only sixty-six grains and a fraction, twenty of them no longer corresponded with the older gold coinages of Asia, and twenty-eight Attic drachms were given for a stater of Cyzicus instead of twenty. But on the other hand, the reformed Athenian scale agreed exactly with a more recent Asiatic standard, that of the Persian Darics and probably the Crosian staters also.

The gold Darics are supposed on good grounds to have been a Persian issue or recoinage, at the time of the sub

jection of the Greek colonies of Asia to that power, as there is no evidence that the Persians possessed a coinage of their own, but only coined the Darics in imitation of the coins they found in circulation in the conquered provinces, and only for the use of those provinces themselves. But it is possible that a re-adjustment of the standard took place at the time of this extensive recoinage, and that the Daric when it replaced the Greek staters in the conquered provinces, was not only an equalisation of the various standards which differed in every petty state, but that the standard was also at that time reduced in weight. This subjection of the Greek provinces is generally fixed at about 565 B. C., and the laws of Solon respecting the Athenian coinage are generally considered to have been promulgated in the year 583-a year in which he is known to have been Archon-and possibly for that reason has the issue of the laws regarding the coinage been attributed to that year. But as Solon lived till 529 B. C., the final establishment of his regulations may have taken place at a later period, and I conceive therefore that the new standard may have been made to agree with a grand and general reformation and equalisation, recently effected by the genius of Cyrus, who had in 565 B. C., more than thirty years before the death of Solon, added the Greek territories in Asia to his extensive empire. I come to this conclusion, because the Persian coins of the time, the earliest known, weigh exactly two Attic drachms, and were worth twenty. It is true that these Persian coins bear the name of a successor of Cyrus, and not his own, being the well known Darics; but this circumstance does not militate with great force against the argument, as the term Daric is merely a popular and not an official one, and not likely to have been conferred until the coinage so denominated was very generally received and accredited, which was not likely to have been the case, while it was, in a manner, a novelty, more particularly as I conclude that the coins had been reduced in weight from former staters. The convenience, however, of a general equalisation of the weight of the gold coin, which before differed in each petty state, and also its great abundance, could not fail eventually to bring it into high credit; but this probably did not take place thoroughly till after the short

reign of his son Cambyses, when the popular appellation of the coin would naturally be derived from that of the then reigning monarch, Darius Hydaspes. These views are founded in some way on mere conjecture, but combined with so many positive facts that they seem likely to be very near to the truth.*

The Greek gold of which I have been speaking refers mainly to the gold of the Asiatic colonies of Greece, as it would appear, from a comparison of the best evidence on the subject, that there was no gold coinage in the states of European Greece, till a much later period, and even then of no extent, the few gold coins of Athens, Boeotia, &c., being of extreme rarity. This is further proved by the monetary terms in use in Greece, ȧpyvpos (argyros), silver, forming the base of nearly all terms relating to money, while xpuros (chrysos), gold, enters into very few. The Athenians, to the last period of the national coinage, called a money changer, a silver changer, (apyvpaμoßòs) and in the time of Sophocles it is evident that gold was considered very rare, as he makes Creon say in the "Antigone," "Go and buy if you will, the electrum of Sardis and the Indian gold," while in exchanging silver for gold, for convenience of carriage or export, such exchange was called xpvowveîv-to buy gold.

OF THE FOREIGN GOLD COINS CIRCULATING IN GREECE.

The Darics, and indeed the various gold coinages of Grecianised Asia, passed current in Greece, but as foreign coin, at a very early period, and when a more abundant gold issue and one nearer home became common money in Greece,

* In Lydia the old stater appears to have been below the weight of the Daric, such as No. 2, Plate 1, weighing about 124 grs. In parts of Ionia also, the same standard appears to have prevailed: the coin of Miletus, No. 1, Plate 1, a double stater weighing about 248 grs., while the early staters of Cyzicus, Phocea, and Lampsacus, exceeded this weight in various degrees; so that if my conjecture be true, the Daric was a fair average of the different standards prevailing at the time.

The coins of Lydia were frequently of electrum, a mixture of gold and silver, of a light straw colour, an amalgam supposed to be found existing in that state,