GREEK COINS A coin may be defined as a piece of precious metal stamped with some mark or type or inscription showing that it is issued by some authority which guarantees its weight and purity. Coins as we know them are not older than the 8th century B.C. Traces of more primitive currencies which preceded them survived into historic times. Passing over the stage of barter, when a superfluity of one necessity of life was exchanged by its owner for another necessity of which he was in want but could not so easily supply, we find that certain things, notably oxen and instruments of hus bandry, early became standards of value and were used as mediums of exchange. Among the Romans for example we find fines exacted in cattle down to the end of the 5th century B.C. and the etymology of petunia from pecus shows that coined money took the place of cattle. With the passing of a pastoral civiliza tion and the transition to an agricultural community with its multiplicity of products a demand for some more convenient medium and for small change was felt. We have abundant evi dence of the use of agricultural implements and household utensils as currency in the ancient world. In China for example the earliest coins of the 8th century B.C. are models of the spades and bill hooks which preceded them, with the addition of a proper coin inscription showing they were issued by authority. In pre historic Europe we have in Gaul hoards of small bronze celts which seem to have been used for currency. The most certain sur vival of this coin in the Mediterranean world is the iron or bronze spit (obeliskos—whence the name obol for a small coin) ; hoards of these spits have actually been found in circumstances which show that they were currency; the most remarkable of these hoards of spits is that found in the Heraeum in Argos, dedicated by Pheidon himself—whether as specimens of demonetised cur rency or as standards set up in connection with Pheidon's reforms or simply dedicated specimens of the usual currency is disputed; similar bundles of spits in bronze and iron have been found in Etruria. In Homer we find basins, tripods and axes used as gifts and prizes in a way which shows that they were a recognised standard of wealth. With the invention of the scales these more or less clumsy currencies disappeared and we have the metal itself used ; a definite weight takes the place of a particular shape. In all countries from the loth to the 5th centuries B.C. we find
hoards of broken bronze or silver, sometimes shapeless, sometimes cast in the form of bricks or plates; later it is regularly in the form of bars which could be broken and weighed. We have finds of silver of this kind from Assyria of the 8th century B.C. and from Egypt and South Italy of a little later. The Egyptian finds frequently contain Greek silver coins chopped in a way which shows they were considered only as bullion. In Italy in particular rude chunks of copper (aes rude) were regular currency from early times to the 3rd century B.C. as we know from literary references and from finds. Caesar tells us that the ancient Britons used iron bars of a definite weight and specimens still survive; excavations have also confirmed the accuracy of Plutarch's reference to the iron money of the Spartans.
The large oblong Roman bronze pieces with a type on either side form a kind of transition from metal bars to coins although they are not earlier than some Roman coins—in any case it is a short step from the use of metal by weight to its use in pieces of definite weights with a stamp of some kind guaranteeing it is what it pro fesses to be, so that it can be paid without weighing; at this stage it becomes a coin ; it is in this form that coinage first meets us in Greece and India.