II. COINED MONEY.-I. Coined Money.—There are two generally received opinions relating to who were the inventors of coining money. One, that Pheidon. king of Argos, coined both gold and silver money at irEgina at the same time when he introduced a system of weights and measures (Ephor. ap. Strati. viii. p. 376 ; Pollux, ix. 83 ; fElian, Var. Hist. xii. 1o; Mann. Par.) The date of Pheidon, according to the Parian marble, is B.C. 895, but Grote places him between 77c and 730, whilst Clinton, Bockh, and Miller, place him between 783 and 744 (Grote, Hist of Greece, vol. iv., p. 419, note). The other, that the Lydians were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin' (Herod. i. 94). This latter assertion was also made, according to Pollux (ix. 6, 83), by Xenophanes of Colophon, and is repeated by Eustathius (ap. Dionys. Perieg. v. 840), The early coins of JEgina and Lydia have a device on one side only, the reverse being an incuse square (quadratum incusum). On the obverse of the ,Eginetan coins is a tortoise, and on those of the Lydian the head of a lion. The reverse, however, of the /Eginetan coins soon shows the incuse square divided into four parts by raised lines, the fourth quarter being again divided by a diagonal bar, thus forming four compartments. Apart, how ever, from the history relative to these respective coinages, which decidedly is in favour of a Lydian origin (Rawlinson, Herod., vol. i., App., p. 683 ; Grotefend, Nam. Citron., vol. i., p. 235) against the opinion of the late Col. Leake (Num. Hell., App.), the Lydian coins seem to be ruder than those of jEgina, and it is probable that whilst the idea of impress may be assigned to Lydia, the per fecting the silver and adding a reverse type, thereby completing the art of coinage, may be given to tEgina (W. B. Dickinson, Num. Chron., N. S., vol. ii., p. 128). It may be remarked that Hero dotus does not speak of the coins of Lydia when a kingdom, which coins have for their type the heads of a lion and bull facing, and which in all proba bility belong to Crcesus, but of the electrum staters of Asia Minor. The earliest coined money current
in Palestine is supposed to be the Dark (see later).
2. The Principal Monetary Systems of Anti quity.—This subject has already been ably treated by Mr. R. S. Poole (art. NUMISMATICS, Encyclo padia Britannica), and in the present article it will be sufficient for our purpose to briefly mention the different talents.
i. The Attic talent was that employed in most Greek cities before the time of Alexander who adopted it, and from that time it became almost universal in Greek coinage. Its drachm weighed about 67.5 grains Troy, and its tetradrachm 270 grains. In practice it rarely reached this standard in coins after the Punic war; at Alexander's time its tetradrachm weighed about 264 grains.
ii. The ./Eginetan talent, which was used at as early a period as the Attic, was employed in Greece and in the islands. Its drachm has an average maximum weight of about 96 grains, and its di drachm about 192 grains. When abolished under Alexander, this weight had fallen to about 1So for the didrachm.
iii. The Alexandrian, or Ptolemaic talent, which may also be called the Earlier Phamician, and also Macedonian, as it was used in the earlier coinage of the ,cities of Macedon, and by the Macedonian kings before Alexander the Great, was restored during the sway of the Ptolemies into the talent of Egypt. In the former case its drachm weighs about 112 grains, and its so-called tetradrachm about 224, but they fall gradually to much lower weights. In the latter case the drachm weighs about so grains, and the tetradrachm about 220.
iv. The later Phwnician, or Carthaginian talent, was in use among the Persians and Phoenicians. It was also employed in Africa by the Carthaginians. Its drachm (or hemidrachm) weighs, according to Mr. Burgon (Thomas, Sale Cat., p. 57), about 59 grains, and its tetradrachm (or didrachm) about 236.