MONEY.
Naqd, Tankah, . ARAB. I Moueta, Daharo, . IT.
Monnaie, . . . Bit. Zar-o-sim, . . . PERS.
Geld, GER. I Moneda, . . PORT., Sr.
Paise, . HIND. Para, Akcha, . . TURK.
The Greeks, the inventors of the use of money, were imbued with the only true theory as to its character of real merchandise, and in no one of the Greek writers of the autonomous period is there any trace of the theory which treats gold and silver coins merely as conventional signs of value, subject to the will of the sovereign or of the state. The Greek coinage was, as a rule, excel lent. Its metal was pure, its weight exact, and its real value corresponded to its nominal value, except in the case of the small change, which was every-. where more or less fiduciary. All the members of the community exercised a constant super vision over the operations of the mint.
The magistrates to whom was confided the duty of supervising the currency at Athens, were three in number, two being annual, the third changed about every mouth. The signatures of all three upon the Athenian tetradrachms warranted the excellence of the coin. In, some other cities the chief political magistrate signed the coins, as the Frytanis at Smyrna, the Archon at Taba in Caria, thkpriest of Actian Apollo at Leucas, etc. At RonneNin republican times the regular magistrates appointed to look after the coinage were called tresviri monetales. They were not finally abolished until the time of Aurelian, although from the commencement of the empire only the copper money remained under their administra tion. In ancient as in mediaeval times, e.g. Venice and Florence, republics were by the very principles of their constitution far better secured than monarchies against the adulteration of money. In the Hellenic world there is hardly any had money to be found which does not bear the stamp of a king or a tyrant. The Flaminian law, passed when Hannibal was at the gates of Rome, was the first which gave to money a conventional value which it could not command as merchandise. This temporary measure, adopted in a time of pressure to recruit an exhausted treasury, was the fatal precedent upon which was based the false theory that a legislative decision wks sufficient to fix the value of the metallic specie. This theory henceforth became one of the dogmas of the new aristocratic party, and against it the democrats protested in vain. Marius Gratidianus, in the eyes of this party, committed a heinous crime in assailing the right of the state to depreciate the currency, and on this account Sulla visited hint with cruel retribution.
The Caesarean despotism restored for a time the public credit by issuing good money ; but Augustus and his successors had absolute control over the gold and silver coinage, and before many years adulteration commenced, and went on growing until the systematic alterations in the coinage by imperial orders produced such con fusion as was scarcely equalled in the most disastrous years of the 14th century.
Ever since Alexander visited Western India, all dynasties have coined money as a royal right. But the current and convenient principal coin of the Malay and Philippine Archipelago has long been the hard Spanish dollar, the peso duro of the Spaniards ; and that with globes and pillars, containing 3709 grains of pure silver, and worth in sterling money about . pence, has a universal preference. The British rupee and Dutch guilder are but of local currency there, and always more or less at a discount. The dollar, the Malays usually call a real, which is no doubt an abbreviation of the Spanish real de a ocho, or a piece-of-eight. The common name with the Javanese is ring git, whiCh literally means scenic figure. A great variety of small coins of brass, copper, tin, and zinc are in circulation throughout all the islands. The most frequent of these is the Dutch doit, of which about 300' ought to go to a Spanish dollar. The intrinsic values of all such coins, however, have no relation to their assumed one, and being usually over-issued, they are generally at a heavy discount. The small coins of Palembang, Acheen, Bantam, and Queda are of tin. Those of the latter place go under the name of tra, which is, however, only the word stamp or impression. Of these 160 are filed on a filament of rattan, of which 8 strings or 1280 coins are considered equivalent to a hard dollar. In Bali and Lombok, the currency consists of Chinese zinc coins, with a hole in the middle for filing them on a string, each string having 200. and five of these are called a siah, that is one thousand, being the highest denomination of money in the reckoning of the inhabitants of these islands. Their value rises and falls in the market according to the supply, like any ordinary article of merchandise ; so that a Spanish dollar will sometimes buy 800 of them, but often as few as 500 only. All these small coins are generally known by the Javanese name of pichis, corrupted pitis by the Malays, a name which had extended to the Philippines. The only native country of the Archipelago in which a coin of the precious metals seems ever to have been coined, is Acheen. This is of gold, of the weight of nine grains, and of about the value of 14d. sterling ; to which European traders have given the name of a mace, a corruption of the Malay Mae, itself a corruption of the Sanskrit masha, the name of an Indian weight. All the coins of this description that have been seen are inscribed with Arabic cha racters, and bear the names of the sovereigns under whom they were struck, so that they are comparatively modern. The Javanese appear to have coined some of their own money, as we find from many examples old temples and other places.