DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0019
9
15. It is, in a great degree, owing to the sanctity of the devices
that such numbers of very ancient coins have been preserved fresh
and entire: for it was owing to this that they were put into tombs,
with vases and other sacred symbols, and not, as Lucian has ludi-
crously supposed, that the dead might have the means of paying
for their passage over the Styx : the whole liction of Charon and \
his boat being of late date, and posterior to many tombs, in which
Goj'ns have been found.
16. The first species of money that was circulated by tale, and
not by weight, of which we have any account, consisted of spikes^
or small obelisks of brass or iron ; which were, as we shall show,
symbols of great sanctity and high antiquity. Six of them being .
as many as the hand could conveniently grasp, the words obulus
and drachma, signifying spike and handj'u], continued, after the in- \
ventioft of Coining, to be employed in expressing the respective |
value of two pieces of money, the one of which was worth six of
the other.' In Greece and Macedonia ; and, probably, wherever
the Macedonians extended their conquests, the numerary division
seems to have regulated the scale of coinage; but, in Sicily and
Italy, the mode of reckoning by weight, or according to the lesser
talent and its subdivisions,1 universally prevailed. Which mode was
in use among the Asiatic colonies, prior to their subjection to the
Athenians or Macedonians, or which is the most ancient, we have
not been able to discover. Probably, however, it was that by weight, \
the only one which appears to have been known to the Homeric
Greeks ; the other may have been introduced by the Dorians.
17. By opening the tombs, which the ancients held sacred, and
ferent characters and features, 'respectively given to the different heads of
Hercules, seem meant to express those of the respective princes. For the
frequency of this practice in private families among the Romans, see Statii
Sylv. 1. V. i. 231—4.
1 To /tejroi tojv ofie\ti>v ovo^cl, ol fj.ev 6ti 7ra\ut ftov-jropois o@£\ols txPUVT0 ^P05 Tas
apoifiaSy av to vtto tt] opaKL tt\t}Bos eSo/cei nahei<r8ai Spaxjj.7]. ra 5e ovofLara, tcai tow
vofj.io'fia.ros KarairecrovTos, eis tt}v vvv xpeiai* we/j.eivtv etc rrjs xpems rrls *a\ataj. Poll,
lib. ix. c. vi. s. 77. see also Eustath. rail. p. 136. Ed. Korri.
f See Bentley on the Epistles of Phalaris, &c.
15. It is, in a great degree, owing to the sanctity of the devices
that such numbers of very ancient coins have been preserved fresh
and entire: for it was owing to this that they were put into tombs,
with vases and other sacred symbols, and not, as Lucian has ludi-
crously supposed, that the dead might have the means of paying
for their passage over the Styx : the whole liction of Charon and \
his boat being of late date, and posterior to many tombs, in which
Goj'ns have been found.
16. The first species of money that was circulated by tale, and
not by weight, of which we have any account, consisted of spikes^
or small obelisks of brass or iron ; which were, as we shall show,
symbols of great sanctity and high antiquity. Six of them being .
as many as the hand could conveniently grasp, the words obulus
and drachma, signifying spike and handj'u], continued, after the in- \
ventioft of Coining, to be employed in expressing the respective |
value of two pieces of money, the one of which was worth six of
the other.' In Greece and Macedonia ; and, probably, wherever
the Macedonians extended their conquests, the numerary division
seems to have regulated the scale of coinage; but, in Sicily and
Italy, the mode of reckoning by weight, or according to the lesser
talent and its subdivisions,1 universally prevailed. Which mode was
in use among the Asiatic colonies, prior to their subjection to the
Athenians or Macedonians, or which is the most ancient, we have
not been able to discover. Probably, however, it was that by weight, \
the only one which appears to have been known to the Homeric
Greeks ; the other may have been introduced by the Dorians.
17. By opening the tombs, which the ancients held sacred, and
ferent characters and features, 'respectively given to the different heads of
Hercules, seem meant to express those of the respective princes. For the
frequency of this practice in private families among the Romans, see Statii
Sylv. 1. V. i. 231—4.
1 To /tejroi tojv ofie\ti>v ovo^cl, ol fj.ev 6ti 7ra\ut ftov-jropois o@£\ols txPUVT0 ^P05 Tas
apoifiaSy av to vtto tt] opaKL tt\t}Bos eSo/cei nahei<r8ai Spaxjj.7]. ra 5e ovofLara, tcai tow
vofj.io'fia.ros KarairecrovTos, eis tt}v vvv xpeiai* we/j.eivtv etc rrjs xpems rrls *a\ataj. Poll,
lib. ix. c. vi. s. 77. see also Eustath. rail. p. 136. Ed. Korri.
f See Bentley on the Epistles of Phalaris, &c.