Chapter X (3)

The same system was probably employed for _silver and copper_, but instead of counting 100 light shekels to the Maneh as in the case of gold, they reckoned silver and copper by the double shekel, probably called the king’s shekel in contradistinction to that of the Sanctuary.

IV. After the Return. The light shekel still retained for _gold_, and the Babylonian, or Phoenician silver standard, employed for _silver_.

V. Maccabean Period. _Gold_ on the old standard, and _silver_ (now first coined) struck on the Phoenician silver standard of 220 grains.

_Copper_ was estimated most probably on the old double shekel system; and most likely the royal Assyrian heavy system of 60 shekels to the maneh and 60 manehs to the talent was adopted in its entirety for copper and other articles of no great value in proportion to their bulk[342].

PHOENICIAN STANDARD.

The total loss of the literature and records of the Phoenicians, and the fact that neither in their own country nor in the greatest of their colonies, Carthage, did they employ coined money until a comparatively late period, make the task of restoring their weight system very difficult if not hopeless. The _silver_ standard called Phoenician or Graeco-Asiatic is the sole evidence to show that they employed as their unit for gold the heavy Babylonian shekel of 260 grs. On the other hand we have just seen that their close neighbours, the Hebrews, from first to last, and the ancient people of the Nile with whom the Phoenicians were in the closest trade relations (having large trading communities settled in the Delta, and from whom they had borrowed the hieroglyphic syllabic symbols, which with them became the Alphabet), had employed the light shekel, the only _gold_ unit that likewise from first to last prevailed throughout the vast regions of Central Asia Minor, and as we have seen, was the unit of Greece even in the early days when the great cities of Mycenae and Tiryns were in direct contact with, and deriving their arts and civilization from Asia or from Egypt.

The derivation of the Phoenician _silver_ standard of about 225 grs. (14·58 gram.) according to the hitherto received doctrine is as follows. As the Babylonians formed their silver standard by making into _ten_ pieces the amount of silver equivalent to the “light gold shekel,” so the Phoenicians and Syrians are supposed to have divided the amount of silver equivalent to “the heavy shekel” into _fifteen_ pieces, gold being to silver in each case as 13·3:1. But we ask why did the Phoenicians adopt so awkward a scale as the quindecimal when it was possible for them to employ the decimal or duodecimal? In the next place by the supposed system 7½ silver shekels were equal to one light shekel, that is the gold unit which was universally employed amongst all the peoples with whom they traded: and what number could be more awkward for purposes of exchange than 7½? If therefore we can show that it is probable that at one period silver was exceedingly abundant in Phoenicia compared with gold, and that consequently gold was worth considerably more than 13 times its weight in silver, the sole support for the heavy shekel being the Phoenician unit is removed, and the theory of the _fifteen stater_ system falls to the ground. It is well known that the Phoenicians had much of the trade of Cilicia and the other coast regions of Asia Minor in their hands. It was Cilicia that produced the chief supplies of silver for Western Asia[343]. From this land therefore the Phoenicians obtained vast quantities of silver, and it was from them almost certainly the Egyptians, who had no native silver, obtained a supply of that metal. But this was not all. About 1000 B.C. the Phoenicians, in their quest after new and unexhausted regions, made their way westward and reached Spain. I have already related the ancient stories which embody the account of the marvellous amount of silver which the first bold explorers brought back. We need not wonder then if in the days of king Solomon, “silver was nothing accounted of” in Syria and Palestine. We also saw that the relative value of gold and silver was just as liable to fluctuate in ancient, as in modern times, according to the supply of either metal, and when we come to deal with the Greek system we shall find many instances of this. If we then suppose that gold was to silver as 17:1 in Phoenicia, the gold shekel of 130 grs. would be worth ten silver pieces of 220 grs. each. (130 × 17 = 2210; 2210 ÷ 10 = 221). This is in reality far closer to the actual weight of the coins than the result obtained by the old hypothesis: 260 × 13·3 = 3466 ÷ 15 = 231 grs. Troy, which is about 10 grs. higher than the actual coin weights.

The approximation gained by our conjectural relation of 17:1, is far closer than that obtained by that of 13·3:1. The conclusion is probable that silver was far cheaper in Phoenicia and the contiguous coasts than elsewhere in Asia Minor, and that it was natural that the weight of the silver unit was increased in order to preserve the relation in value between one gold unit, and ten silver units. Lastly we may point out that at no place on the coast of Phoenicia or Asia Minor, the region especially in contact with the Phoenicians, do we find _gold_ pieces struck on the heavy shekel. _Electrum_ certainly was coined on this foot; but of this we shall be able to give a satisfactory explanation. We have (with the exception of some Lydian pieces) to go as far north as Thasos or Thrace before we find a gold coin of such a nature, which is of course nothing more than a double stater.

The Phoenician gold mina was probably like the Hebrew, which was most likely borrowed from it, the fifty-fold of the heavy shekel, 100 gold shekels and 100 silver shekels constituting a maneh, as amongst the Hebrews in the time of Solomon. But we can conjecture with some probability that at an earlier stage they weighed their gold and silver according to the old common ox-unit, which we found in use among the Hebrews under the name of the Holy Shekel or shekel of the Sanctuary. No doubt the mina for gold always contained 100 light or 50 heavy shekels, and when their own peculiar shekel of 220 grs. came into vogue for silver, 50 such shekels made a mina. Finally, there can be little doubt that 60 minas invariably went to the talent.

In the case of commercial weights, it is most probable that 60 heavy shekels made a mina: this is rendered almost perfectly certain by the Lion weights with Phoenician as well as cuneiform inscriptions found at Nineveh, 60 heavy minas forming a heavy talent.

THE PHOENICIAN COLONIES.

It is worth while before going further to enquire whether we can gain any light from the systems of weight employed by the famous daughter-cities of Phoenicia, such as Gades and Carthage. A weight bearing in Punic characters the name of the Agoranomos and the numeral 100 has been found at Jol (Julia Caesarea) in North Africa, but unfortunately it has suffered so much by corrosion from water and the loss of its handle that it is impossible to make any tolerable approximation to its original weight. Hultsch[344] conjectures with some probability that, making allowance for its loss, it represents 100 _drachms_, and deduces from this that the Carthaginians treated the drachm as their _shekel_, but for this latter hypothesis there seems no sufficient evidence. If this supposition were true, the weight would represent a half-mina of the Phoenician _silver_ standard. But there is one thing which this weight does prove, and that is that, whether it be a mina or half-mina, it is the drachm or shekel, which was evidently regarded as the unit of the system, not the mina. Thus once more we get a confirmation of our general thesis that the mina and talent are the multiples, and that it is the shekel or stater which is the basis. Nor does the coinage of Carthage furnish us with all the information that could be desired, for it was only after 410 B.C. that that great “mart of merchants” began to strike coins, and even then it was only in her Sicilian possessions that she did so, no doubt induced to adopt the practice by constant contact with her Greek enemies: for not only the type (of Persephone) was borrowed from Syracusan coins, but the very dies were engraved by the hands of Greek artists. The gold coins are struck on a standard of about 120 grs. Troy, whilst the silver issue consists of tetradrachms of the so-called Attic (or more simply light shekel or ox-unit) standard of 130-135 grs. Since during the same period (405-347 B.C.) Syracuse[345] was issuing gold pieces on the Attic standard, it is most probable that it is only through the want of heavier specimens that we are compelled to set the Siculo-Punic coins issued at Panormus (Palermo) and other places in Italy so low as 120 grs. It was not until about the time of Timoleon (340 B.C.) that money was coined at Carthage itself. This coinage consists wholly of gold, electrum and bronze, down to the time of the acquisition of the rich silver mines of Spain, and the foundation of New Carthage in that country by Hasdrubal, the son-in-law of Hamilkar Barca and brother-in-law of Hannibal, in the interval between the First and Second Punic wars (241-218 B.C.), when large silver coins both Carthaginian and Hispano-Carthaginian seem to have been first struck[346].

The gold and electrum coins of the first period are of the following weights: _gold_ 145 and 73 grs.; _electrum_ 118, 58 and 27 grains. The gold unit is thus some 10 grains higher than the normal value of the ox-unit. If these coins belonged to an earlier period we might with some confidence affirm that the variation was due to the plentiful supply of gold derived by the Carthaginians from the still unexhausted gold deposits of Western Africa. This is perhaps the true explanation even at the late period when the coins were issued, but there may have been a desire to adjust the three metals, gold, electrum and silver, so that they might be conveniently exchanged. It will be observed that the electrum coins are struck on a unit of 118 grs., and it is not at all improbable that silver was reckoned by the same unit, even though not yet coined; for when the silver coins appear they are struck on a standard of 118 or 236 grs. It will be at once noticed that this standard is considerably higher than the Phoenician silver standard found along the coasts of Asia Minor. It may thus have been found convenient to raise by a few grains the weight of the gold unit so as to harmonize the relations between the three metals. Further speculation is vain, as we do not know the proportion of gold contained in the electrum coins[347]. From what we shall shortly learn about the electrum of Cyzicus, it is not impossible that the gold piece of 73 grs. was worth an electrum stater of 118 grs.

Coming to the Phoenicians of Spain we find that Gades, which did not begin her coinage until about 250 B.C., employed a standard for her silver of 78 grains, and that the island of Ebusus (_Iviza_) struck didrachms of 154 grs., a half-drachm of 39 grs. and a quarter-drachm. This coincides closely with the 78 grain drachm of Gades. It is palpable that there is no connection between this standard and the Phoenician standard of 220 grs. As the same system is found in the cities of Emporiae and Rhoda (_Ampurias_ and _Rosas_) in the north-east of Spain, and in the earliest drachms of Massilia (_Marseilles_)[348], it is far more reasonable to suppose that the relations between gold and silver throughout Spain were such that, in order to make a certain fixed number of silver pieces equivalent to the gold ox-unit, it was found necessary to make the silver didrachm of about 156 grs. and the drachm of 78 grs.

It would thus seem that the principle which we shall seek to establish for the Greek silver standards held true of the Phoenician likewise,—that whilst the gold unit, the basis of all weight, remains unchanged or was but very slightly modified even at a late period (when the idea of the original ox-unit must have become dimmed by time), in order to effect a more complete harmonizing of a threefold system of gold, electrum and silver, the silver units shew every kind of variety, which can only be accounted for by supposing that owing to the different relations between gold and silver in various regions and at various periods in the same regions, it was found necessary from time to time to increase or diminish the weight of the silver unit. Thus if gold was to silver as 12:1 in the 3rd century B.C., we find a ready explanation for the standard of Gades and Emporiae. The gold unit of 130 grs. would be worth ten silver units of 156 grs. each (130 × 12 = 1560 ÷ 10 = 156). So too the 118 gr. standard of Carthage may be explained by supposing that gold was to silver as 11:1; for then 1 gold unit of 130 grs. = 12 silver of 118 grs. each (130 × 11 = 1430 ÷ 12 = 119 grs.), duodecimal division perhaps being preferred to the decimal owing to the relations between electrum and silver, the former perhaps being as in Lydia[349] counted at 10 times the value of the latter. If gold was to silver as 12:1, and electrum to silver as 8:1, electrum being thus nearly two-thirds gold, one gold piece of 75 grs. = 1 piece of electrum of 118 grains, and 8 pieces of silver of 116 grs. each (75 × 12 = 900; 116 × 8 = 928), and 1 piece of electrum of 118 was worth 8 pieces of silver of 116 grs. each. All this is, be it remembered, purely conjectural, as we know nothing of the actual relations existing between any pair of the metals.

However, when we come to deal with the electrum of Cyzicus we shall be able to produce some data, which will at least show that our suggested explanation of the relations existing between gold, electrum and silver at Carthage is not purely chimerical.

Lastly comes the question of the commercial weight-system. We have already spoken of the badly preserved weight from Jol, but we could not say whether it was used for the precious metals, or more ordinary merchandize. However, the great Phoenician inscription of Marseilles, already referred to, makes it plain that even in the weighing of meat they reckoned by the shekel and not by the mina; for we find in it mention of 300 [shekels] and 150 [shekels] of flesh from the victims. This completely accords with the 20 shekels of food mentioned by Ezekiel (iv. 10), and clearly indicates that even in what we may well believe to be the heavy commercial shekel, the ancient decimal system had not been superseded by the sexagesimal; and, further, that the mina had not succeeded in supplanting the more ancient fashion of counting by shekels; for had such been the case, the weight of the meat would have been expressed in 6 manehs, or 3 manehs. This piece of evidence confirms the results which we arrived at in the case of the Hebrews—that it was only at a later period that reckoning by manehs came into use. The Phoenician colonies of the West, including Carthage herself, had probably been planted before the influences of the Chaldaean system had obtained a solid footing in Palestine. We may however not unreasonably believe that the Carthaginians employed some such form of talent as we find in the Book of Exodus, 3000 shekels (50 × 60 = 3000) going to the talent, though as yet no record has revealed to us the actual existence of either _talent_ or _mina_.