30
THE NATUKE AND CAUSES OF
must, for the same reasons, have been obliged to buy doubleor triple the quantity, the value, to wit, of two or three oxen,or of two or three sheep. If, on the contrary, instead ofsheep or oxen, he had metals to give in exchange for it, hecould easily proportion the quantity of the metal to the pre-cise quantity of the commodity which he had immediate oc-casion for.
Different metals have been made use of by different na-tions for this purpose. Iron was the common instrumentof commerce among the ancient Spartans; copper among theancient Romans; and gold and silver among all rich andcommercial nations.
Those metals seem originally to have been made use offor this purpose in rude bars without any stamp or coinage.Thus we are told by Pliny, * upon the authority of Timaeus,an ancient historian, that, till the time of Servius Tullius , theRomans had no coined money, but made use of unstampedbars of copper to purchase whatever they had occasion for.These rude bars, therefore, performed at this time the func-tion of money.
The use of metals in this rude state was attended with twovery considerable inconveniences; first, with the trouble ofweighing; and, secondly, with that of assaying them. Inthe precious metals, where a small difference in the quantitymakes a great difference in the value, even the business ofweighing, with proper exactness, requires at least very accu-rate weights and scales. The weighing of gold in particularis an operation of some nicety. In the coarser metals, in-deed, where a small error would be of little consequence, lessaccuracy would, no doubt, be necessary. Yet we should findit excessively troublesome, if every time a poor man had oc-casion to buy or sell a farthing’s worth of goods, he wasobliged to weigh the farthing. The operation of assaying isstill more difficult, still more tedious, and, unless a part ofthe metal is fairly melted in the crucible, with proper dissol-vents, any conclusion that can be drawn from it, is extremelyuncertain. Before the institution of coined money, however,unless they went through this tedious and difficult operation,people must always have been liable to the grossest fraudsand impositions, and instead of a pound weight of pure silver,or pure copper, might receive in exchange for their goods anadulterated composition of the coarsest and cheapest mate-
* Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 33. cap. 3.