CHAP. V.

PRECIOUS METALS.

145

usually performed by means of the balance,which alone serves to verify the bargain orcontract 1 2 .”

The earliest gold, the darics of Persia, havebeen already noticed (page 15.) The next tothem were of some of the reigns of the tyrantsin the island of Sicily ; of Gelo, 491 years be-fore Christ; ofHiero478, and of Dionysius 404years before that era. Some of them circulatedin Rome before any had been coined in thatcity; specimens of those of Gelo and Hiero arestill preserved in modern cabinets ; but none ofDionysius that are free from suspicion ®.

There was no gold coin in Greece till Philipof Macedon had put the mines of Thrace in fulloperation, about 3G0 years before Christ. Theyare said by Diodorus to have yielded gold to thevalue of a thousand talents yearly, which wascoined into pieces called Philippi, and becamethe common name for coins of the same size 3 .

The most ancient silver coins of Greece arethose with an indented mark on one side, andthe figure of a tortoise on the other. The ear-liest of all have no letters on them ; but thoseof a later period have Ain, which Pinkertonthinks means AEgina , but which other medalists

1 Pliny , book xxxiii. cap. 3.

2 Della Rarita delle Medaglie Anticlie, da VincenzioNatale Scotti, Firenze, 1809.

5 Pinkerton, vol. i p. 105.

VOL. I.

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