146
CONSUMPTION OF THE
CHAP. V.
have supposed means iEgium in Attica, andthat the tortoise is the sign for the Pelopon-nesus 1 .
Silver is said to have been first coined in Rome in the year of its building 485, or 266 years be-fore our era 2 , which seems to be confirmed byno coins having been found of an earlier date;though, according to Pomponius , a mint hadexisted there which twenty-three years beforehad been placed under the direction of thequestor. That establishment was most probablyonly used at its earliest erection for coining brassmoney. The first gold coin of Rome followedthat of silver, but not till after an interval ofsixty-two years. Thus silver coin in Rome hadexisted about two hundred years, and gold coinabout one hundred and fifty years, at the time ofthe accession of Augustus . We can hardly sup-pose that, at the commencement of the opera-tion of coining, with the imperfect engines theyhad invented to perform it, any very large pro-portion of the whole mass of the precious metalshad been converted into coin, or that the fric-tion which occurs by wear in passing from onehand to another could have occasioned such aconsumption as considerably to affect the wholeamount in existence. There would too be the