CHAP. VI.

PRICES IN GREECE.

157

propitious or unpropitious seasons, by the in-terruption of intercourse by war, by such deso-lating famines as the ancients were more subjectto than the moderns, and by a variety of otherinnumerable but minor causes. There are alsoother difficulties in estimating the rise or fall ofthe precious metals in remote ages, arising fromthe uncertainty and variation in the weight andpurity of the metallic money which circulated,and in fixing the exact measures of length or ofcapacity, and of the weights which were usedin dispensing the several kinds of property.

In the earliest stages of society the chief trademust have been in the necessaries of life; andas soon as agriculture had been practised, cornwould appear to be the best standard by whichto measure the value of gold and silver ; butthis would be far from a sure criterion. Insome ages and countries the soil, climate, orfashion of living made one kind of food cheapand another dear, whilst in other times andcountries exactly the reverse is to be seen : thusin Athens, in the time of Solon, a sheep wasworth but a bushel and a half of corn ; and a fewcenturies ago a given weight of corn was equalin value to the same weight of meat in England;and at a later period, in the Highlands of Scot-land , according to 'Hume, a pound of oatmealWas worth a pound of beef.

* In the relative value of one kind of corn to