Josephus (Ant. iii. 8. 2.) says, that the Hebrew shekel was equal to the Attic tetradrachm; and Philo indirectly agrees with him: but he has reckoned it too high; for, according to the accurate experiments of Barthelemy, (Eckhel, Proleg. cap. ix.) the greatest weight of a shekel is 271¾ grains; the average of the Attic tetradrachms, 320 grains. Jerome has more accurately stated the value of the shekel at twenty oboli: as the Attic drachma contains six oboli, the shekel will be equal to 3⅓ drachmas. Eckhel, iii. 464. The Attic drachma and Roman denarius were worth about seven pence. Besides the rod of Aaron, the Hebrew shekels exhibit a palm or vine branch, a view of the temple, a citron and a bundle of boughs, and two trumpets. (Num. x. 2.) It may be observed, that the coins with inscriptions in what is now called the Hebrew, or Chaldee character, are recent forgeries. Page 316.—Of the discouragement of foreign commerce by Moses, (Jos. c. Ap. i. 12.) see Michaelis, Mos. Law, § 39. He has, at the same time, shown how much the Jewish festivals tended to encourage internal commerce, § 198. The caravan of Mecca is always accompanied by a large body of merchants. Hasselquist, p. 82. What is said in the text of the dislike of the Greeks to commerce, must be restricted to the heroic times, or to nations which, like Sparta, retained the manners and notions of those times. Ionia, Corinth, Athens, and other Grecian states, were active in commercial pursuits. END OF VOL. I. --------------------------------------------------------- London: Printed by A. Applegath, Stamford-street. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Footnotes ---------------------------------------------------------------- Transcriber’s Note There a number of minor errors in the ‘Notes and Illustrations’ at the end of the text. On p. 344, the phrase noted on p. 90 actually occurs on the following page. On p. 354, the endnote referencing p. 190 seems misplaced in the list, occurring between references to p. 196 and p. 198. The locale being described on p. 190 is not mentioned by name, but the description from Sandys (p. 117), which describes an area below Hebron, would seem to agree. There seems to be no reasonable referent on pp. 196-198. Likewise, on p. 359, the reference to p. 231 correct, but is misplaced. These notes remain in their printed positions. The brief Hebrew phrases cannot always be exactly confirmed by modern sources. They have been retained as printed, using those sources only to confirm those characters which seem ambiguous. The printer frequently misplaced the circumflex in words containing the εῖ diphthong, using it on the epsilon rather than the iota. The circumflex is used only on the second letter, and has been corrected here, with no further comment.