Darius also established throughout his vast empire a uniform coinage, based apparently on that which had previously prevailed in Lydia. His “darics,” as they were called by the Greeks, were, in the first instance, gold coins of a rude type, a little heavier than our sovereigns, weighing between 123 and 124 grains troy.[14271] They bore the figure of an archer on the obverse, and on the reverse a very rough and primitive _quadratum incusum_. Darius must have coined them in vast abundance, since early in the reign of his successor a single individual of no great eminence had accumulated as many as 3,993,000 of them.[14272] Subsequently to the introduction of the gold darics, a silver coinage was issued, originally (we are told) in Egypt by a Persian satrap called Aryandes,[14273] but afterwards by the central government. The name of “daric” was extended to these coins also, which, however, were much larger and heavier than the gold coins, weighing as much as 235 grains, and corresponding to the Greek tetradrachm, and (nearly) to the Hebrew shekel. The establishment of this excellent circulating medium, and the wide extension which it almost immediately attained, must have given an enormous stimulus to trade, and have been found of the greatest convenience by the Phoenician merchants, who had no longer to carry with them the precious metal in bars or ingots, and to weigh their gold and silver in the balance in connection with every purchase that they made, but could effect both sales and purchases in the simple and commodious manner still in use among all civilised nations at the present day.