There was also a Euboic talent which coincided with the weight of the
Roman Quadrantal, nominally of 80 As weight = 57·7 lb., and in
transactions with the East the Romans appear to have called their
Quadrantal-weight of water a Euboic talent. But it will presently be
seen that this was the Attic monetary talent.
The volume of an Olympic talent of water was 8 times the Hebrew Bath or,
for dry goods, Epha.
COMPARISON OF OLYMPIC AND IMPERIAL MEASURES
OLYMPIC IMPERIAL
Foot = 12·16 in. 12 in.
Cubic foot = 1798 c. in. 1728 c. in.
Talent = 64·81 lb. 62·3 lb.
1/1000 of talent = 453·6 grs. 437·5 grs.
│ Orig. Wine gallon 7·83 lb.
1/8 = Bath = 8·1 lb. water │ Modern „ „ 8·33 „
│ Imperial „ „ 10 „
6. GREEK COIN-WEIGHTS
In ancient Greece as in medieval Europe, financial difficulties led
rulers to lower the weight of the coinage. But while in Europe, in
England for instance, more pennies were coined from the mint-pound of
silver, this remaining fixed, although nominally based on the weight of
the sterling, the weights of Greece were actually based on that of the
drachma.
When the drachma was diminished in weight, the miná and the talent both
dropped proportionately. Thus the standard of the Alexandrian talent,
carefully preserved in Egypt, dropped in Greece.
Miná Talent
Drachma of of
100 drachmæ 60 miná
Egypt 109-1/4 grs. 10,926 grs. 93·65 lb.
Ægina, early 105 „ 10,560 „ 90·5 „
„ before 700 103·7 „ 10,370 „ 88·9 „
„ after 700 95·68 „ 9,568 „ 81·76 „
Athens, 600 B.C. 93·08 „ 9,308 „ 79·78 „
So in Athens, where the Ægina standard was in use, the drachma stood at
93·08 grains when, in 594 B.C., Solon’s Seisachthia law ‘unburdened’ the
State and other debtors by decreeing that 73 (or more accurately 72-1/2)
drachmæ should now be equal to 100 drachmæ, and altering the coinage
accordingly.
This reduced the coin-weights of Athens to—
Drachma Didrachma Miná Talent
67·37 grs. 125·74 grs. 6737 grs. 57·75 lb.
But commercial weight remained the same. The miná emporikí, the trade
miná, was fixed at 138 of the new drachmæ, so that it continued to be
100 of the old drachmæ: 138 × 67·37 = 100 × 93·08 grains.
The commercial miná thus remained at the 600 B.C. standard of 9308
grains = 1·33 lb. and the talent at 79·78 lb.[9]
Footnote 9:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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