An ancient scholiast on the passage understands by βοῦς a piece of money, stamped on one side with the figure of an ox, and on the other with that of a king.[1480] But one of the scholia published by Villoison, observes on the word ἑκατόμβοια, “worth a hundred oxen, for they did not as yet make use of money.” Another scholion,[1481] however, remarks, οἱ γὰρ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐν τοῖς ἐαυτῶν νομίσμασι βοῦν ἐνετύπουν. Pollux[1482] relates the same fact, observing that, in remote antiquity, the Athenians made use of a piece of money called βοῦς, because it had impressed upon it the figure of an ox, and that, by many, Homer was supposed to have alluded to this Attic coin in the verse above cited, “indocte,” however, as Heyne[1483] observes. Mention of a fine called δεκάβοιον occurred, according to Pollux, in the laws of Dracon; and in the procession (θεωρία) to Delos, the herald used to proclaim when a certain prize was given, that so many oxen were bestowed on such a one. The value of the coin was two didrachmæ, so that the Bous was simply a _didrachma_.[1484] The ox was stamped by the Athenians on their coins as the symbol of peace and abundance.[1485] Footnote 1480: Ap. Feith, Antiq. Hom. ii. 10. 3. Footnote 1481: Tom. i. p. 188. ed. Bekk. Footnote 1482: Onomast. ix. 60. Footnote 1483: Ad Il. t. iv. p. 238. He remarks, that Arist. Ethic. v. 11, quotes this verse on showing that no man can be injured voluntarily—ἀδικεῖσθαι ἑκούσιον. That it became a proverb may be inferred from Cicero, ad Ath. vi. 1. Footnote 1484: Διδραχμον· τὸ δ`ε παλαιὸν τοῦτο ἦν Αθ᾿ηναῖοις νόμισμα καὶ ἐκαλεῖτο βοῦς, ὅτι βοῦν εἶχεν ἐντετυπωμένον Pollux. ix. 60. Footnote 1485: Spanheim, de Præstantia et Usu Numismatum Antiquorum, p. 129, 267. ----- Plutarch[1486] assigns, by conjecture, two reasons; first, that Theseus, whom he regards as its inventor, may have meant by the figure of the ox to recall the memory of Minos’s general Tauros; or, second, because he wished to turn the mind of the citizens to agriculture. ----- Footnote 1486: Thes. § 25. Cf. Goguet, t. iv. p. 228. -----