Talent? But that at Delos both were of equal value we can have little doubt. For the ox = 2 Attic drachms = 1 Daric = 1 Talent = (130 grains Troy). Who can doubt that at Delos was preserved an unbroken tradition from the earliest days of Hellenic settlements in the Aegean? Modern discovery comes likewise to our support, and we shall find that it is probable that the gold rings found by Dr Schliemann in the tombs at Mycenae were made on a standard of about 135 grs. This identification of the ox and the Homeric Talent is of importance: for it gives a simple and natural origin for the earliest Greek metallic unit of which we read. It likewise incidentally explains the proverb, βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ which dates from a time long before money was yet coined, or even the precious metals were in any form whatever employed for currency; it possibly explains why the ox was such a favourite type on coins, without having to call to our aid recondite mythological allusions; and it clears up once for all some interesting points in Homer. In the passage of the _Iliad_ (XXIII. 750 sq.) already referred to the ox is second prize, whilst an half-talent of gold is the third. The relation between them is now plain; the ox = 1 talent, and the half-talent = a half-ox. The vexed question of the Trial Scene[11] can now be put beyond doubt. In the _Journal of Philology_ (Vol. X. p. 30) the present writer argued that the two talents represented a sum too small to form the blood-price (ποινή) of a murdered man, and consequently must represent the _sacramentum_ (or payment made to the Court for its time and trouble, as in the Roman _Legis actio sacramenti_ described by Gaius, Bk. IV. 16), as proposed by that most distinguished scholar and jurist, the late Sir H. S. Maine[12]. We know that the two talents are equal to two oxen, but in the _Iliad_, XXIII. 705, the second prize for the wrestlers was a slave woman “whom they valued at four oxen[13].” Now if an ordinary female slave was worth four oxen (= four talents) it is impossible that two talents (= two oxen) could have formed the bloodgelt or _eric_ of a freeman. Probably four oxen was not far from the price of an ordinary female slave. Of course women of superior personal charms would fetch more, for instance, Euryclea, “Whom once on a time Laertes had bought with his possessions, When she was still in youthful prime, and he gave the price of twenty kine[14].” The poet evidently refers to this as an exceptional piece of extravagance on the part of Laertes. We can likewise now get a common measure for the ten talents of gold and the seven slave women who formed part of the requital gifts proffered by Agamemnon to Achilles[15], and can form some notion of the comparative value of the prizes for the chariot race and other contests[16]. _The wider question of Weight-standards in general._