Homeric ox-unit = 130-135 grains of gold. Roman ox (5th cent. B.C.) = 135 ” ” Sicilian (5th cent. B.C.) = 135 ” ” Ancient German = 120 ” ” Ancient Gaulish = 120 ” ” Phoenician? (4th cent. B.C.) = 135 ” ” Egyptian (1500 B.C.?) = 140 grains of silver = 140 grains of gold(?). Hebrew = 130 grains of gold. Zend-Avesta = 130 ” ” Burgundian = 140 ” ” Alamannic = 120 ” ” Scandinavian[209] (8th cent. A.D.) = 128 ” ” As has been remarked before, I do not include the values of the ox or cow in the ancient Laws of Wales or Ireland, since from the insular position of Britain and Ireland the principle that we must have unbroken touch between the various peoples in order to have a constant unit does not apply. There could be no free flow of trade in cattle between Britain and the continent until the development of steam navigation. It is worth noting that the value of a buffalo at the present day among the Bahnars of Annam is almost the same as that of the ancient ox. The buffalo is reckoned at 280 hoes[210], that is 28 francs = £1. 2_s._ 4_d._ Taking gold at the rate of twopence per grain, the value of the buffalo in gold is 134 grs. Troy. CHAPTER VII. THE WEIGHT SYSTEMS OF CHINA AND FURTHER ASIA. Subiectos Orientis orae Seras et Indos. HOR. _Carm._ I. 12. 56. We have now found that within the area where our weight standards arose the ox was universally diffused, and regarded as the chief and most general form of property and medium of exchange; that over the same area gold was found to be more or less equally distributed in antiquity; that the metallic unit is found in all cases adapted to the chief unit of barter, whether that be ox or reindeer, beaver skin, or squirrel, as soon as peoples have learned the use of metal; and finally that over our special area from the Atlantic to Central Asia the cow at various times and places retained a value which fluctuated only from 120 to 140 grains of gold. When therefore we recall the fact, also pointed out above, that the gold unit employed from Gaul to Central Asia was one that only fluctuated from 120 to 140 grains, and when we recollect further that this unit in the ancient Greek Epic is called not a talent but an _ox_, when prices, and not merely the actual ingots of gold are mentioned, the conclusion follows that not merely in Greece but in all the other countries the gold unit represented originally simply the conventional value of the cow as the immemorial unit of barter.