On the other hand if we make the very slight and very probable assumption that the early Greeks had formed a definite idea of the relative value of gold and silver, which they would have determined exactly on the same principle as they would arrive at a notion of the relative value of any other two commodities, which they were in the habit of giving and taking in exchange, that is by the simple principle of supply and demand, we shall find a ready solution without having to resort to either Egypt or Babylon. If gold was to silver as 15:1 in Greece, it follows that the Homeric talent, the earliest Greek standard, being about 135 grains, ten silver pieces of 202 grains each would be equivalent to _one_ gold unit. 135 × 15 = 2025 grs. of silver. 2025 ÷ 10 = 202·5 grs. of silver. This gives a singularly close approximation to the weight of the existing coins of the Aeginetic standard of the earliest and heaviest kind. Taking the Homeric talent at 130 grains of gold, by the same process we obtain 10 silver pieces each of the weight of 195 grains (130 × 15 = 1950; 1950 ÷ 10 = 195 grs.) The second standard which we find in Greece at the beginning of the historical epoch was the Euboic. This standard was used for both _silver_ and _gold_. The ordinary account of its origin is as follows: “From Ionia possibly through Samos the Euboeans imported the standard by which they weighed their silver. This standard was the light Assyrio-Babylonian gold mina with its shekel or stater of about 130 grains. The Euboeans having little or no gold transferred the weight used in Asia for gold to their own silver, raising it slightly at the same time to a maximum of 135 grains, and from Euboea it soon spread over a large part of the Greek world by means of the widely extended commercial relations of the enterprising Euboean cities. This may have taken place towards the close of the eighth century and before the war which broke out at the end of that century between Chalcis and Eretria, nominally for the possession of the fields of Lelantum, which lay between the two rival cities”[279]. This Euboic standard of 135-130 grains is seen at once to be identical in weight with the Homeric talent. Several difficulties (irrespective of the fact that there was no need for the Greeks to borrow from Asia a standard which they themselves already possessed from very early times) meet this theory.