The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight StandardsRidgeway, William
History
The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards
Ridgeway, William
Money -- Origin; Weights and measures -- History
(1) If the Euboeans derived their standard from Ionia why did they not
rather adopt the Phoenician standards, on which we have already seen the
great Ionian cities based their coinages of gold, silver, and electrum?
Some very early electrum coins found at Samos (Head, _op. cit._ XLI.),
have suggested that that island formed the link. “The theory,” says Mr
Head, “that Samos was the port whence the Euboeans derived the gold
standard subsequently used by them for silver, rests upon the weight of
some very early electrum coins (about 44 grs.) which have been found in
the island of Samos, and of the earliest Euboean coins, Euboea and Samos
having been two of the greatest colonizing and maritime powers of the
Aegean Sea. Thus I think we may account for the fact that the towns of
Euboea, when they began to strike silver money of their own, naturally
made use of the standard which had become from of old habitual in the
island, precisely in the same way as Pheidon in Peloponnesus struck his
first silver money on the reduced Phoenician standard which was prevalent
at the time in his dominions.” But as a matter of fact the recognized
Samian coins are of the Phoenician standard (220 grs.) in its slightly
reduced state as found at Miletus (Head, _op. cit._ 515). This being so
it would indeed be strange if the Euboeans from occasionally coming in
contact with Lydian coins at Samos would have adopted that standard in
preference to that in use in the great cities of Ionia with which their
commerce directly lay.
(2) Why did the Euboeans take the Lydian _gold_ standard of 130 grs. for
their own electrum and silver instead of the Lydian _silver_ standard of
172·9 grs.? According to Mr Head’s view, as we have seen above, the early
Lydian electrum was struck on the standard of 172 grs. (the so-called
Babylonian silver) when meant for circulation in the interior of Asia
Minor, but on the Phoenician standard for circulation in trade with the
Greeks of the coast of Ionia.
(3) We may ask the question, why did the Euboeans if they were taking
over a ready-made standard which had no relation to any standard which
they themselves already possessed, adopt the _gold_ standard of 130 grs.
instead of the electrum and silver standard which was in use among all
the Greek cities with which they traded?
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