Long ago Prof. R. S. Poole, speaking of this word, said: “The sanction of the LXX, and the use of weights bearing the forms of lions, bulls, and geese by the Egyptians, Assyrians, and probably Persians, must make us hesitate before we abandon a rendering [lamb] so singularly confirmed by the relation of the Latin _pecunia_ and _pecus_[327].” The connection between weights and units of currency is especially close at a time when coined money is as yet unknown, and hence when we find weights in the form of sheep coming from Syria, and also recollect that sheep were employed as a regular unit in Palestine for the paying of tribute, and with the light obtained from primitive systems of currency, we may well conclude that the _qesitah_ was an old unit of barter, like the Homeric ox, and as the latter was transformed into a gold unit, so the former was superseded by an equivalent of silver. We read (2 Kings iii. 4) that Mesha, king of Moab (now so famous from the inscription which bears his name), was a sheep-master, and he rendered unto the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs, and one hundred thousand rams with the wool. When payment in metal came more and more into use silver served as the sub-multiple of gold, just as sheep formed that of the ox, and it is not surprising that in later times when coins were struck by the Phoenicians, as at Salamis in Cyprus and many other places, bearing a sheep or a sheep’s head, there arose some doubt as to whether the _qesitah_ was a _sheep_, a piece of uncoined silver, or a coin stamped with a sheep. The very fact of the Phoenicians having such a predilection for this type is in itself an indication that the silver coin in its origin represented the value of a sheep. At a later stage, when we come to deal with the early Greek coin types, we shall develop this principle more completely. The mere fact that the sheep on the Phoenician coins is sometimes found accompanying a divinity does not militate against our doctrine, as I shall explain when I deal with the coins of Messana and Thasos. [Illustration: FIG. 26. Coin of Salamis in Cyprus.]