Babylonian standard, seems to put beyond all doubt that the 168 grain gold piece was not a real unit, but was simply regarded as 1⅓ shekels, and was nothing more than a temporary effort to simplify the trimetallic monetary system of Lydia. What system the Lydians employed for commercial purposes we have no means of knowing, but we may conjecture plausibly that the light royal mina of 60 shekels was the standard employed. THE PERSIAN STANDARD. We may adopt the generally received belief that the Persians, like the Medes and Babylonians, did not coin money (although they were probably acquainted with the Lydian stater) until after the conquest of Asia Minor and Egypt by Cyrus and Cambyses, and the reorganization of the empire by Darius the son of Hystaspes (522-485 B.C.). For although the learned _savants_ MM. Oppert and Révillout[358] hold that Daric (Δαρεικός) is unconnected with the name Darius (Δαρεῖος), an opinion supported by Dr Hoffmann[359], and rather regard it as derived from the Assyrian _darag mana_, “degree (i.e. ⅟₆₀) of a mina,” and although Mr G. Bertin has read the word _dariku_ on a Babylonian contract, dated in the twelfth year of Nabonidas, five years before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus[360], it does not at all follow that either _darag_ or _dariku_ refers to a _coin_. That the unit was employed for gold ages before the Persians ever descended from the mountains there can be little doubt. But whether we adopt or reject the Greek tradition that the Daric (Δαρεικός) was named from Darius, as the Philippean and Croesean staters were called after the sovereigns who first struck them, it is perfectly certain that Darius organized the whole numbering system of the great empire to which he had succeeded, and that he coined gold pieces of the first quality: for Herodotus tells us that Darius, having refined gold to the greatest extent possible, had coin struck[361]. This would be very analogous to the course pursued by Croesus and Philip; gold in some form was current in the dominions of both these princes before their reigns, but it was owing to certain reforms introduced and to the issue of a gold coin of a certain pattern, that the names of both became associated with particular kinds of gold coins. By the time of Xerxes the son of Darius vast quantities of these Darics were circulating through Asia Minor, for Herodotus relates that the Lydian Pythius had in his own possession as many as 3,993,000 of them, a sum afterwards increased by Xerxes to 4,000,000. They became the gold currency of all the Greek towns not only of Asia Minor, but also of the islands, and made their way in considerable quantities into the great cities of the mainland of Hellas, and wrought as much harm in disuniting the various states of Greece as did the gold staters of Philip at a period a little later. Darics formed a regular part of the wealth of a well-to-do Athenian at the time of the Peloponnesian war. Thus Lysias[362] relates that when his