instead of simply saying a talent of gold, and when we do find mention made of talents of gold, as in a famous passage of Thucydides, where he describes the amount of gold employed by Pheidias in the making of the world-renowned chryselephantine statue of Athena for the Parthenon, whilst the computations in silver are expressed simply by talents, the gold is enumerated as talents _in weight_. We may assume that gold was weighed throughout Greece in historical times on the following system: 1 stater = 130 grs. 50 staters = 1 mina = 6500 grs. 3000 ” = 60 minae = 1 talent = 390,000 grs. When silver came into use it was probably weighed all through Hellas, as in Asia and Egypt, on the same standard as gold. This continued always to be the practice amongst the great trading communities of Euboea, Chalcis and Eretria, and their colonies, and also with Corinth and her daughter states. Hence the system was commonly known as the Euboic, sometimes as the Corinthian, and in later times, for a reason to be presently given, the _Attic_. But in this silver system it is no longer the stater which represents the smaller unit, but rather the _drachm_ (δραχμή). Furthermore we find in most constant use a subdivision of the _drachm_ called the _obol_ (ὀβολός _nail_ or _spike_), six of which made a drachm. There can be no doubt that this silver obolos represented the value in silver of the ancient copper unit from which it took its name, which itself was not estimated by weight but probably, as we saw above, was simply appraised by measure, as is done by all primitive peoples in the estimation of copper and iron, nay even in the very earliest stage of gold itself (p. 43). As six of these _nails_ or _obols_ made a handful (δραχμή) in the ancient copper system, so when each of them was equated to a certain amount of silver, the equivalence in silver was called an _obol_, and the six silver _obols_ obtained the old name of _handful_ or _drachm_. In the ordinary Greek system of reckoning silver it is 100 drachms, not 50 staters, of silver which form the mina. But of course at the earlier stages of the use of silver we may with some boldness assume that silver was simply weighed by the stater (or Homeric Talanton). It is important then to note that among the smaller weight denominations silver has virtually no term peculiarly its own: for we have seen that _stater_ belongs essentially to gold, whilst _drachm_ and _obol_ have originated in the use of copper. This is in complete harmony with what we know of the history of the metals themselves, gold and copper being known and employed long before men had learned to utilize silver; and so too, we find the late-introduced term _mina_ in especially close connection with the latest employed of the three metals. This Euboic-Attic _silver_ system may be stated as follows: 6 obols = 1 drachm 100 drachms = 1 mina 60 minae = 1 talent.