The Corinthians, whilst making the _obol_ of the same weight as the Euboic, made a different division of the silver stater; for as Corinth occupied the very portals of Peloponnesus where the Aeginetic system was universal, she found it convenient for purposes of exchange to divide her silver stater of 135 grs. into _three_ drachms of 45 grs. each, one of which was for practical purposes identical with the Aeginetan _half drachm_. Thus two Corinthian drachms of 45 grs. each were equal to one Aeginetan drachm of 90 grs. _The Aeginetan Standard._ The desire to obtain 10 silver pieces equivalent in value to the gold ox-unit induced the Aeginetans, who were famous merchantmen, to make a silver system distinct from that of gold. Gold being to silver as 15:1, 130 × 15 = 1950 grs. of silver. 1950 ÷ 10 = 195 grs. With the Aeginetans as with the Euboeans in their silver system, the ancient copper units of the _nail_ and _handful_ played an important part. The story of Pheidon[373] having hung up in the temple of Hera at Argos the ancient currency of nails of copper and iron as soon as he struck his first issue of silver coins, if not absolutely true in all details, at least contains a most probable statement of what did actually take place when a real silver currency was first introduced. We have seen how the Chinese, starting with a barter currency of real hoes and knives, the objects of most general demand, gradually replaced those larger and more cumbrous articles by hoes and knives of a more diminutive size, until finally they became a real currency when they had been so reduced in size as to be utterly unfit for practical use. We saw likewise how that at the present moment the real hoe is the lowest unit of barter among the wild tribes of Annam, and that small bars of iron of given size are used in Laos, and that plates of metal ready to be made into hoes, and hoes themselves, are employed by the negroes of Central Africa, whilst on the west coast axes of a size too diminutive for actual use are employed as a real currency. As the day came when the Chinese finally replaced the archaic knife by the full developed copper coin called the cash, so the Aeginetans and Argives of the days of Pheidon superseded by a real coin ancient monetary-units consisting either of real implements of iron and copper, or bars of those metals of certain definite dimensions, or possibly mere Lilliputian representatives of such, which had previously served them as a true currency. On the whole however it is safest to assume from the names _nail_ (_Obol_) and _Handful_ (drachme) that the form in which copper or iron served as currency in Peloponnesus and the mainland of Hellas in general was that of rods of a certain length and thickness. We have cited already many analogous forms from modern Asia and Africa, and from the ancient Kelts, to which we shall presently add the ancient Italians. But just as we found that