We have already spoken of the silphium or laserpitium plant on the coins of Cyrene, Barca, Euesperides and Teuchira, and mentioned the interpretation which makes it the symbol of the hero Aristaeus. It seems however far more reasonable to treat it on the same principle as the others just discussed. The silphium formed the most important article produced in that region, and it is perfectly in accordance with all analogy that certain quantities of this plant and of the juice extracted from it should be employed as money. We saw above that at the present moment tea is so employed on the borders of Tibet and China, and raw cotton in Darfur. But there is also some positive evidence in favour of this assumption, for Strabo[396] tells us that a traffic was carried on at the port of Charax between the Carthaginians and Cyrenaeans, the former bringing wine wherewith to purchase the silphium of the latter. There must have been a wine-unit, and also an unit for the silphium, or otherwise the barter could not have been carried on; and just as in Gaul[397] a jar of wine purchased a boy fit to serve as a cupbearer, a certain measure of wine being equated to a slave-boy, so we may conclude that some such wine-unit was equated to a packet or bale of silphium, the latter in turn having a certain amount of silver equated to it, which when coinage was introduced was stamped with the silphium device. That the silphium was packed in bales of a fixed weight is proved by a now famous vase-painting which represents the weighing (on ship board?) of the bales of silphium in the presence of Arcesilas the king of Cyrene[398]. The figure who points to the scales is marked _silphiomachos_ (σλιφιομαχος) which is taken to mean _silphium-weigher_ (σλιφιο- being either a mis-spelling of the artist, or the local form of the word, whilst the latter part is connected with the Egyptian _mach_ = to _weigh_). Close to the silphium packets is the word ΜΑΕΝ, which has not been explained, but which may be simply a form of the word _mina_ (_manah_, _meneh_) and denotes that each packet weighed that amount. [Illustration: FIG. 41. Vase from Cyrene, shewing the weighing of the Silphium.] [Illustration: FIG. 42. Coin of Metapontum.]