The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight StandardsRidgeway, William
History
The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards
Ridgeway, William
Money -- Origin; Weights and measures -- History
Herodotus felt puzzled where to place the Hyperboreans; “For concerning
Hyperborean men neither the Scythians say anything to the point nor any
other of those that dwell in this region, save the Issedones. But as I
think, not even do they say anything to the point; for in that case the
Scythians too would have told it, as they tell about the one-eyed people”
(the Arimaspians[157]). “But a certain Aristeas, the son of Caÿstrobius,
a man of Proconnesus, alleged in a poem that under the influence of
divine afflatus he had reached the Issedones, and that beyond them dwelt
the Arimaspians who have but one eye, and that beyond these are the
gold-guarding griffins, and beyond these the Hyperboreans, stretching to
the sea[158].” But where Pindar and Herodotus hesitated, the priest of
Apollo at Delos stepped in with an explicit statement of that “marvellous
road” which Pindar said no one could find by sea or land. Accordingly
Herodotus has to resort to the men of Delos for his information about
the Hyperboreans: “Much the longest account of them is given by men of
Delos, who have alleged that sacred objects bound up in wheaten straw are
brought from the Hyperboreans to the Scythians, and that the Scythians
receive them and pass them on to their neighbours upon the west, who
continue to pass them on until at last they reach the Adriatic, and
from thence they are sent on southwards. First of the Greeks do the men
of Dodona receive them, and from them they travel down to the Melian
Gulf and cross over to Euboea, and city sends them on to city as far as
Carystus. The Carystians take them over to Tenos without stopping at
Andros; and the Tenians convey them to Delos.” Then he adds a further
story that on the first occasion the Hyperboreans sent two maidens,
Hyperoché and Laodicé, with five male protectors, but as they died at
Delos, and returned home no more, they for this reason “bring to their
borders the sacred objects packed up in wheaten straw and lay a solemn
injunction on their neighbours, bidding them send them forward to another
nation, and the men say that being forwarded in this fashion they arrive
at Delos[159].”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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