The Lydians are only one of several peoples and cities that were credited by the ancients with the invention of coinage. This uncertainty was inevitable. Coinage was not invented but evolved[669]. But it is probable that in the final stage of the evolution some one state was a little ahead of the rest, and put in this form the Lydians have a good claim to the invention. They have in their favour our two best and oldest witnesses, Xenophanes and Herodotus[670], the latter of whom recognized their outstanding position as traders and plainly sees in it the explanation of their leading position in the evolution of coined money[671]. The facts as far as we know them bear these authorities out. Lydia contains Mt Tmolus and Mt Sipylus and the river Pactolus, the main sources of the supply of the metal in which the most primitive coins were struck. It was probably just about this period that the Lydian electrum mines began to be worked[672] and the electrum of Sardis gained the fame it still enjoyed in the days of Sophocles[673]. The kings of Lydia from the beginning of the seventh century onward were famous for their wealth[674]. The touch-stone used by the ancients for testing the precious metals came likewise from Mt Tmolus, and was called “Lydian stone[675].” Furthermore, the Lydians occupied a unique position for purposes of trade. Sardis, their capital, was the place where the great trade-route from the further East, the “royal road,” as Herodotus calls it[676], branched out to reach the various Greek cities on the coast[677]. In the face of this evidence it is hardly necessary to examine in detail the arguments of the modern sceptics who have disputed Lydia’s claim. In many cases they start from the baseless assumption that so remarkable an invention cannot but be due to the quick-witted Greeks[678]. True, the earliest electrum coins are said to have been found mostly along the Eastern shore of the Aegean, but it does not follow that that is where they were all struck. Gold pieces were common enough in Greece in the first half of the fourth century B.C., but they had nearly all been struck in Persia. 30,000 Darics (fig. 8) were distributed among the Greeks by the Great King’s agents in one single year[679]. The two staters of gold that each of the Delphians received from King Croesus[680] were undoubtedly Crœseids[681].