Nor are we without examples which show that this connection of the wergeld with the gold mina was not altogether foreign to traditional modes of thought. In the laws of Gortyn[6] a man whose life was forfeit for crime might be redeemed by his kindred for 100 staters, _i.e._ the heavy gold mina. The ransom of prisoners between certain Greek tribes or states according to Herodotus was two minas, _i.e._ one heavy mina.[7] There is a curious instance in the Mosaic law of the connection of something like a wergeld with the mina of silver. In the last chapter of Leviticus the price to be paid for the redemption of a man dedicated by a vow to the service of the Sanctuary was 50 shekels of silver: that is, the light mina of silver. II. THE SAME EQUATION REPEATED BETWEEN THE WERGELDS OF WESTERN TRIBES AND 200 GOLD SOLIDI OF CONSTANTINE. [Sidenote: The gold solidus of Constantine a half-stater.] Following the same thread of suggestion and turning from the Eastern to the Western world, we pass at a leap from the Eastern gold stater of 192 wheat-grains to the gold solidus of Constantine, of exactly half that number. Up to the time of Constantine there had been confusion in the currency of the Roman Empire. It had been mainly a silver currency. Few gold coins were in general circulation, and these were of various standards. But at last the gold solidus of Constantine placed the world in possession of a fixed gold standard acknowledged all over Europe and remaining unchanged till the fall of the Eastern Empire. The importance of this fact is obvious. For our knowledge of most of the wergelds of the tribes conquered by the Merovingian Franks and later on by Charlemagne is dependent upon it, inasmuch as the laws in which the customs of these tribes were in some sense codified, almost always describe the wergelds in gold solidi. The gold solidus of Constantine was fixed by him at 1/72 of the Roman pound or ⅙ of the Roman ounce. The Roman pound (originally used for copper) was built up from the scripulum according to the duodecimal system of the _As_, thus: Scripulum 24 wheat-grains = 1·135 grammes Uncia (of 24) 576 ” = 27·25 ” Libra (of 288) 6912 ” = 327· ” [Sidenote: Gold tremisses of 32 wheat-grains.] The solidus of Constantine therefore contained 96 wheat-grains of gold, exactly the same number as the Eastern drachma, and half that of the stater or didrachma. At the same time smaller coins--thirds of the solidus, called _trientes_ or _tremisses_--were issued in great numbers, and these tremisses contained 32 wheat-grains of gold, exactly the same number as the Greek _diobol_. [Sidenote: The normal wergeld of 200 gold solidi = gold mina.]