The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

POLLUX' ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT COINS. 285
as does Demosthenes, 11 a tritalent, and a decatalent,
and a hemitalent, as, in Homer, 12 " But I will add for thee
a hemitalent of gold."
An ancient usage also was that of the "fifth hemi-
talent " and " third hemitalent " and " seventh hemi-
talent," i.e. four and a half and two and a half and six
and a half talents. In short, whatever be the number of
the hemitalent mentioned, the number before this must
be an integer ; (55) if the seventh, six ; if the third, two ;
and to this must in every case be added the half. The
ancients also liked to call one talent and a half three
hemitalents, as also one mina and a half three hemi-
minas. That the talent was worth little among Homer's
contemporaries can be seen from the horse-race, 13 in which
the prize for the third is a caldron, and for the fourth,
two talents of gold.
(56.) The mina 14 is the largest division of the talent
to come down, in the subdivisions of the talent,
to one
which has a name of its own ; since you could also speak
of the third part and fourth part, the third and quarter of
a talent ; but such divisions as these are expressed in terms
of number, and not by a name of their own. The mina
also 15 was at the same time the name of a weight and of
a coin ; its half is a hemimina ; and if you speak of
11 De Corona, p. 829.
12
II. 796.
ijt,
13
II. 262. This {ff. passage has been overlooked by Sir H.
Maine and Mr. P. Laurence (Journ. of Pkilol. viii. 125), who
suppose the Homeric talent to have been a large sum.
14
Talent is a Greek word, but mina is taken direct from a
Semitic language, probably that of the Phoenicians. The Greeks
adopted it from this latter people in the course of their mercantile
transactions with them, and adopted not only the name but
the weight also. See Brandis, Miinzwesen.
14 I.e. as well as the taleiit.