The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

288 KUMI8MAT1C CHRONICLE.
didrachm. 23 This (didrachm) was of old the coin of the
Athenians, and was called a bull, because it had a bull
stamped upon it. 24 And it is supposed that Homer knew of
the mean-
23 This translation appears to me exact, although
ing is, like that of the text, obscure.
who was probably the authority for
In the time of Aristotle,
this statement as well as
for that below as to the stater of Gyrene, the standard in use for
silver coin was the Phoenician, on which standard were struck
tetradrachms of 216 192 gr., drachms of 54 48 gr., and
smaller divisions. It is also highly probable, as Brandis sug-
gests (Miinzw. p. 125), that the Attic tetradrachms (270 gr.)
struck at an earlier period, passed current among these pieces
as pentadrachms. It is noteworthy that the people of Gyrene
did not issue tridrachms and didrachms in silver, so far as we
know. It seems certain that they cannot have issued pieces of
so large denomination as a pentecontadrachm. Is it, however,
implied in the text that they did so ? This is at least doubtful.
Perhaps we should alter the punctuation so as to make the
passage
translate thus :
"
Also the pentecontadrachm and pen-
tadrachm (which was also called a tetradrachm at Gyrene) and
tridrachm and didrachm." Ptolemy I. of Egypt struck gold
pentadrachms which may have passed as the equivalent of
fifty drachms of silver and been called pentecontadrachms.
Didrachms in gold on the Attic standard (135 gr.) were issued,
and probably in the age of Aristotle ; but it does not seem
possible that they can have passed as the equivalent of 50
drachms of silver. For Brandis's theory that the drachm at
Gyrene was only in weight half of the Attic drachm (Miinzw.
p. 124) there seems no sufficient justification.
24 So also Plutarch in the Life of Theseus. There is reason
to suppose that this is an imagination of later times, based on a
misunderstanding of the fact that in old Greece, as in early
Italy, before the introduction of coins, sums of money were
calculated in oxen and sheep. So in Homer in the passages
quoted by Pollux. At all events it is reasonably certain that
neither at Athens, nor at Delos, was a didrachm in use stamped
with the figure of a bull. In Phocis and Euboea coins marked
with a bull's head were issued in early times, but it is not likely
that these gave rise to the sayings quoted by Pollux. It is
barely possible that so late as the time of Draco (B.C. 620) fines
were calculated in oxen, as coins were certainly current in
Greece early in the sixth century, and for some time before that
a currency of bars of metal must have been in use. Probably
all early Attic laws were in late times quoted as Draco's.