The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

POLLUX* ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT COINS. 2!>7
Poseidon borne upon a dolphin. In the Acragantine Com-
monwealth, Aristotle says that some people were fined
30 litrae, and that the litra was worth an Aeginetan obol. M
One might also find the names of other Sicilian coins men-
tioned by him in the Himeraean Commonwealth, such as the
r>5
uncia, worth one copper ; (81) the hexas, two the ; trias,
three ; the hemilitron, six ; and the litra, worth an obol.
The decalitron, he says, is worth ten obols, and is a
Corinthian stater. 56
It has been stated above, in speaking
of weights, that some comic writers also mention litrae ;
for not only the Dorians, but also some Attic poets do this,
as Diphilus, in the Sicilian
" As to sell all, and have
nothing at all left, except curls, to the amount of two
litrae." And with the litrae Epicharmus mentions other
54 This is not strictly accurate, as the Aeginetan obol weighed
about 16 grs., and the litra 13'5 only, but in Sicily this obol
being foreign may have been tariffed below its value. Below,
Pollux gives again on the authority of Aristotle the value of
the litra as an (Attic) obol and a half, which is almost exactly
the equivalent of an Aeginetan obol. In what follows the litra
and the Aeginetan obol are assumed by Pollux to be equivalent.
55 That is, worth one ounce or one-twelfth of a pound of copper.
But the copper coins of Sicily, as we may see from their marks
of value, were not usually struck at anything like their nominal
weight. They were mere money of account. The copper at
Athens, ^aA/covs, being one-eighth of an obol, was assimilated to
the Sicilian uncia, one-twelfth of a litra. We must accept the
statement of the text with caution, for if the trias is three
unciae, the hexas ought according to analogy to be six : perhaps,
as Jungermann suggests, 8ia.vra. should be read instead of
56 Ten litrse, 185 grains, are equivalent to one of the Corinthian
staters or tridrachms, bearing the type of a Pegasus, which
are found in large quantities in Sicily and S. Italy. The Sicilian
litra is fully discussed by Mommsen (Gesch. d. Rom. M., p. 77),
and Head (N. C. 1874).
M This being the name of the play, the word litra would
seem to be introduced as a piece of local colauring. The litra
as a weight was two-thirds of the Roman as, or about 8,875 grs.
VOL. I. THIRD SERIES. Q Q