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POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE GREEKS. 129is in this case valid as evidence ;for in more than one passage where he speaks of a barter/ he must necessarily havementioned it, if he had been acquainted with it. On theother hand, we may confidently affirm on the authority ofDemosthenes^ that in the age of Solon, e coined silvermoneywas not only known in the cities of Greece, but had beenin circulation for a length of time; 3for the punishment ofdeath had already been setupon the crime of counterfeitingit ;Solon mentioned it as in general use throughout theGrecian cities and ; many of them had already supplied itsplace with the baser metals. The Grecian coins, which arestill extant, can afford us no accurate dates, as the time oftheir coinage is not marked upon them but;several of themare certainly as ancient as the age of Solon ;and perhapsare even older. The coins of Sybaris, for example, must beat least of the sixth century before the Christian era as that;city was totally destroyed in the year 510 B.C. The mostancient coins of Rhegium, Croton, and Syracuse, seem fromthe letters in the superscriptions to be of far higher antiquity. 4 If the account that Lycurgus prohibited in Spartathe use of money of the precious metals, is well supported, 5we should be able to trace the history of Grecian coins to astill more remote age ;and this isopinion corroborated atleast by the narration of the Parian chronicle, 6 that Phidon1As for II.example, vi. 472, Od. I. 430.2 About 600 years before the Christian era.8 " I will relate to you," says the orator, while opposing a bill brought inby Timocrates, " what Solon once said against a man who proposed a bad law.The cities, said he to the judges, have a law, that he who counterfeits money,shall be put to death. He thought this law was made for the protection ofprivate persons, and their private intercourse but the laws he esteemed the;coin of the state. They, therefore, who corrupt the laws, must be muchmore heavily punished, than they who adulterate the coinage or introducefalse money. Yea, many cities exist and flourish, although they debase theirsilver money with brass and lead ; but those which have bad laws, will certainly be ruined." Demosth. in Timocrat. Op. i. p. 763, 764. Compare with^this what Herod, iii. 56, remarks of the counterfeit money, with which Polycratesis said to have cheated the Spartans.4 Ekhel. Doctrina Nummorum Yeterum, i. p. 170177,242.5 Plutarch, in Lycurg. Op. i. p. 177- His code iscomputed to have beengiven about 880 years B. C.BMarmor Parium. Ep. xxxi. cf. Strabo viii. p. 563. This was about 15years before the legislation of Lycurgus. It might, therefore, not withoutprobability be supposed, that Lycurgus wished and was able to prohibitmoney of the precious metals, because it at that time was just beginning tocirculate in Greece.