THE DEBASEMENT OF COINAGES. 583 



cate and gained an illusory augmentation of wealth by reducing the 

 weight of metal in the as, still calling it by the same name. But this 

 fraudulent plan, once adopted, was worked with such assiduity by the 

 successive emperors, that in 175 b. c. the as contained but half an 

 ounce of copper, or fa part of its original weight. In the case of so 

 cheap a metal, diminishing the quantity was the only way in which 

 the coin could be degraded. The principal silver coin was the dena- 

 rius, rated at ten asses, and weighing one-seventh of an ounce. Its 

 weight was tolerably well maintained, but adulteration was carried to 

 its utmost extent, and eventually the imperial denarii came to be only 

 copper coins plated with silver ! Similar vicissitudes marked the ca- 

 reer of Roman gold. When first coined, 204 b. c, the aureus weighed 

 T V part of a pound of pure gold, but through various degradations 

 came to be only T ^ part of a pound in weight, and this bore 20 per cent, 

 of alloy. 



The French money-unit, the livre, up to the reign of Charlemagne, 

 contained exactly a pound weight of pure silver, and was divided into 

 20 sols. It was reserved for Philip I. to violate this standard. He 

 considerably diminished the amount of silver contained in a sol, and 

 his example was followed with such zeal that by the time of the Revo- 

 lution the livre contained less than a seventy-eighth part of the silver 

 which it had in the eleventh century. 



Nor is this an extreme case. In 1220 the Spanish maravedi 

 weighed 84 grains of gold, and was equal in value to about $3.50 ; it 

 descended until it became a small copper coin valued at one-third of 

 a cent. 



The German florin was originally a gold coin worth $2.50; when 

 abolished it was 40 cents' worth of silver. 



These examples are taken from the history of the most stable and 

 best-governed European states, and from them may be inferred the 

 rapacity and swindling of the lawless, irresponsible feudal princes 

 during the middle ages, which caused this particular fraud to fall 

 into the deepest discredit even in those early days. 



The Chinese probably illustrate in the most extreme manner the 

 length to which loose views concerning currency can be carried. The 

 history of their currency presents that mingling of the grotesque with 

 the tragic which most of their actions have when viewed through 

 "Western eyes. Coined money was known among them as early as 

 the eleventh century before Christ, but their inability to comprehend 

 the principles upon which a currency should be based has led them 

 into all sorts of extravagances, which have been attended by disorder, 

 famine, and bloodshed. Coins came at last to be made so thin that 

 1,000 of them piled together were only three inches high ; then gold 

 and silver were abandoned ; and copper, tin, shells, skins, stones, and 

 paper, were given a fixed value, and used until, by abuse, all the ad- 

 vantages to be derived from the use of money were lost, and there 



