200 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MONEY—DAVIDSON. 
demand in the district, or from those which the district has 
special facilities for producing. Jn one place it is sticks of salt, 
in another tobaceo, in another cotton thread, in another raw 
cotton in the pod, in another onions, in another hoes, in another 
copper rings, beads, shells, ete., and in most districts more than 
one of them. These are for small change, so to speak. But all 
of them are recognized submultiples of the standard unit, the 
ox, as our quarters and ten cent pieces are of the dollar; and in 
the same way, slaves are in many districts there now, as they 
were in Homeric times, the larger currency, being recognized 
multiples of the standard ox. 
From Greek coins which have been preserved, it is inferred 
that the Greeks had the same system. There are traces of it 
not only in Homer, but on the silver coins themselves. With 
the introduction of metallic currency, the Greeks equaled the ox 
with the gold talent, while its submultiples were represented by 
corresponding silver coins. At first, at least, these silver coins 
often bore as their stamp the representation of the commodity 
currency with which they were equaled and which they dis- 
placed. In many cases no doubt the image and superscription 
were religious ; but there is no reasonable ground for doubting 
that in their origin many, perhaps all, of these coins bore on 
their face the evidence of the particular commodity they had 
displaced as currency. In some cases the representation was 
carried so far that the coin reproduced the actual shape of the 
commodity; and even where the stamp on the coin is of a 
religious character, there is a striking resemblance between the 
stamp and the article for which the district was famous. In 
many cases this correspondence is so clear that it is impossible 
otherwise to explain the peculiar form and image of the coin. 
Thasos, for instance, was famous for its wine; and the wine 
cup or measure appears on its early coins. The unit of capacity, 
in the ease of wine was the measure, and the measure is stamped 
on the coins to express the fact that this silver coin, bore the 
same relation to the gold talent as the actual measure of wine 
