MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
reduced, with a corresponding increase in the cruising 
radius and the space for goods of all sorts. Also men wore 
out, but the wind never did; the size of the sea alone limited 
the distance potentially traversable with the aid of the sail. 
To the Bronze Age we owe, then, the type of craft, pro- 
pelled by oar and sail, which remained in use until the ap- 
plication of steam to navigation, little more than a cen- 
Set TL 
RRP RLS 
SESS 
ASSESS 
> 
LYMM 
Ys 
UW , 
i) 
‘ 
SS 
hy AA 
thes 
El 
iM 4, 
SSS: 
SS 
MAU 
Y 
AY 
ROY YP SRNR NYS SA TREE EES ELANY TERED TERRES irae SS 5 
SHAN 
meaean ions seieiyaycandess a idiiehj iit 
Fic. 94. Roman coin of bronze about 300 B.c._ In stil] earlier times oxen were 
themselves a medium of exchange. After Hill 
tury ago. Development in detail there was, of course, 
but the fundamental principle remained the same. 
With commerce came money, another great step for- 
ward made in the Bronze Age. Trade in its literal sense 
had existed, of course, from the earliest times, ever since 
men learned that exchanging articles sometimes afforded a 
better way of acquiring desired objects than hitting their 
owner over the head and taking them away from him. 
Barter rernained long in vogue and exists even today in 
certain backward regions of the globe. Nevertheless, the 
need of a standard of values came in time to be recognized. 
This function was fulfilled commonly by the ox. Thus a 
slave or a wife might be said to be worth so many oxen or 
[ 278 ] 
