200 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MONEY DAVIDSON. 



demand in the district, or from those which the district has 

 special facilities for producing. In one Dlace it is sticks of salt, 

 in another tobacco, in. another cotton thread, in another raw 

 cotton in the pod, in another onions, in another hoes, in another 

 copper rings, beads, shells, etc., 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 case 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 sold talent as the actual measure of wine 



