450 



MONEY OF ATTICA. 



and on this account we find several cities of* Crete copying precisely 

 in their coins the design, weight, and execution of the Attic tetra- 

 drachms, in order to facilitate their intercourse with the barbarians. 

 It is possible that the general use and estimation of the produce of 

 the Attic mines contributed to render the Athenians averse from a 

 coinage of another metal, which, by supplying the place of silver money 

 at home, might in some degree tend to lessen its reputation abroad. 



Having attempted to explain the circumstance which occasioned 

 the scarcity of Athenian gold, it now remains to specify the nature 

 of those coins which really did exist in that metal, or passed current 

 at Athens, t 



The Attic stater :f, according to Pollux, was equal in weight to two 

 drachma?, but in vahie to twenty. This would agree with the re- 

 lative proportion of gold to silver in the later times of the republic. 

 The following citation from the same writer has occasioned some to 

 imagine, that no other gold coin existed: i [^Iv yjva-ougetTToi^^Tr^oTu-n-a.KouiTa.i 

 a-TuT^p. We are by no means justified in concluding from this remark, 

 that because the stater by way of pre-eminence acquired the name of 

 the golden attic, no other coin of this metal was in use. In the silver 

 money we find that drachmae, by which the Athenians usually 

 reckoned, were frequently called, simply, attics ; yet no one for an 

 instant would suppose that because the characteristic appellation is 

 omitted, they did not possess silver coins of various descriptions. 

 Indeed, if we consider the observation fairly, it would appear to indi- 

 cate the existence of some other species of gold money, which 

 rendered it necessary for the author in some measure to explain this 

 peculiar mode of expression. A coin of this metal was found in the 



* Eckhel. in num. Gortyn. Hieropyt. Cydon. 



t The reader may perhaps be inclined to agree with the Editor, in considering the 

 remarks of the Earl of Aberdeen, respecting the rude coinage of silver money at Athens, 

 and the scarcity of gold money among the Athenians, as affording a more satisfactory 

 explanation of those subjects, than any which has been hitherto offered. 



X There is a stater, undoubtedly genuine, in Lord Elgin's possession ; there is one also 

 in the Hunter collection j it weighs 134 grains English. 



