CHAP. 



SYRIA AND PERSIA. 15 



field, and that Sparta alone received from him 

 five thousand talents 1 ." 



Darius coined pieces of gold of great purity, 

 which obtained the name of darics. They were 

 about the value of twenty-five shillings of our 

 present money. The name daric was at sub- 

 sequent periods, however, given generally to all 

 gold coins which contained but little alloy, and 

 thus indicated the purity of the metal, rather 

 than the weight of the piece. The darics of this 

 coinage were few in number and contracted in 

 circulation, or more of them would have been 

 handed down to posterity. It is said, there are 

 but two now known to exist, one of which is in 

 the collection of Lord Pembroke. The figure 

 of an archer is stamped on it, which gave rise to 

 an ancient witticism that may be worth relating. 

 Agesilaus, king of Sparta, received from Darius 

 a bribe of thirty thousand darics to withdraw 

 from the other Grecian states with whom he 

 was in alliance. Being reproached for his trea- 

 chery, he defended himself, by asserting that his 

 operations had been suspended, owing to his 

 having been defeated by thirty thousand archers. 



The wealth of Croesus, king of Lydia, who Greece, 

 lived about 540 years before Christ, has become 

 proverbial; and, though no precise communica- 

 tion of the extent of it has been handed down, 



1 Isocrat. Sv///*a)(. 32. 



