116 CONSUMPTION OF THE CHAP. v. 



have supposed means ^Egium in Attica, and 

 that the tortoise is the sign for the Pelopon- 

 nesus 1 . 



Silver is said to have been first coined in Rome 

 in the year of its buil3ing 485, or 266 years be- 

 fore our era 2 , which seems to be confirmed by 

 no coins having been found of an earlier date; 

 though, according to Pomponius, a mint had 

 existed there which twenty-three years before 

 had been placed under the direction of the 

 questor. That establishment was most probably 

 only used at its earliest erection for coining brass 

 money. The first gold coin of Rome followed 

 that of silver, but not till after an interval of 

 sixty-two years. Thus silver coin in Rome had 

 existed about two hundred years, and gold coin 

 about one hundred and fifty years, at the time of 

 the accession of Augustus. We can hardly sup- 

 pose that, at the commencement of the opera- 

 tion of coining, with the imperfect engines they 

 had invented to perform it, any very large pro- 

 portion of the whole mass of the precious metals 

 had been converted into coin, or that the fric- 

 tion which occurs by wear in passing from one 

 hand to another could have occasioned such a 

 consumption as considerably to affect the whole 

 amount in existence. There would too be the 



1 Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 67. 



2 Pliny, book xv. 



