'204 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS.' ANNO 1771. 



the numeral adverbs, decies, vicies, centies, millies, and the like, either centena 

 millia, or centies, was always understood. The Constantinopolitans kept their 

 accounts in solidi, which are reduced to pounds sterling, by multiplying the given 

 number by 58648, and cutting off 5 figures on the right hand for decimals. 



Conclusion. — The Greeks had no money at the time of the Trojan war ; for 

 Homer represents them as trafficking by barter, and Priam, an Asiatic, weighs 

 out the 10 talents of gold, which he takes to ransom his son's body of Achilles. 



This ponderal talent was very small, as appears from Homer's description of 

 the games at the funeral of Patroclus, where 2 talents of gold are proposed as 

 an inferior prize to a mare with foal of a mule. Whence Mr. R. concludes it 

 was the same that the Dorian colonies carried to Sicily and Calabria; for Pollux 

 tells us, from Aristotle, that the ancient talent of the Greeks in Sicily contained 

 24 nummi, each of which weighing an obole and a half, the talent must have 

 weighed 6 Attic drachms, or 3 darics ; and Pollux elsewhere mentions such a 

 talent of gold. But the daric weighed very little more than our guinea ; and if 

 2 talents weighed about 6 guineas, we may reckon the mare with foal worth 12 ; 

 which was no improbable price, since we learn from a passage in the Clouds of 

 Aristophanes, that, in his time, a running horse cost 12 ininas, or above 46 

 pounds sterling. Therefore this seems to have been the ancient Greek talent, 

 before the art of stamping money had introduced the greater talents from Asia 

 and Egypt. 



Herodotus tells us that the Lydians were reputed to be the first that coined 

 gold and silver money ; and the talent, which the Greeks called euboYc, certainly 

 came from Asia. Therefore the Greeks learned the use of money from the 

 Asiatics. The Romans took their weights and their money, either from the 

 Dorians of Calabria, or from Sicily ; for their libra, uncia, and nummus, were 

 all Doric words, their denarius was the Sicilian AfnaAirj o» ; and Pollux tells us, 

 from Aristotle, that the Sicilian nummus was a quarter of the Attic drachm; 

 and the Romans called a quarter of their denarius by the same name. 



The great disproportion between the copper and silver money, when the 

 Romans first coined : the latter, has induced many to believe that the first 

 denarii must have been heavier than the 84th part of their pound ; thinking it 

 incredible that silver should ever be valued at 8>iO times its weight of copper. 

 But they can produce no ancient author of credit, in support of this opinion. 

 But we are little interested in the weight of the denarius for the first 6o years 

 after it was coined ; and it has been shown that when the Romans began to coin 

 gold, it did not exceed the 84 th part of their pound. 



XLIX. Description of a Method of Measuring Differences of Right Ascension 



