444 



MONEY OF ATTICA. 



Alexander, when it amounted to 1000 talents annually. The district 

 on both sides of the Strymon, and on Mount Pangeus furnished him 

 with gold and silver ; the former was found near Philippi. The 

 astonishing quantity of his coin which still remains, where we even 

 without the evidence of ancient writers, would sufficiently attest the 

 former abundance of it ; in some of the more unfrequented parts of 

 Greece the gold of Philip passes currently among the inhabitants 

 at present. The value of one of these coins is 20 Turkish piastres, 

 or about 25 shillings. * 



In addition to the sums which the mines of Philip brought into 

 circulation, we may state that Alexander, during his progress j? through 

 Asia, sent into Greece a large quantity of money for the purpose of 

 erecting temples and public buildings ; and when we consider how 

 much a few years before had been taken from the consecrated wealth 

 at Delphi in the Phocic war, how many statues and vases and orna- 

 ments of gold had been melted into specie, we may fix upon this 

 time, as the period when money must have abounded in ^ Greece. 

 The increase in the prices of corn and meat at different successive 

 intervals, may be stated from some authentic documents, and will 

 show the diminution in the value of money : — 



Wheat in 595 B. C. was 1 Drachma the Medimnus, or 6" pecks. § 

 in 440 2 Dr. or 4s. Gd. the coomb. || 



* Many of the ancient coins found in Greece and Asia Minor are pierced, and through 

 the hole a string is passed, by which they are hung, as ornaments, round the heads of 

 women and young girls. This custom is not peculiar to the modern inhabitants of these 

 countries; we find it mentioned by Chrysostom, who particularly refers to the coins of 

 Alexander, torn. ii. 243. Ven. Ti ay t*j eWot irsol tcZv yoju.(Vju.aTa ya.hY.ct. AXifcavfipov toZ 

 MaxeSo'yoj ra»j xepaXai; y.o\ to7j -kq<j\ ■nep&svfj.ovvTwv. — Ed. 



f Plutarch, Opp. Mor. " Virtue of Alexander." 



% The dresses and robes of some of the statues of the ancient deities were of gold threads, 

 woven or knitted; such was the aurcum amiculum of Jove, which Dionysius stole. (Cic. 

 de.N.D. 111. Bcckmann, 2.) In consequence of the robbery of the temples, which happened 

 not unfrequently in the wars of Greece, many might say, as the veteran remarked to 

 Augustus, " You see my fortune, Emperor; it was once the leg of a goddess." 



§ Mem. de l'Ac. des. In. 48. 394. 



|| " The ancient markets," says Sir J. Steuart, " were supplied partly from the surplus 

 produce upon the lands of the great men, laboured by slaves, who, being fed from the 



