448 



MONEY OF ATTICA. 



in which Herodotus wrote to the age of Plato, when we find it as 

 one to twelve. 



According to the testimony of Xenophon the ratio in his time 

 was that of ten to one.* A great alteration, as we are informed by 

 Athenaeus, had taken place in consequence of the plunder of the 

 temple of Apollo at Delphi, in 358, and a prodigious quantity of 

 offerings was then turned into specie. The decuple proportion 

 seems to have continued a long time unchanged. -j- Menander, who 

 lived a century after Xenophon, states the value of the two metals to 

 be in that ratio. (Pollux, lib. ix. c. 76.) And the ^Etolian league, a 

 century later, proves the same thing. £ 



But there is another reason, in addition to the fluctuating price of 

 gold, which renders De Pauw's explanation of this subject inadequate. 

 For supposing that in Lydia the Athenians would have purchased 

 gold at a disadvantage, we are by no means to conclude that they 

 were necessarily obliged § to repair to that market ; on the contrary, 

 the gold mines of Thasos and of Thrace in the neighbourhood of 

 their own colonies were always ready, and to a certain degree able to 

 afford them supplies. Besides, if this disadvantage in the purchase 



* Mem. de l'Ac. des In. xlvii. 202. 



f There is an error in the text of the third volume of Gibbon's Misc. Works, p. 420., 

 which should be corrected. He there says that the proportion of gold to silver in England 

 and Spain, is as one to fifteen : in France and the rest of Europe as one to fourteen and 

 a half. " Parmi les anciens la proportion la plus commune etoit celle (Van a un." It 

 should evidently be " d'un a dix." Perhaps in Mr. G.'s manuscript it is written " 1 a 10;" 

 and the cypher, being erased, the proportion appeared to be 1 a 1. — E. The difference 

 in the proportions between the two metals in the ancient and modern world arises from 

 the greater quantity of gold possessed by the former. See Mr. Gibbon's examination of 

 this subject, p. 422. 



\ See Clarke on Coins, 251. 



§ In addition to what is said in the text, we may observe this fallacy in De Pauw's 

 reasoning : he considers Herodotus, when speaking of the exchange of thirteen to one, as 

 alluding to Asia ; but there is no proof that the ratio of the two metals in that country 

 was referred to by the historian; his observations may apply to Greece. — See Larcher, 

 Her. i. 269. and Barthelemy (Anach.) c. 12. note, and see 22. note. 



