480 
is not, as Corsini thinks, copper money, but base gold money, — i.e ., 
gold alloyed with copper. Now, Lord Aberdeen discusses the ques- 
tion with much learning and ingenuity ; and I will give his conclu- 
sion in his own words, as a specimen of his critical style, because 
scholars are agreed that he settles the question by a more satisfac- 
tory explanation of the difficulty than had been given by others. 
“The currency of the silver money of Athens was almost uni- 
versal, owing to the deservedly high reputation for purity which it 
possessed ; and on this account we find several cities of Crete copy- 
ing precisely in their coins the design, weight, and execution of the 
Attic tetradrachm, in order to facilitate their intercourse with the 
barbarians. It is possible that the general use and estimation of 
the produce of the Attic mines contributed to render the Athenians 
averse from a coinage of another metal, which, by supplying the 
place of silver money at home, might in some degree tend to lessen 
its reputation abroad.” 
“ The Attic silver was of acknowledged purity, and circulated very 
extensively ; the Athenian merchants, particularly in their commer- 
cial dealings with the more distant and barbarous nations, appear 
frequently to have made their payments in it. The barbarians, 
being once impressed with these notions of its purity, the Govern- 
ment of Athens, in all probability, was afraid materially to change 
that styled appearance by which their money was known and valued 
among these people. A similar proceeding in the state of Venice 
throws the strongest light on the practice of the Athenians. Thq 
Venetian sechin is perhaps the most unseemly of the coins of modern 
Europe. It has long been the current gold of the Turkish empire, 
in which its purity is universally and justly esteemed; any change 
in its appearance on the part of the Venetian Government would have 
tended to create distrust.” 
Lord Aberdeen in this volume gives an account also of two curi- 
ous sculpture marbles found at Amyclae in Lacaonia. Each of these 
two marbles represents a hand-basin surrounded with various imple- 
ments of a female toilet — such as combs, pins, a bodkin, perfume- 
boxes, bottles, mirrors, curling-irons, toothpicks, and reticules, or, as 
some learned men believe, nightcaps. On one of these stones is an 
inscription containing the words, Avdovtiri vnocrargia; on the other an 
inscription containing the words, Xaoay^ra and isgsia. These by 
.some are supposed to signify two priestesses — Anthusa and Laoa- 
