[ 463 J 
Our learned coiintrynian John Greaves, was, I 
believe, the firft who difcovered that the Attic 
Drachm was heavier than the Etenarius (2). He 
teems to have examined a g;reater number of Greek 
and Roman coins than any other writer on the fub- 
jed. His balance turned with, the 80th part of a 
grain (3); and his weights were corredly adjudcd- 
to the Englifh ftandard (4), as appears from the 
comparilon the Royal Society of London caufed 
to be made, in the year 1742, of the Troy Ounce 
with that of Paris, which was found to agree 
precifely with what Greaves had fo long before 
determined (5). 
His care and diligence in weitrhins: the coins, and: 
his fidelity in reporting them, have never beea 
doubted; but he is not always fufficientJy explicit 
as, where he fays he had perufed many hundred 
Denarii Confulares, and found the befl: of them to 
•amount to 62 grains Englifh (6); it is probable he 
found many fuch, for there are many of this weight 
and upw'ards in that noble repofitory the Britifh 
jMufeum ; but when he fays in the Erne paragraph, 
that, weighing many Attic Tetradrachms, he found, 
the befl of them to be 268 graij}?, he may mean 
only one, for very few come up to that weight. 
Nor hath- he given a particular defeription of this 
[ 2 ) See the d&dication of hts hrifeourfe of the Roman Fotit and 
Denarius,, printed in the year 164,7, and reprinted, with other of 
his works, by Dr. Birch, in 1736.. I quote the original edition, 
which contains 134 pages numbered after the. dedication. That 
of Dr. Birch, begins at p. 18 1 (excluding the dedication), and. 
eiids at p. 356. (3) Ibid. (4) See his Difeourfe, P. 61. 
(c) Philofophical Tr.an factions, N° 465, (6) p. 61. 
heavy 
