[ Si8 ] 
him('?); which being Babylonian talents, agrees 
with Plato’s eftimate, as I have flievvn above. 
After the conqueft of Afia by Alexander, the irn- 
menfe treafures of the Kings of Perfia circulating in 
Alia and Greece, reduced the price of gold to ten 
times its weight in filver, at which it feeins to have 
continued two hundred years, or more. 
The Romans did not coin gold till above a hun- 
dred years after the death of Alexander : and Pliny 
gives the following account of its firft coinage. 
Aureus fiummus pojt annum LXII percujjus eji quam 
argenfcuSy ita ut fcrupulufn valeret Sejiertiis vicenis : 
quod e fecit in libras, ratione Sejiertiorum qui tunc erant, 
Seflertios DCCCC (4). Now if the Scruple was 
valued at 20 Sefterces, the Pound, inftead of being 
worth 900, mufl have been worth 5760 fuch 
SeRerces: but if for Seflertios DCCGC, we read 
Denarios DCCCC, the account will be clear and in- 
telligible. The words ratione Seflertiorum qui tunc 
erant, imply that the Sefterce of that age was differ- 
ent from the Sefterce of Pliny’s time : but the quarter 
of the filver Denarius, or Nummus Seftertius of 4 
AJj'es, was the fame at both' times, and we know of 
no otlier Sefterce but the ancient one of 2| 
Twenty fuch Sefterces make 50 Aflesiox the value of 
the Scruple of gold; which multiplied by 288 (the 
number of Scruples in the Roman Pound) give 
14400 Ajfes for the value of the Pound of Gold. 
And reckoning 16 Afes to the fllver Denarius (which 
it palled for at the time of this coinage) 14400 Ajjes 
('i) X'-nop'ion in his Expedition of Cyrus, L. I. 
'4) IMiny N<tt. Hift. L. XXXIll. c. 3* 
make 
