C 523 ] 
metals as pure as the refiners of thofe times could 
make them : for though Pliny mentions two inftances 
of the contrary at Rome (i), the example was not 
follovvcd, till the later Emperors debafed the coin : 
and his expreffion, rnifceiiiur cera faljce monetce^ (hews 
he thought the pra£lice illegal. 
Though the ancients had not the art of refining fil- 
ver, in fo great perfedlion as it is now pradlifed, yet, as 
they mixed no bafe metal with it, and effeemed what 
they coined to be fine (ilver, I (hall value it as fuch. 
Sixty-two Englifli Shillings are coined out of 
1 1 ounces 2 p. wt. Troy of fine (ilver, and r8 p. wt. 
allay. Therefore, the Proy grain of fine (ilver is 
worth ^V-rths of a Farthing. Hence the Attic 
Drachm of 66 1 grains will be found worth a little 
more than Ninepence farthing j the Obole, a little 
more than Three halfpence ^ and the Chalcus, about 
~ of a. Farthing. 
Buj, for the redudfion of large fums to Englifli 
money, the following numbers are more exa6t. 
The AtticgDrachm 
The Mif]a . . 
The Talent 
£• . •S’* 
. o . o . 9,286 
• 3 • ^ 7 • 
• ^3 ^ • 3 , • 
Hence the Mina exprefied in Pounds Sterling and 
decimals of a Pouna will be jT, ^,869 j the Talent 
4'' 232,15. 
^ The Romans reckoned by J/Jh before they coined 
filver, after which they kept *their accounts in Sef- 
terces. The word Sefiertius is an adjedive, and figni- 
(i) Pi'iny Nat. Hift. L, XXXIII. C. 3. ,?C C. 9. 
X X X 2 
