VII.

THE EXCHANGE-VALUE OF CYZICENE STATERS.

IN Mr. Greenwell's very complete paper on these coins, in the last number of the Chronicle, one point is treated in a less conclusive way than others, namely, their exchange-value; and to this subject I propose to return.

1

I do not quite agree with the construction which Mr. Greenwell puts on the passages of Demosthenes which he cites. First comes the passage in Demosthenes' Oration against Phormio (p. 914) which is not easy to understand. · The question raised in it is whether Phormio has or has not paid to one Lampis in Bosporus a debt of 2,600 Attic drachms. Phormio declares that he has paid it by means of 120 Cyzicene staters; to which Demosthenes replies that this is on the face of the thing absurd, for a Cyzicene stater being worth 28 Attic drachms, 120 of them are equivalent to 3,360 drachms, and so would be an overpayment of 760 drachms. Demosthenes states distinctly that the value of 28 to 1 held in Bosporus, and as we have not Phormio's speech, we have no means of checking the statement; but we may strongly suspect that Demosthenes was misleading the jury, that 28 to 1 was the ratio

1 Above, p.

17.

VOL. VII. THIRD SERIES.

B B

holding at Athens between the Cyzicene and the drachm, and so familiar to the jurors, but that the relation at Bosporus was what Phormio evidently supposed it to be, 2600, that is, nearly 22, or exactly, 21 to 1.

In two passages of Xenophon's Anabasis (v. 6, 23; vii. 3, 10) a Cyzicene a month is spoken of as the pay of mercenaries, but it does not appear from the context whether this pay was regarded as high or low. The normal pay of mercenaries in Persia at the same time was a daric a month (Anab., i. 3, 21).

With regard to the value of the daric we have more satisfactory information. We have reason to believe that from the earliest times down to those of Xenophon (Anab., i. 7, 18) a daric was equivalent to 20 Persian silver sigli of 86 grains. And as we learn from another passage that in Xenophon's time (Anab. i. 5, 6) the siglos was regarded as equal to 1 Attic drachms, we may conclude that a daric was rated in Persia as equivalent to 25 Attic drachms.

At an earlier time (B.C. 434) a didrachm of pure gold (daric) was regarded at Athens as equivalent to 28 drachms. of silver (Koehler, C. I. A., p. 160).

All our data seem to imply that the value of the daric and the Cyzicene was the same; and this probability seems to be increased when we consider the history of the introduction of silver at Cyzicus. The earliest silver was beyond doubt issued while the electrum staters were the main coinage of the city-probably about B.C. 400. The weight chosen for them is the Phoenician standard of about 232 grains, which Brandis considers as introduced in various cities of Asia Minor because of the convenient relations obtaining between silver coins of that weight and the daric-the proportion of value being 2 to 15.

That a system based on the daric should be introduced at Cyzicus seems to prove that the stater of Cyzicus was equivalent to the daric.

The identity of value of daric and Cyzicene is on the whole confirmed by the results of analysis. The daric consists of almost pure gold, but in the analysis of the Cyzicenes there is great variety. As yet Cyzicene staters have not been chemically analysed; but an attempt has been made to determine their purity by means of their specific gravity. The results of a series of weighings in water have been published by Dr. Hofmann in the Numismatische Zeitschrift for 1884 and 1885. Of five Cyzicene staters weighed by this savant the purest contained 52.25 per cent. of gold, the least pure 38-44 per cent.; the mean was nearly 46 per cent. Of five hecta and half hecta weighed, the extremes of purity were 52.07 and 42.67, the mean purity 48 per cent.

Other weighings published by Dr. Hultsch (Zeit. f. Num., xi., 165) appear to show a slightly lower standard of purity than that discovered by Dr. Hofmann. I have myself obtained accurate weighings in air and water of some Cyzicene staters, through the kind aid of Mr. H. A. Miers, of the Department of Mineralogy in the Natural History Museum. The result is as follows:

Here the first three columns give the results of the weighings, accurate to the hundredth of a grain; the fourth column gives the specific gravity. From these data I have determined the approximate proportions of gold and silver by aid of the formulæ given in Dr. Hofmann's papers. Any exact statement must be misleading, as there are two error-producing elements present in the case of every coin; we do not know the proportion of copper or other metal present in each coin, and we do not know to what extent the fact of electrum being a mixed metal may alter its specific gravity.

The result of the presence of these two elements of disturbance is that the proportion of gold actually existing in the coins is higher than appears from our calculations; but the inaccuracy is not very great, it may perhaps amount to 3 or 4 per cent.

Our experiment shows (a) that the archaic electrum coins of Cyzicus (1 and 2) are of decidedly purer alloy than the later issues; (B) of 6 staters (3 to 8) of the ordinary issues, the average composition is A. 43.5, R. 56·5; or neglecting No. 4, which is exceptionally base, N. 45, RR. 55 per cent.

Putting side by side the results of this series of weighings and that of Dr. Hofmann, the fairest conclusion seems to be that the ordinary proportion of gold and silver is 46 and 54. Taking the weight of a Cyzicene stater at 254 grains we have the following results: 46 per cent. of gold 117 grains of gold; 54 per cent. of silver = 137 grains 10 grains of gold; total value 127 grains of gold, which is almost exactly the weight of the daric.

=

Hence the results of analysis entirely confirm the equivalence of the Cyzicene and the daric. And it seems that in the time of Xenophon either of these coins passed at