which was found so much melted gold, that, according to the same historian, out of the splendid metallic mass were formed one hundred and seventeen golden tiles; those of the greatest magnitude, six spans in length; those of the smallest, three spans ; but all one span in thickness.* There cannot, indeed, be adduced a more convincing proof of the unequalled wealth of the Lydians, nor of the transmutative power of ACTIVE WIDELY-DIFFUSED commerce, than the astonishing relation which we find in Herodotus, of the wealth of Pythias, a merchant of that country, who was enabled by that commerce, in after ages, when Lydia flourished in meridian splendor, under the pow erful protection of the imperial dynasties of Persia, to present Darius, as we have before had occasion to remark, with a plane-tree and a vine of wrought gold; and, as he had thus shewn his munificence to one sovereign, so did he not less display hospitality blended with munificence to the other; for, when Xerxes marched with his innumerable army against Greece, the same Pythias not only entertained, at Celænæ, in Phrygia, the whole of this vast army, but made him a proffer, towards the charges of carrying on that war, of two thousand talents of silver, and three millions nine

*See Herodotus, lib. i. p. 47, et seq.

hundred and ninety-three thousand gold Darics. With which noble act of generosity Xerxes was so charmed, that instead of accepting the proffer, he ordered seven thousand additional Darics to be given to Pythias from the royal treasury, to make up the round sum of fourmillions in gold.

In the second place, it should be remembered that the whole amassed wealth of Egypt felt the plundering hand of Cambyses, whose vindictive fury led him not merely to plunder, but to destroy, the temples of Egypt; and that, at the burning of that of Thebes, the remains of the wealth saved from the flames amounted to three hundred talents of gold and two thousand three hundred talents of silver: but the richest article among the spoils of that temple was the stupendous circle of gold, inscribed with the zodiacal characters and astronomical figures, that encircled the sepulchre of Osymandes. At Memphis, also, then the capital of the empire, he obtained, in the ancient palace of the Pharaohs, such an immense treasure in bullion, and ornamental vases, and statues of gold and silver, representing gods and deified men, as perhaps no palace ever before contained; and many of these statues were restored, some ages afterwards, to the transported Egyptians, by Ptolemy, the son of Philadelphus, when his

armies had vanquished Antiochus, the third sovereign of the dynasty of the Seleucidæ, and on whom, in consequence, the Egyptians bestowed the illustrious title of Euergetes, or the Beneficent. Such were the sources from which, independent of its flourishing commerce, the Persian emperors drew that enormous quantity of treasure which was necessary to sustain the unparalleled magnificence of their courts of Susa and Persepolis, and which in the end, was doomed to reward the military ardour of the invading Greeks.

Previously, however, to our following Alexander in the rapid career of his triumphs over the humbled sovereign of Persia, we must digress a little from our subject, which is properly the bullion of the ancients, to one not less important and interesting, their coined money, which, according to the general judgment of medallic writers, was not in existence before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus; though others, on the credit of Herodotus, fix the first coinage in Asia to the very early periods of the Lydian empire. In the course of the following strictures I may possibly be able to produce arguments for supposing money to have been coined and current in eras still more remote.

ON THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF COINED

MONEY.

THE first commerce of mankind was carried on without the medium of any money, .stamped or unstamped; it simply consisted in the barter of one commodity for another, according to the respective wants of the parties concerned in it. The greater or less urgency of the want, in general, fixed the higher or inferior price of the commodity; but the eye was often the sole judge, and quantity the chief rule of determining. There is a curious account in Cosmas, called Indicopleustes, of the ancient mode of carrying on traffic between the inhabitants of Axuma, the capital of Æthiopia, and the natives of Barbaria, a region of Africa near the sea-coast, where were gold mines, which will give us a tolerable idea of this primitive kind of commerce. Every other year, says he, a caravan of merchants, to the number of five hundred, sets off from Axuma to traffic with the Barbarians for gold. They carry with them cattle, salt, and iron, to barter for that gold. Upon their arrival at the mines, they encamp on a particular spot, and expose their cattle,

with the salt and iron, to the view of the natives. The Barbarians approach the mart, bringing with them small ingots of gold; and, after surveying the articles exposed to sale, place on or near the animal, salt, or iron, which they wished to purchase, one or more of the ingots, and then retire to a place at some distance. The proprietor of the article, if he thought the gold sufficient, took it up and went away; and the purchaser also secured and carried away the commodity he desired. If the gold was not deemed sufficient, the Axumite let it remain affixed to the article, till either more ingots were added to satisfy the full demand for it, or the first offered taken away. Their total ignorance of each other's language rendered this silent mode necessary, and the whole business terminated in five days, when the Axumite caravan departed homewards, a journey of not less than six months.* In these compacts, however, the eye must often have been deceived; and the bulk of an article was not always the proper criterion of its worth, since some articles of great magnitude were of trifling value, while others of inferior bulk were in the highest estimation. It was also impossible, in many instances, to divide, without spoiling, the commodity in request, according

* Vide Cosmas Indic. page 138, et seq.