been deceived; and the bulk of an article was not always the proper criterion of its worth, fince fome articles of great magnitude were of trifling value, while others of inferior bulk were in the highest estimation. It was also impoffible, in many inftances, to divide, without spoiling, the commodity in request, according to the proportion fuited to the mutual wants and ability of the buyer and feller. It became abfolutely neceffary, therefore, to have recourse to some general medium in commerce, and that medium varied according to the produce of the country in which it was carried on. In fome it confifted of shells, in others of cocoa-nuts, in others of leather or paper; fo that, if the reader will excufe the joke, we fee a paper-currency was established in the earlieft ages. Such was the first rude money, a word which explains itself, being derived to us from moneta, fince it advised one of the price of an article.

The cowries, or white fhells, at this day used as currency in India, and the fmall Siamese coins, in form refembling nuts, are, in all probability, relics of this ancient usage before metals were fo generally adopted as the representative signs of the value of articles of

commerce.

commerce. It was the beauty, firmness, and durability, of metals, that occafioned them to be fo adopted, but it was many ages before they were stamped with any impreffion defcriptive of their weight or value. It was the custom of the merchant, as in fact is ftill practised in China, - to carry a certain portion of gold or filver into the market, and, having previously furnished himself with proper instruments and scales, he cut off and weighed out, before the vender of the commodity wanted, as many pieces as were proportioned to the purchase of it. The great inconvenience and delay occafioned by this mode of carrying on commerce, foon induced the merchant to bring with him pieces of money, already portioned out, of different weights and value, and stamped with the marks necessary to distinguish them. There is very great reafon to believe that the earliest coins ftruck were used both as weights and money; and indeed this circumftance is in part proved by the very names of certain of the Greek and Roman coins: thus the Attic mina and the Roman libra equally fignify a pound; and the of the Greeks, fo called from weighing, is decifive as to this point. The Jewifh fhe

στατης

kel.

kel was also a weight as well as a coin, three thousand shekels, according to Arbuthnot, being equal in weight and value to one talent.* This is the oldest coin of which we any where read; for, it occurs in Genefis, ch. xxiii. v. 16, and exhibits direct evidence against those who date the first coinage of money fo low as the time of Cræfus or Darius; it being there exprefly faid, that Abraham weighed to Epbron four hundred fhekels of filver, current money with the merchant.

Having confidered the origin and high antiquity of coined money, we proceed to confider the stamp or impreffion which the first money bore. The primitive race of men being fhepherds, and their wealth confisting in their cattle, in which Abraham is faid to have been rich, when, for greater convenience, metals were substituted for the commodity itself, it was natural for the representative sign to bear impreffed the object which it represented; and thus accordingly the earliest coins were stamped with the figure of an ox or SHEEP. For proof that they actually did thus impress them, we can again appeal to the high autho

* Arbuthnot on Ancient Coins, p. 39.

VOL. VII.

H

rity

rity of Scripture; for there we are informed that Jacob bought a parcel of a field for an hundred pieces of money. Genefis, ch. xxxiii.

v. 19.

The original Hebrew term, translated pieces of money, is KESITOTH, which fignifies LAMBS, with the figure of which the metal was doubtless stamped. We have a second inftance of this practice in the ancient Greek coin, denominated Bus, the ox; and we meet with a third in the old brafs coins of Rome, (whence I before obferved the public treasury was called ærarium,) ftamped, before that city began to use gold and filver money, with the figure of a sheep, whence the Latin name pecunia. Signatum eft notis pecudum; unde et pècunia appellata. In procefs of time, when empires were formed, and men crowded into cities, coins came to be impreffed with different devices, allufive either to the hiftory of its founder, fome remarkable event in the hiftory of the nation, their accidental fituation, or the predominant devotion of the country. Thus the fhekel of the Jews had Aaron's rod budding, with a smoaking cenfer. The Tyrians had their Petræ Ambrofiæ, and ferpen

* Plinii Nat. Hift. lib. xxxiii. cap. 3.

tine emblems, of which fome curious examples may be seen in the fifth engraving of this volume. The Athenian coins bore impreffed an owl, and Pallas. The maritime race, who inhabited the Peloponnefus, had a teftudo, or sheli, as their fymbol; the Perfians, practifed in the ufe of the bow, an archer, which is the conftant device on the Darics; the Theffalians, a horse; the Byzantines, fituated on the Thracian Bofphorus, a dolphin twisted about a trident.

Although I have combated the idea of the Lydian or Perfian money being the first that was ever coined, I am induced, by the general and united atteftation of ancient claffical writers, perfectly to acquiefce in the judgment of medallifts, that the coins of those nations were the firft ftamped with the effigies of the reigning prince; and the priority of coining money is, with great propriety and probability, affigned to Crofus, the wealthieft monarch of Asia, when his capital was invaded and taken by Cyrus, who forbore to plunder that rich city, on the exprefs condition, that both the monarch and the inhabitants should, without reserve, bring forth their whole amaffed wealth, which must have amounted to a proH h 2 digious