Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/257

COINAGE OF DARIUS. 289 However imperfectly we are now able to follow the geograph- ical distribution of the subject nations as given by Herodotus, it is extremely valuable as the only professed statistics remain- ing, of the entire Persian empire. The arrangement of satrapies, which he describes, underwent modification in subsequent times ; at least it does not harmonize with various statements in the An- abasis of Xenophon, and in other authors who recount Persian affairs belonging to the fourth century B.C. But we find in no other author except Herodotus any entire survey and distri bution of the empire. It is, indeed, a new tendency which now manifests itself in the Persian Darius, compared with his prede- cessors : not simply to conquer, to extort, and to give away, but to do all this with something like method and system, 1 and to define the obligations of the satraps towards Susa. Another remarkable example of the same tendency is to be found in the fact, that Darius was the first Persian king who coined money : his coin, both in gold and silver, the Daric, was the earliest produce of a Persian mint. 3 The revenue, as brought to Susa in metallic money of various descriptions, was melted down separately, and poured in a fluid state into jars or earthenware vessels ; when the metal had cooled and hardened, the jar was broken, leaving a standing solid mass, from which portions were cut off as the oo 1 Plato, Lcgg. iii, 12, p. 695. 8 Herodot. iv, 166 ; Plutarch, Kimon, 10. The gold Daric, of the weight of two Attic drachmae (Stater Daricus;, equivalent to twenty Attic silver drachmas (Xenoph. Anab. i, 7, 18), would be about 16s. 3d. English. But it seems doubtful whether that ratio between gold and silver (10:1) can be reckoned upon as the ordinary ratio in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Mr. Hussey calculates the golden Daric as equal to 1, Is. 3d. English (Hussey, Essay on the Ancient Weights and Money, Oxford, 1836, ch. iv, s. 8, p. 68 ; ch. vii, a. 3, p. 103). I cannot think, with Mr. Hussey, that there is any reason for believing either the name or the coin Daric to be older than Darius son of Hystaspea Compare Boeckh, Metrologie, ix, 5, p. 129. Particular statements respecting the value of gold and silver, as ex changed one against the other, are to be received with some reserve as the basis of any general estimate, since we have not the means of comparing a great many such statements together. For the process of coinage wai imperfectly performed, and the different pieces, both of gold and silver, in circulation, differed materially in weight one with the other. Herodotoi the ratio of gold to silver aa 13 : 1.