The Origins of Money, Considered from the Economic and Historical Point of View — 1897

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 147 Paris, a gold ingot worth twenty francs by weight, the state, which takes care of the typing and has the mono- pole, must give me a piece of -20 francs. If he alters the metal; if he no leaves, for example, whereas for 10 francs, replacing the surplus with copper or other vile material, he doesn't give me back actually (juc 10 IVancs on '20 that I deposited to his monetary office : he abuses harmed con- tiance, he steals from me, he is constituted at the state of fiuix coin changer. We grabbed by there, the This odious thing and despicable which is attached to the profession of counterfeiter, whether exercised by an individual or by the au- public authority. However, he arrives (the public does not immediately realize that the false money is made to its detriment : he ac- picks, for a while even, the bad currency as easily as good ; the title of species seems to him all the more indifferent that he him is impossible of the check immediately. He does not realize that money is no longer a equivalent, because that she preserves always the second of its functions, that of vehicle or their when he is monetized. We will see further that these oscilla- lations, due to external causes, cannot have and do not have in reality only a very small amplitude; they gravitate very closely around the legal value of the currency. If it is otherwise, people who engage in precious metals trading in puller would leave very quickly to the great detriment of monetized circulation silence, - which exceptionally happened in times of crisis. In the normal state, these oscillations have no influence on currency, we are allowed, in a presentation like this, not to take it into account.

148 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. sign of exchanges. If we were not warned by a prescription administrative, that such or such parts are false, don't must not be received in circulation, and above all will not be admitted into the state coffers to which each none of us has winged it all too often , he us would be indifferent to using these bad parts or of good. Gela is if true that these bad parts have circulated in our holder currency, coast next to each other with the good ones, until day when a decree from the head of state removed them of traffic, and criticized. It's this attitude indifferent of public that the counterfeiters exploited, either in the period of private coinage, either in that of public coinage, and of which they are sometimes so strange gement abused. Before going any further far away, tf\let's of explain it; we will see then the discomfort social that it inevitably brings with it. For understand acceptance by the audience of ingots or coins whose title is no- torment altered, or, this who comes to the same thing, of currencies including the nominal value is super- lower than the metallic value, like our mon- current silver nest, he must, first place, reckon with the tyranny of Thabilide. Many social phenomena, many anomalies suran- born in our uses don't are explained that by a habit formed and continued instinctively for generations. Scholars who would like reform and simplify spelling French,

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 149 by example, and get rid of the words of our language of a crowd of parasitic letters, know some something : they will not prevail, despite the relative logic and probable wisdom of their reasonings, against the strength of the habit. Those who, no less well intentioned, propose to reform our heavy and cumbersome mon- copper plate are mainly met with objections taken from habit contracted by the public of use current parts. Traditions and conventions social are often stronger than the laws, and sometimes you have to several generations for uproot those same who have become the more unreasoned- bles. In no matter this phenomenon does not break out in a more striking way than with regard to monetary circulation. In the last century, the coins of the Roman Empire circulated throughout core, as additional pieces, throughout the Orient, and it was commonly used in Africa when we conquered Algeria. As well as Mr. Stanley Jevons observes, “the habit has almost as much power to maintain the use of a representative currency that for of real metallic coins. People who have summer accustomed for a long time to give in pay- lies, without suffering loss, some leaves of paper, will continue to look at them as currency satisfactory so much that their trust will not have been shaken by a somewhat harsh shock. This can get to the point where a piece of paper

150 THE ORIGINALS OF THE CURRENCY. own, bearing the commitment to pay a Louis, will really be preferred to the beautiful gold piece that he promises. Scotland's traffic is proof palpable of this assertion; and we can say as much of Norway where, until 1874, there was no no gold at all in circulation, which consists of mainly placed notes of one, five and ten dollars » (1), although for a long time already the government would have issued beautiful parts gold. We cites travelers who were unable do accept new currencies in countries where they were unknown, good that they were better than the cash in use. The currency, even bad, therefore continues for a long time cir- ass, especially because of sound appearance familiar. We have already cited the tbalers with the effigy of Marie- Tberesa to which the Abyssinians are accustomed and which, by routine, they prefer to any other kind of currency. Their respect for tradition goes so far that they se refuse to admit variations of exchange for the money with which these thalere are manufactured. Such is one of the reasons why the electrum staters of the gold wielders of the coast of Asia Minor continued so long to be accepted in commercial circulation, despite their title so variable and sometimes so low; it's for the same reason as the coins the most incom- fashions and the most bulky, such as the (1) Stanley Jevons, the currency, p. 157.

THE ORIGINS OF L.\ CURRENCY. 151 Peloponnesian iron pins and heavy tiles bronze from central Italy, remained in circulation, next to better and more species chests of drawers which the public authority had inaugurated the show. It is again by the strength usually that the third of a Merovingian penny of pale gold have summer accepted at populations who, during a so long continuation of generations, had summer accustomed to receiving gold coin so pure and so beautiful who wore Feffigy sacred jackets reurs Romans. The other reason which makes one accept, during which- that time at less, the currency altered also although the good one, is designated by Economists under the name of Gresham's law, the first who formula. It is stated as follows : The bonna money cannot chase away bad; it is, at contrary, the bad currency who hunting the good. This true principle , which goes straight against of the theory of 31. Herbert Spencer refuted at the end of our last chapter, is based on the ob- service of what happened in all time and all the countries . and he explains itself easily from that we think about the economic role of money. Money is indeed a commodity, that is to say something that can be bought because of its value real; real; but, unlike other merchants say, we don't buy it to consume it, keep, destroy it. If I buy food, clothes, a horse, a building, it's for use it directly, take advantage of it, use it

152 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. in a word, to the best of my interests; I can, in my use of it will do, destroy them or improve, depending on the case. But the currency is very different : I cannot consume it at my profit, alter it, or improve it; she is only temporarily in my hands, and when I transmit to others, she is neither more nor less good as when I received it (1). This instrument, intermediary of any trade has thus, competed rement with its intrinsic value, a value trustee, which, as we have said, can se support a certain time, then even that the intrinsic value has suffered a depreciation. From here comes what matters to me, in such an occurrence- ence, it is not so much about having good currency, that to be certain that we the will receive, when I the will deliver in payment, with as much of ease that I ai put myself to accept it. I am repeats everywhere, and this is only too certain, that our parts money are a bad my- nae since the metallic ling-ot which represents the room of 5 francs is not sold in reality that 2 fr. 50 in commerce. But I didn't have any, so much that I could pass off as 5 francs the room that has this nominal value and that I have received for this amount. Following this order of ideas, the banker, the goldsmith, the monetary which manufactures the currency has interest to alter at least the title otherwise weight; sound (1) J.-B. Sà\, Complete course in political economy, t. I, p. 372- 373.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 153 profit is bigger. The one who will buy the currency at the manufacturer also finds his interest in have a less good currency aloi, because it costs less : everything is for him from have it accepted in payments that he has to carry out. “The currency is made for cir- culer. We need money, not to keep it in his pocket , but for the pass into the neighbor's pocket ; and less the change we make accepting the neighbor is good, the greater the profit that we made yourself. Thus, there is a trend natural to the debasement of the currency metal- lique (in its manufacture, a trend which cannot be combatted only by constant surveillance of the government (1). » III In the period of private coinage, this sur- vigilance was lacking, and no authority came then check the title and the weight of ingots stamped or already monetized, put in cir- ass by handlers of precious metals. The client being deceived, but appearing to comply mode of fraud committed in sound detriment, it's in it's in vain that we would have appeals to the feelings dignity and righteousness of the manufacturer and that we would have put in relief the shame that resurfaces (1) Stanley Jevons, The Mint, p. 68-69.

154 THE ORIGINS OF COIN. on unmasked counterfeiters. The trend natural to the alteration of circulating species occurs manifested everywhere, and everywhere she got worse by the day in day with a speed without brake or measure. Emboldened by the success, bankers, goldsmiths or monetary companies struggled to envy, constantly altering more their coins, at each new broadcast. We notice this phenomenon in the species fi-apped by mining companies of the California, in the third of penny golden the era Merovingian, in the coinage delectrum from the west coast of Minor Asia in the seventh century BCE. Moreover, all the gold handlers searched with greed the old pieces, of better quality than the new ones, to remelt them and convert them into cash less good, keeping for their benefited part of the metal pure. In the Greek cities in Asia Minor, no only the coins of electrum of which we have previously listed a few speci- mens, are not always calibrated very rigorously ingly following the normal weight, but the metal is altered in the proportions the most variable. Some are almost yellow like pure gold, if although we can hesitate to the qualify my- coins of gold or coins of electrum : they contain sometimes lies more than 95% gold on less than 5% money. For others, there is barely 5% gold against 95% money. We can even cite a stater which, according to hygrometric weighings

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 153 to which we submitted it, only 2% gold on 98% silver, and this coin is the same types and has the same external appearance, except a shade of color, that others staters where the proportion gold exceeds 60% (1). Between these extreme, the scale of variations of title of election staters Iriini from Asia Minor is continue, without that we can fix a proportion special to such or such city, at such and such a time (2). And that we don't do not pretend that this inextricable disorder in the law of parts must be attributed to nature various of the metal provided by the sands of Pactole or the veins of Tmolus and Sipylus. The Elders have known, from the most remote antiquity , refine gold, separate it from the money and change in a word the nature originating of nuggets or of glitter of this metal (3). Long before Croesus, we say- tinted with great care pure gold (ypj^cç) of For white or electrum (ÀEjy.bç -/pjji;). If so the quality of the metal of the primitive staters varies from one so strange way, it's not helplessness of metallurgy which must be blamed, it's the calculation interest of monetary and public indifference (1) E. Babelon, in the Numismatic Review, 1895, p. 303; the same, Numismatic mixtures, t. III, p. 99. (2) For development, see especially : K. B. Hofmann, in Numismatics Zeitschrift of Vienna, 1883, p. 1 et seq. ; — B. Head, in the Numismatic Clironicle, 1875, p. 254 et seq., and 1887, p. 277 et seq. ; — the same, Catalog, etc. /o«m, Introd., p. XXV et seq. (3) See on this subject J. Brandis, Das Munz-Mass-und Gewicht- wesen in Vorderasien, p. 163-164; — Schliemann, £lios, transl. Egger, pp. 317, 575, 622 and 627.

156 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. blic who, for too long, admitted into circulation commercial the parts altered also although those whose metal was very close to pure gold. We went so far as to make filled coins, that is to say pieces whose core is lead and the gold or electrum envelope (1). The offices numismatics contain of these false mon- ancient works (which remind us of a anecdote told by Herodotus (2) about tyrant of Samos, Polycrates. Around 530, the Lacedés- Monians were besieging the capital of the island since forty days, and maybe they would have managed to seize it, when Polycrates resolved to buy their retirement. “It is reported, said Herodotus, but This is an unfounded statement, that Polycrates had a great name struck in lead, then gilded. bi'e de coins of his country, that he the gave them and that he decided them in this way from (3). » The era Merovingian we provides, thus as we saw above, similar examples of sauced, altered, stuffed gold coins : not is need to insist on it again. Nor will we speak of the miserable tokens that the speculators americrins in arri- are intended to be minted as currency. (1) E. Babe.on, in the Revue numismatique, 1895, p. 3'il-32'2; the same, Numismatic mixtures, t. 111, p. 118. (2) Hey odol, III, 5G. (3; See E. Babeloii. in /fei«enMWW?Hrt/t«/ue, 1894, p. 273; — the same, Numismatic mixtures, t. 111. p. 36.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 157 In China and in Vietnam, alteration of spades- coin and coin knives happened, no only in the composition of the metal, but in weight and in shape; and, here again, the ha- bititude of the populations played a role essential. Let's give the floor to Mr. J. Silvestre : “At the time of the great invasion of 214 BC Christ, China still used coins of bronze having the shape of long knives 0™.135 millimeters, carrying on the blade the ca- minh character, and provided with a ring at the end of the handle for put on. Under the 9' dynasty (Tsy, from the year 479 to 501 of the Christian era), we also served coins of the same metal and same shape, but 0.180 millimeters long, with a large ring at the end of the handle, and the Tsy Ku-u Hou characters. The shape of these currencies changed quite naturally : the handle was sup- awarded and the ring came to adapt to the foot of the blade ; but, to keep the piece the same weight, its thickness was increased and the ring became a puck flat with a central hole for the passage of the link. Later, the people was if well accustomed to the circulation of these objects, easy to handle and transport, as well as preservation sure, that he had arrived not to the more go crazy like the equivalent real of the value of things, but only as a suitable value functional, fiduciary in some way; we then live, for the greater convenience of people, available rattle this thick blade, last remnant of the antique

158 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. knife, and the washer with a square hole was alone preserved » (1). It must be added that the metal of knives was soaked and extremely fragile, like iron casting, so that often, in passing hand in hand, the blade and the handle of knife broke at the junction point of the ring; thus, the ring remained alone slipped into lipature and still continued to pass for a whole knife. By seeing the necks- levels represented only by their ring, we ends up melting only rings without blade nor handle. This is the origin of the Chinese sapeque, flat, circular, with a large square hole in the center : its shape is like this the result of abuse, deprivation rioration. Soon, metal was also altered of which she was done; done; after having copper summer and in iron, it ends up being made of zinc, so well that its going- their intrinsic no longer equaled even a third of nn cent of our currency. Whatever be the particularities that pre- feel, depending on the times and places, these alterations gradual changes of the currency, they proceed everywhere of the same principle, and these are reasons of the same order which made the audience insen- susceptible to fraud including he was, deep down, a victim. Either by virtue of force usually or by sort of tacit agreement, or even by a law (1) J. Silvestre, Notes for use in research and the classroom ment of coins and medals of Annam, p. 44-45 (Saigon, 1883, in-8°).

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 159 formally a group of individuals trading in- seems, a city, a province, even a nation everything whole, can well, giving a certain time, settle for a currency degraded and who is not more than a sign conventional. But this worthless currency cannot circulate outside, be exchanged, of equal weight, for a ingot or a good currency a law ; she would not know, in one word, serve (intermediate for the trade exterior, because that there, she does not benefit from its ([quality of sign, the only one she kept, no longer being a real equivalent. “ There is, said Mr. I- See, an essential point where money represents tative differs from metal money : that's what the first don't circulates not outside the limits of district or country where it is legal tender and usual... The only currency capable to be actually exported for pay a stupid debt towed backwards traders foreigners, it's the currency metallic to value full » (1). Mr. Léon Poinsard said the same : “The currency trustee don't enjoys, in rule, that of a course limited; metallic species have a circulated internationally, based on their intrinsic value seque » (2). We understand by there why, here again, the development of trade was one of the agents essential who contributed to discredit in (1) st. Jevons, the Mint, p, 175. (2) L. Poinsard, ?a Monetary Question, p.32.

160 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. opinion, to decry) private money as well alté- ree. Between them, the Merovingian Franks could just exchange this fiat currency that we talked about and recognize its value much higher than that that she actually had. But he doesn't was hardly possible to do ac- accept similar cash from foreigners with which they traded. The Lombards and the Visigotlîs, for example, among whom the mon- naie was never deprived, but always remained official next Roman tradition, would not have could receive, for its nominal value, the currency altered frankness, especially since they themselves do not only ever minted good coins aloi. They could not agree to exchange, equality of weight, their good money against bad. The alteration of species in Merovin Gaul- gienne therefore threw it bigger disruption in foreign trade. It is possible for us, among us French people, in 1896, to continue to accept for 5 francs our big silver coin, good that we know that the metal ingot used to make it is not worth in commerce only 2 fr. 50 or so. But he is not in the power of no law of have it accepted by abroad for this same value of 5 francs. Out of borders, the nominal value of a currency counts more : we don't accept it only weight and for its commercial metallic value. And likewise, in France, foreign currencies who do not have classes there, are only received there for their

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 161 intrinsic value (1). 11 in was already like this in Greece and Rome, for the same reasons; the others ers tell us that foreign currencies to a country or a city are only accepted in weight and like ingots (2). The enormous difference between the value metallicjue and the face value of our coin of 5 franks, brings together this one of currencies- sign, representative and fiat currencies : she has some all the disadvantages without offer the same advantages. Therefore, in 1876, we had to sus- hang the minting of this currency : without this prun- tooth measure legislative, made necessary by the lowering of the commercial price of money, the France would have had to endure the crisis that went through the peoples whose metallic currency has been altered ree. Indeed, the ingot which represents the room of 5 francs, worth only 2 fr. 50 in commerce, if the minting of silver had remained free, we would have seen all handlers of precious metals wear their money to the Hotel currencies ; of an ingot bought by them for 2 fr. 50, they would have flipped a coin of five francs: 1st game, as we commonly say, would have been worth it, and this is, moreover, what began to occur when the suspension of the strike was ordered. If we hadn't put a brake at this coinage legal , we would be flooded of (1) A. deMalarce, Coins, weights and measures of the various props of the world, p. 4. (2) Xenophon, IIspl TtpôaoÔMv; — Pliny, Nat. hist., XXXIII, 13. — Cf. Eckhel, Doctrinanumorum veterinn, t.I, Introd., p. lxxxv.

162 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. silver coin ; all the speculators in me- rates, foreign and national, would have wanted to pro- make the capital gain currently imposed on this coined metal. Moreover, like our pieces of ar- people travel abroad only by weight and not for their nominal value, the speculators would be well guarded from crossing the border none of them : they would have exchanged them, depending the right strict from everyone, against our pieces golden who, they have a nominal value equal to their value real ; they us would have left four parts of 5 francs in money, that is to say in reality ten francs only, against one piece gold worth really and everywhere 20 francs; in short, the operation is simple, they would have drained and taken away carried our good gold, in exchange for their money depreciated, and we would have seen, to our great detriment ment, the application of Gresham's theorem : “The bad money causes the good to emigrate to Tétran- ger. » This situation would have inevitably led to a extremely serious economic crisis. The countries where the currency has a nominal value above of his metallic value, like the Republic Argentina, have due, as us, suspend Ja mint their currency money for avoid the even multiplication of the coinage of this metal debased (1). In Annam, the poor quality of sapeques, complicated by the scarcity of gold and silver in (I)L. PoinsardjZa Monetary question, p. 21, footnote.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 163 this country, ends up killing the business. “She had, said Mr. Sylvester, ended up moving away from Anna ports- moths European ships who came there like- mercer. It is said that the Saint-Michel, building from Bordeaux, having come to Touranne in 1832, loaded with goods from Europe, and the emperor having done there do, on his behalf, shopping the amount of which amounted to six or seven thousand francs, we fit payment in currency copper. The mandarin-treasurer don't wanted hear none complaint from the supercargo, Mr. Borel, which demanded ingots money, for this good reason that the sapeques scents didn't have courses only in Annam. The very threat of referring to the French consul in Singapore and to the government their English could not him make gain cause (1). » In the period of private coinage, the authority not intervening not to hinder the show of low-grade currencies, that is to say currencies whose the nominal value was much higher than the value their reality, it was necessary, to remedy the evil, to wait dre that the public learned, at his expense and by his own experience, to realize the serious harm which him was caused. When the mar- chands noticed that they had to undergo a more or less severe loss in their relationships with foreign countries, their interests being at stake, they made difficulties to henceforth receive the (1) J. Silvestre, op. cit., p. 57.

164 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. bad quality coins; they refused them the same that the State naturally refused to accept them for payment of taxes. The public, disillusioned, understood then that the currency we gave him in exchange for its goods do not was more the equivalent, and that he found himself, in reality, frustrated very of a more or less considerable part of the real price that he counted receive: in turn, he stopped to have trust in this currency of bad luck. What followed was a very serious economic crisis. ves. The citizens first sought to defend themselves dre as best they could, against this deception of which they were victims in each of their transactions ; in their contracts, they stipulated that the sums who were due to them would be, as the say so often the Merovingian texts, acquitted in pure gold coin and proven {solidos probos). All these precautions were in vain ; the disorder only did increase every day more; the social relationships of individual to individual were become also troubled, also difficult that when a State has launched, profusely, into the circulation lation, a paper money who cease to have the confidence of public. The company everything whole se found delivered mercilessly into the hands of what we today we would call stock traders, that is to say precious metals traders who calculate milks carefully the value metallic of each piece to know to what rate they can were going to receive it and if it would be advantageous for them to

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 165 melt it or export it. In short, the system of private coinage and free has become, everywhere, the counterfeiting system ; this is how, what What does Mr. Herbert Spencer think of it? he would be the worst systems. Far away to be the convenient instrument transactions, private currency or the fake currency, which is all one, had become and in would still become the scourge. Everyone's experience the centuries are there to attest that the false mon- nay is one of larger calamities who can overwhelm a people. This is what proclaims, from 1370, in his Treatise on Coins, Nicholas Oresme, the wise advisor to the King Charles V (1) ; it's what Copernicus says no less clearly in beginning of sixteenth century : “ Some innumerable as are the scourges which ordinarily bring the decadence of kingdoms, of princes pautés and republics, the four following are, to my reviews, the more formidable : the say- rope, the plague, the sterility of the earth and the deterioration ration of the currency. For the three first, the evidence means that no one ignores them. For the fourth, few people care about it. For what? because it is not of a single shot, but small little by little, through an almost latent action, which he ruins the State (2). » The system coinage private, by the alter- gradual ration of species he transmitted, in (1) L. Wolowski. Treatise on the first invention of mon- by Nicole Oresme, p. xix and xl. (2) L. Wolowski, op. cit., p. 49.

166 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. had arrived there. He made people curse the currency and made impractical this instrument of the ges and standard of all values. It was urgent to put an end to fraud. Every citizen, ruined, demoralized, appealed with all his wishes to the intervention of the public authority. IV Three causes essential contributed to giving ner to ingots stamped by the public authority, the preponderance over the market and made them pre- refer to ingots stamped by individuals. (^is, in first place, like us we have it already said, the role essential to the public power that : she must defend each against the injustice tice; in she is supposed embody fairness and the righteousness, and the ingots it score a penny cipher are reputed to best a law that those of a bank or merchant. The populations are naturally worn to have more confidence in her than in anyone else. Do not admit so much herself in the coffers the State that ingots of pure metal, it must, one supposes , hold honored to issue, in return, cash skills superior to those of metal handlers. (^'is, secondly, the abundance relative of ingots marked with the type or name of the prince. The Head of State receives tax revenue in pure ingots which will come out of its crates that

THE ORIGINS OF THE MO.NWAIE. 167 transformed and carrying sound emblem; often the exploitation of the mines is carried out for its benefit; a happy war brings into its coffers the proceeds of plunder or the sums specified by treated. In general therefore, the prince has, at his disposal tion, a greater quantity of precious metal that none banker or merchant. This metal is stamped, then released into commercial circulation cial in the multiple circumstances where the funds of the State are forced to open up : acquisitions miscellaneous, payments of civil servants or soil- dates, public works, voluntary gratifications, etc. The ancient kings of Phrygia like Midas, those of Lydia like Alyattes and Croesus, those of Persia like Darius, likewise the oriental monarchs today's rates, had in reserve, in their treasures, enormous quantities of ingots golden and of money that they brought out or monetized gradually and as needed (1). These reservations, cjuand they entered traffic, it was under in the form of ingots or in the form of coins, were of pure metal, because mercantile armies naries, by example, would not have not supported to be paid in a debased currency, and if he arrives befits the prince to want to reward one of his subjects or some stranger, he would have committed a indicates mystification by giving a gift of a metal vile under the golden name or money. In short, in the (I) See above, p. 138. Compare J. Silveslie, op. cit., pp. 55, 58 and 63.

168 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. free coinage system, the best mon- naie is normally the one who bears the mark of the head of state. In third place, finally, in the trade externally, the prince's guarantee inspired a con- engagement more big that the one of a particular. The head of the state being more known at outside that no citizen, his currency had, if we can let us express ourselves thus, a greater scope; his signature had more credit than any other, in the eyes of a stranger; the confidence measure that we could have in he in this respect was more notorious. Thus, the role attributed to head of the state, who must protect its subjects against theft, abundance metals that he is able to stamp with his name and the purposes for which he is obliged to use it, the notoriety of which he cums, bigger than that of an individual : these are the reasons which naturally carried the people and the traffickers as to preferentially place their trust in the ingots bearing as estani|)ille, that is to say as a guarantee, the name or emblem of the car public authority or its representative. If the state currency could thus benefit from the market, by following the natural development of the monetary invention, of a credit greater than that of individuals, we understand that we had everywhere recourse to the intervention of the state for put an end to the disorder of free coinage. In the interest of the public and at their spontaneous request

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 169 tired, the authority of the head of state intervened to remedy to Alteration of currencies. Strong of principle according to which he must help everyone and pro- protection against injustice, the State showed itself all the more more eager to intervene that he y had profit for him. He took it upon himself to stamp all the ingots, those of individuals as well as the his own : its sole and exclusive brand was admitted to the market. Defense was made to any citizen to counter- to find out for himself the metals he could have in its possession; he was forced to take them to the officer public cinema; there, we checked and standardized their title, we cut them according to a common rule and invariable, then they were stamped, as a guarantee, of the symbol or name of the State or its re- presenting. In this operation, the State had already the advantage of eliminating adulterated currency which competed, at less cost, with its own ; but furthermore, in return for the service he rendered at public, he took from the ingots brought to sound pharmacy one right of manufacture or assembly nayage, which in past centuries was called the seigneiiriage and brewing. Everyone except the counterfeiters who were targeted, therefore had interest in the new regime, the audience and the state : that's why things happened the way they did in all countries and in all periods of history tory. We thus arrive, through a gradual development dual and normal, to the conception of money such 10

170 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. that the advanced civilizations admitted it. In the system of currency guaranteed by the United States state, every citizen enjoys the ability to obtain gold bars and money and to make them trans- form into currency, under the alone condition of address, for labor, to restore- lies that the law designated to manage the monopoly of this manufacture. It is the State exclusively which takes care of the care of prune, to stamp and regularize the title of ingots golden and money that individuals bring to it. In all civilized countries, the strike of the mon- nay is considered an essential attribution tielle of public authority; the latter can directly administer the money factory or the put in management under its control, or even it can address private industry; but what that either the system adopted, nowhere is it departs from its rigorous and exclusive right of request and of verification; nowhere the particles links cannot manufacture directly and outside of her. “Like the currency, who is a mar- commodity like the others, said Mr. Courcelle-Se- neuil, serves to measure and express values, either in current transactions or in long-term credit contracts, it matters a lot blow that the manufacturing of the parts be also united shape and as little changing as possible. It's why this production, linked to the existence and to the observation of almost all contracts, has summer placed under the protection of the power responsible for

THE (iHli.l.NKS DE L.\ Mu.N.NAlE. 171 preserve and to execute the contracts li. » Faithful to our observation method social, we must, to present, do see how the considerations that we come to expose so- mainly emerge from facts. We need my- place in history the substitution of currency from state to that of individuals. This is what we will use some examples taken from everywhere, in rising of those who are closer to us to the oldest. In the United States, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “to oppose a dike to the overflow of the pieces at the bottom title, the legislation ture of Massachusetts Bay established, perhaps by based on the charter granted to the first settlers by Jacques P"" in 1606, a hotel currencies for the minting of one shilling coins, 12 and of .'i pence, whose title should be the same than that of English coins of the same value” (2). This is the first legislative measure adopted by the American colonists to obviate the incon- come from counterfeit money. The regulations and the laws had to follow one another quickly to ar- lead, ultimately, to the suppression of the mon- private swimming became if defective : “In 1672, for the purposes of prudence and guarantee, the legislation lature ordered that, to circulate in the colony, (1) Courcelle-Seneuil, Economic treatise politics, 3

172 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. the parts of 8p was to be stamped initials N-E [New-England) “ (1). After the insurrection which freed the United States, the bad quality of the coins struck by the parties culiers had rendered the exchanges commercial almost impossible. “Transactions do not take place ray more than with difficulty, distrust was long awake; in a word, the evil was become so big that the congress felt the urgency to enact a sumptuary law which establishes a unity monetary (2)”. After various tests, the first federal currency ral of the United States of America was issued legal- ment in 1792. Article 10 of the Constitution in- absolutely prohibits private coinage, which did not prevent, for a long time yet (3), individuals to issue currencies in certain certain circumstances, especially when they felt far from the action of the central government. In Russia, before the authority of the grand dukes of Moscow and the Czars was strong enough to im- pose, the disorder of coinage free had, like everywhere, thrown away disarray in relationships social. Was in vain the public authorities were trying to they hinder the issuance of counterfeit money : a grandmaster's rules of the Order of Livo- denies, to thirteenth century; condemns everyone to death goldsmith who casts ingots at too low a price. In (1) Alex. Vattemare, op. cit., p. 17. (2) Ibid.,\>. 22. (3) See above, p. 100 and following.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 173 Poland, the goldsmith who altered the ingots was known damned to be burned alive as a counterfeiter (1). Let's go back further. In the latter days of the Merovin period- gienne, commercial relations were becoming impassable, not only because of the al- teration of thirds of a penny, but also as a result of the coexistence of these altered gold coins and of- deny money. The report of gold to money is already, by itself, essentially variable and a source of embarrassment in all the times : to more strong reason is it impossible to be determined when one of the two metals is arbitrarily distorted in its value intrinsic. Also, from the time of Charles Martel, it seems that the authority public seeks to prohibit the minting of third parties altered gold penny; at that time, in fact, the mon- swimming of the money begins to develop in proportions previously unknown. Well- early, Pépin the Brief resolved to stop completely and without return, the coinage of gold, that is of counterfeit money, the trade of which was in- celebrated. “When Pepin was proclaimed king, said M.A. of Barthélémy, he officially took two measures that, as early as Charles Martel, we had begun to establish blir. He abolishes gold currency to replace it by silver currency; then, he deleted the monopoly of the mint corporation, verifies industrial tables which made currency a (1) Chaudoir, Overview of Russian coins, 1. 1, p. 99. 10.

174 THE ORIGINS OF THE MOON]\NAIE. merchandise exploited for their profit » (1). What means, according to us, that Pepin the Short was quite strong to remove coinage individual ; in fact, the silver coins of Pepin's time rarely bear a personal name other than that of the king. We knows some of the actions legislative (in particular the council of Vernon-sur- Seine, in 755), by which Pepin the Brief return- says for the royal authority the sovereign right of another currency, right fallen into disuse in Gaul since the fall of the Roman Empire. The reform was complete and definitive that under Charlemagne; at the beginning of the reign of the great em- frank father, we still see a few names above very that the his on some deniers. But, from before the year 775, these names disappear; then comes a series of capitulars including the primary goal is to claim for sovereign authority the right exclusive right to open monetary workshops, and to terdire the circulation of any currency which does not have not summer issued by her (2). “We want, said one of them, that there is no longer a monetary workshop zero part only in our palace, to less than we did not order any otherwise »; and in- core : “ That he be hit of currency than to (1) Cf. Engel and Serrure, Treatise on middle numismatics age, t. I, p. 198. (2) See, for developments, A. Engel and Serrure, Treatise of nurnismiitics of the Middle Ages, t. I, p. 205 et seq. ; — Mr. Prou, Catalog of Carolingian coins from the National Library nationalj Introduction (1896, in-8").

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 175 our court and that the palace funds [deiKirii palaiini) are current everywhere. » It thus took the Carolingian princes half a century of fight to impose an end to the world private swimming, both the habits of the vicious pines and those most contrary to the interest of all are difficult ciles to uproot. The demonetization of For and the change in the monetary system were the measurements taken for realize this reform born- necessary. Among the Arabs, at the beginning of Islamism, the ingots monetiforms who were circulating in the trade, to side of coins Sasanians and Byzantines, had no character official. This was Abd-el-Malek who regularized and monopolized the issuance of currencies, as evidenced by the next passage : “Mohamed Ebn Sad took from El- Wàqédy that Rabi àh ebn Otmàn had told him what follows as the tenant of Wahb ebn Kaysan : “I saw,” said this one, “the dinars and the derhams who were in use before Abd-el-Malek made them engrave : they were smooth and had the same weight than those struck by Abd-el-Malek (1). » In China and in Annam, it's a time very retreated that we find already the fight established between the government and certain merchants to the issuance of currencies. In 600 and 523 before Jesus Christ in particular, the central government (1) H. Sauvaire, Materials for serve to the story of the numismatics and the Muslim metrology, (1882, in-S'^), p. 9.

176 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. undertook to put an end to private coinage (1), but he was powerless, and the disorder worsened without ceases, results, as we have seen, in the ruin of everything trade . In India, governments, happier, managed, if not to stop, at least to regularize the coinage of individuals. The bankers and merchants, to be able to hit currency were forced to do with it the request to the au- authority, to undertake to mint title coins and of regular weight and to pay a duty to the State (3) : it was, ultimately, surveillance and control of the state exercising of a way particular, more or less effective, but accepted in principle. If we turn our eyes towards Greece of the seventh and eighth centuries before black era, we will note that the public authority, which has become strong enough to impose his laws, did not proceed in another way. In Asia Minor, to put end to the abuses of coinage of electrum, Croesus demonetized this metal and replaced it with currency pure gold and silver. That's what Hero means- endows in the passage next, on which we will come back soon : “The Lydians,” he said, “are the first of the men who, to our knowledge, were struck for their use of the currency (1) Earthling la Couperié, Catalog of Cliinese Coins ia (lie British Museum, p. i. (2) Sir John Malcolm, Memoir of central Indta, ISS*?, f. II, p. 80. — Cf. Edw. Thomas, T/iechronicles of the Pat/ion Kings of Delhi, p. 344.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 177 gold and silver » (1). Indeed, this assertion is finds absolutely agreement with the monuments, because the coins of Croesus, which we call com- commonly creseids {y.poi7zio: G-oL-r,p), count, — if we except the amorphous tests of which we we spoke above and which are still, in truth, say, that of stamped ingots, — among the oldest pure cror and pure silver currencies which exist. We must, as such, reproduce Screw. U. a specimen (fig. 11). We see, on the right, the bust of a lion, its mouth gaping, one paw forward, face of the bust of a bull, horns and legs advances. At reverse, this are two hollow squares, with a shapeless surface, juxtaposed side by side. The most heavy of these gold and silver coins weigh 10°^89; the more light, 0^',68. This that there is something to notice quable in this official coinage, it's the uniform mite of the type and hollow squares of all the parts, whatever the weight and module. This way, burst clearly with the intention of conforming to a type once stopped and stopping to be easy- recognizable and become familiar in the markets and daily transactions. (1) Auool, Ttpàitoi âvôpwTTwv, Tôiv fiuelç Ï0[A£v, v6piiff[Jia ypuaoO xai àpyûpou xo4'âiA£voi £j(P^i'^^'''^o- (Héi'od. 1, 9i.)

178 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. The same observation applies to cities where the municipal authority also put an end to the mon- swimming of merchants. In Cyzicus, where the strike of the electrum is regularized and persisted until fourth century, as well as Mitylene, in Chios and in Samos, we see the monetary type of these cities take a conventional formula, the hollow square of the reverse always remaining identical, although characterized, in each workshop, by a form sui generis, so much so that even today, it is often this form which serves as a guide to numis- mates to determine the ranking and the place original of these parts. What Croesus did in Lydia, Phidon, king of Argos, executed it in the Peloponnese; with old ingots iron, he substituted beautiful silver staters for the type of turtle he had Aegina knocked, then the most important market in the Peloponnese. The oldest of these curious pieces still have the shape of raw ingots or obeliskoi, stamped in relief on one side, hollow on the other (see fig. 12); then the contours become regularized; while that the guy constantly remains a sea turtle, the hollow square of reverse a, for particularity, thick lines in relief, separated by triangles hollow gles very deep. We could, although for less ancient times, being kids remarks on the primitive coins of Athens, of Thebes, of Chalcis, of Eretria, Corinth and other major shopping centers in the world erec in the sixth century.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 179 On the huge ones ingots of bronze of Italy central, which weigh sometimes up to five books (1,650 grams, quiiicussis), we first find the bigger variety of types and of symbols : globules, bars in edges of fish, club, dolphins, anchor, sword, scabbard, shield, very- foot, trident, star, crescent, caduceus, bull, rooster, eagle and Pegasus, pig and elephant, etc. The most are, no doubt, already state currencies; Fis. 1-2. but the intervention of the public authority manifests itself party, here also, by the regularity of the cast iron and the systematization of weight and signs who there report and are at the same time of brands of value : this are, by example, a globule for Dark , two globules for the sextans, three globules for the quadrans, and so on, gradually, until the ace. Such indications, on cast ingots of which the weights are scaled with rigor and precision and method, allow us to affirm that we are in the presence of currencies guaranteed by the State and no longer calibrated by merchants, next

180 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. their good pleasure (1). Thus, in Italy as in Greece and everywhere, the action of public authority, in the issuance of official currencies, succeeding in coinage private, se reveals especially by the regularity of size, fixity of title and immo- bilization of the type and external appearance of the parts : these characteristics imposed by commercial experience cial and by the need to conquer and keep the confidence of an essentially routine public and become defiant, contrast with the diversity of types and title inherent in the absolute freedom of coinage private. (1) See above all the boards I to XXVII of the work of P. Garrucci, the Monetc dell'ltalla antka (Rome, 1885, in-f").

THE TRADITIONS OF ANTIQUITY RELATING TO THE INVENTION OF MONEY I All of the above clearly demonstrates that it was not the invention of the currency like that of gunpowder, of printing merie or the application of steam. The mon- nay is a cog social who is developed, generalized and perfected by itself, generally ration in generation, like, by example, the navigation, writing, the art of drawing. He is also vain to search in history who is the man of genius who , by a sublime and with his in- telligence, created the currency, that it would be childish of wonder who has built the first na- turns, or good what is the inventor of writing, that is to say who had, the first, inspiration banal of trace on a material any an image having a conventional sense, accepted and understood by other men. You can 11

182 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. link question the tradition or the documents elders for know who, by Roger Bacon, of Bertlîold Schwartz or someone else invented the powder ; we discussed the legitimate share of glory who returns to James \yatt or to Philippe Lebon in the application of steam and flash gas rage; but we don't would know seriously looking for- dear what individual has had, before everything the world, the idea ingenious to engrave a symbol on a precious metal ingot, or even to forge a punch to print the mark or attestation tation of his personal guarantee on a salmon gold or silver, copper, lead or iron. We have seen this progress take place obscurely, independently and isolated, under all latitudes and in civilizations of origins more diverse, the only one made of the extension of commercial relations and by an inconsistent agreement cient between merchants and their customers; some and the others were interested in adopting a in- convenient terminus, a equivalent certain and immutable of any commodity, and to improve it constantly, in its form and mode employment, likewise that we is led to perfect everything tools. Properly speak, he no so no monetary invention. Are you happy? the proof history of this as- setting? Open the General Collection of Coins of ancient Italy P. Garrucci (1), the most re- (1) Garrucci, the Monete de W lalia unlka (1885, in-fu), pi. I, XXXVll.

THE ORIGINS OF THE M0N>\4IE. 183 a hundred and the most complete of those who have been formed, and you will see, as we said above 1 ), that the ingots of the series of rough ïcips, those of Vaes signatum and those of Vas libraJ^ derive the from each other, to the point that it is not possible to fix, in a rigorous manner, the borders of these systems theoretically successive. A the continued pellets, pins or coarse ingots- flattened and elongated, like the çOoîos; and the cêîXtj/.oi of the Greeks, decorated with parallel projections on a face, the reverse remaining smooth, take place ingots of the same shape, marked with the same bars on the back, while the reverse begins to be occupied by globules which are nothing less than brands of value; value; the ingots thus decorated are already currencies since their size is fixed, their weight regular, and that they have been manufactured specially for serve intermediary diaries and equivalents in exchanges. That they were issued by individuals or by self- public rity, they belong to the series of Yaes signatiwi; the liberal currency which succeeds them is calibrated following the kid system and with the same globules on each of its pon- divisions derally graduated. There is, therefore, no solution continuity; all these numis- matics stand like welded rings to each other, without there being any need to make room to an unexpected innovation, abrupt enough to (1) See above, p. 89-90.

184 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. that she can be qualified “ invention of the currency ". The changes that intervene, at intervals more or less close together, do not are that weight reforms, prescribe- legislative provisions which regularize the emission, changes gent types, ensure the monopoly of the state : all measures which attest by themselves pre-existence of the thing modified or reformed. It was the same in Greece, where lozenges and ingots, o(ioioeq, hiiKoi, h?itiJ.T/,oi^ the rSKcnvzp, we led imperceptibly and without shock to the coins stamped by merchants, then exclusively by authority public. The weight iron ingots from Lacedaemon, for example, is fixed according to the same system as the more ancient Aegina coins of the turtle type sea (1); the coarse pellets of gold that we cited as the first products of art Greek monetary (2), are also calibrated according to weighting systems applied, in the following, to more sophisticated currencies. The writers of antiquity did not realize an exact account of progressive transformations monetary ingots and gradual metamorphoses duels that each generation their had done undergo. Conceiving money only in its de- most complete development and in its evolution final, manipulating every hour of existence (1) See above, p. 79 and 178. (2) See above, p. 106 et seq.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 185 this precious and essential vehicle all transaction, small or large, they figured themselves out that he had to exist, at a moment determined, a creator of money ; they seriously discussed the rights of priority to this invention, that they could argue in favor of such or like prince, of such or such city. Cities name- breuses competed for the honor of having been the cradle of currency, just like others se glorified at will to have seen, for the first times, casting bronze statues or sculpting the marble. Let us enter by their example and rely on on these testimonies, most numismatists modern, let's add it, se are engaged in the same path : they balance the rights of Lydians and Aeginetans at the priority of invention ; for more than a century, between them, the question has been debated as it was throughout antiquity. In our opinion, she is hopeless because it is poorly placed. Since the invention of the currency is not , in no country, the work of a day or the result of conception of a man of genius, and since it is impossible to fix the dividing point between the ingot which did not yet have the exclusive stamp sive of the public authority and the one who is covered of this official guarantee, the historical problem that we must seek to resolve is this one : What is the prince or the chef of State which, among the various peoples of antiquity, was the first powerful enough to ban the private stamp

186 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. and substitute sound control exclusive to freedom absolute currency? What are the measures legislative laws enacted among these peoples to regulate make the issuance of cash less restrictive? From what time money, centralized in its manufacture, she had to carry, without sharing, the emblems of authority public? In Rome, this reform is attributed to King Se r- view Tullius, in the middle of the sixth century before our era. In the Hellenic world, she comes on completed a little earlier, in the course of the seventh century : according to everything what precedes, he is of a interest secondary to inquire if the people of Naxos, those of (^ymé, Phocaea, Miletus or the Lydian kings realized it, or not, a few years- born before Phidon of Argos. Furthermore, abstraction made testimonies of elders, all more or less impregnated of legends and influenced by rivalries of clo- dear, I imagine myself gladly the currency being essentially the intermediary of exchanges aged, must have received his supreme improvement approximately simultaneously in commercial centers merchants from the shores of the Aegean Sea who made between them, in the seventh century, such considerable traffic rable. The direct study of the oldest monuments numismatics kept in conlirme museums this assertion. Maybe even, — but how provide formal proof? — the wars lions which continued for a long time in the seventh century and shared the Greek cities

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 187 in two camps rivals, were they the cause oc- casional who brought the powers public to intervene in the manufacture of coins, by following necessity where se found cities Confederates to create a sign of common exchange nely and jointly adopted? The similarity of many of the primitive monetary types and the implementation of the same weight system in towns often very far from each other others authorize this conjecture (1), II Under reservations which we have just established in principle, we can theoretically consider Vaes signatum as the first monetary attempt of Romans, Etruscans, cities of Latium, and other populations of central Italy. The most ancient ingots of this class are thick tui- the bronze ones, a little flattened, some rectan- g-ular, the others ovoid or elliptical, which have to mark simple lines in relief, paral- leles or fishbone, leaning croissants, a floret, a star, one dolphin, a iron of launches, a club. There is notable progress by compared to bars without fixed length, of which we we gave above a specimen (2). The reverse (1) cf. E. Babelon, in the Revue numismatique, 189i, p. 162 and 266: Numismatic mixtures, t. III, p. 14 and 29. (2, See above, the fig. 5, at p. 89.

188 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. is smooth first, then, we see the appearance of globules whose number varies and increases according to the weight of each ingot; the smallest divi- zions are ovoid and look like balls of slingshot. We could already, by there, se dispense with resort to the scale. However, when it was necessary specify a payment, uncertainty was such again, that the it was necessary to consult the weighing instrument, which se didn't let cement dethrone, like the prove number of expressions of the language Latin. If the habit to value everything in bronze, aes^ gave birth to the word aestimare (estimate), the use where we of- died for a long time from weighing the ingots, made the verb pendcrc (weigh) became the root of a large number of words that express the idea of payment and salary, for example, pension (pay- ment), iibripens (payer, comp checker your), expendcre, expensum, dispenser, impen- dium, dispf^ndium, compendium, slipendium, etc. Zero registration, null symbol characteristic who allows to assign the most rudimentary samples of Vaes signatum at a city determine mined; those that we could propose to classify as Rome or Lazio, cause of place of the holes vailles, appear contemporary with the era of kings; but we will have no difficulty in recognizing to be born that he is more easy to se pronounce on seniority relative of these monuments that on their homeland or the true time in which they belong.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 189 The study comparative that we can do di- straightly receives some support of tradition literary, which even claims to make up for the silence anepigraphed ingots, attributing the invention of Vaes signature to Servius Tullius. Pliny rap- door, according to Timaeus, that this prince was the first, the idea of printing a mark on the ingots of bronze used as currency and that this brand was sometimes that of an ox, sometimes that of a sheep or a sheep : Servius rex primns signavit aes; anlea rudi iisos Romae Timaeiis tradit; signature is noted 'pecudimi (1); and elsewhere : Servius rex ovium buumque effigy i:)rimus aes signavit (2). In- core at the end of ancient times, Cassiodorus becomes the echo of the same belief : [monetam) Servius re.r in aère primum impressione perhibetur (3). Nothing stands in the way of what this tradition be strictly accurate. We has not yet, he is true, found a single monetary ingot of the type of (ij Plin., Nat. hist., XXXIII, 43. —Cf. Hultsch, Griech. und rdmische Metrology (2» ed., p. 254). (2) Plin., Nat. hist., XVIII, 12. Compare Varro, De re rus- tica, II, 19 : aes antiquissUnum, quod is flatum, pecorus is notatum; Varro, De vitapopuli rom., I : Aut bovem aut ovem aut vervecem hahet signum. — Plutarch. Public, 11 : xwv vo[j.tiT[j.âTa)v You; 7ia).atoTâToiç ^wherev âtie/ipa-ïTov y; TtpôêaTov v\ ctuv. — Cf. Plutarch., Quaest. rom., 41. (.3) Cassiod., Var., SAW, 22. — There is no need to take into account opinion of some grammarians who, deriving numus named after the king IS'uma, attributed to this prince, for this reason his, the invention of money (Suetonius, in Suidas, v° àaaâpta; Isid. Hispal., Orig., 16, 18, 10; S. Epiph., To lay. and lies., p. 183. See Hultsch, Metrol. Script, reliquix^i. I, p. 266). 11.

190 THE ORIGINS OF L.\ CURRENCY. sheep. But there is at least one specimen of square ingot of the type of the ox, which, by its appearance archaic, can well go back to the time of Servius Tullius: he has summer found to Todi [Tuder) in 17i5, and weighs 1.V36 grams (li. While one of the dishes is occupied by 1 image of an ox, the other face relates to the most old speci- mens of Xaes signatum, by its type which is not other than the long stem on which they are grafted branches transversal in edge of fish, that we have reported on the most ingots close to rough Vacs. He is therefore admissible that we hold there a sample of the currency by Servius Tullius. But it is important to add that this room is the only one that we can quote, because the other well-known rectangular ingots which have, on their two sides, the image of an ox, are from a relatively low period and cannot, (jui that we have said, go back to Servius Tullius. (^these pieces take on, as we see- rons, the character of ex-voto, and their attribution to times after even the Decemvirs is scientific tifically founded on the study of style and on critical examination of the findings (2). If Servius Tullius, as tradition has it, melts the first square ingots to the types of beef and mutton, he doesn't is no less certain (1) Garrucci, op. eyelash, pi. XVII, “ig. 1-' and I''. (2) See especially on this subject, Luigi Milani, .the* rough, sign- tum e fjra.ve rinvenuto alla Bruna, presseda Spoleto (Milan, 1891, in-8 ;, p. 42 et seq.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 191 that he didn't have to. invent Vaessignatimiy since this kind of currency, born from the needs of the community merce, already existed before him. The role of the king of Romans had to involve intervening to try to put an end to private coinage and subs- equate the state currency with that of individuals. And this is not a simple theoretical conjecture. that; this way of interpreting the tradition is directly confirmed by the testimony of authors, who attribute to Servius Tullius the role weight system organizer and measurements at the Romans : measurements and weights consti- you'it (1). By regularizing by law the system metric, Servius Tullius could not dispense to organize, at the same time, the issue of ingots monetary, which, by its very essence, was in an addiction if narrow towards the system weight. A this era primitive, various diets weights and measures were shared the cities of Fl- central taU. Those of Greater Greece had already more or less penetrated ; FÉtrurie had herself even two systems that persisted in size of its currencies until the end of the autonomy of this country. Not only will the fundamental unit laughed and was established on a different footing, following cities, but the divisions of this unit were staggered, here, according to the decimal system, there, (\.)Aiict. of Viris illustr., VII, 8; cf. J. Marquardt, De l’orga- financialization among the Romans, transl. A. Vigie, p. i.

192 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. according to the system duodecimal. A the favor of this complication, the confusion and uncertainty had made commercial relations more more difficult : the situation, here as everywhere, demanded the intervention of the authority. In tenant taking into account tradition, we will easily admit that Servius Tllius wanted to impose an end to the order which reigned in Rome as well as in the neighboring towns. He officially fixed the weight of the roman book and, inspired by the state of things established in most other cities of Lazio, he adopted the duodecimal system to divisions weights and measures and for linen denominations monetary tastes; at the same time, he gave of new types, the beef and the mutton, at the new new official currency. The work of Servius Tul- lius, in Rome, was, in a word, analogous to that that Greek tradition attributes to Phidon of Ar- gos for the Peloponnese. The copper bricks of Yae.s signatum cons- titrated, undoubtedly, by regularity of their size, progress considerable on the state ante- laughing, but they were still, themselves, a currency very inconvenient and above all very cumbersome brante. Copper having intrinsically only one minimal value , because of its relative abundance, it was necessary, so that the currency of this metal con- served him character necessary to' equivalent, give- ner to ingots a weight huge. He is of ingots who reach up to 1,650 grams and correspond to five ace Romans [quincussis).

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 193 Also, say the authors, to make a payment really important with these heavy paving stones, we was reduced to transporting them on carts (1). When, for a payment of less than four or five pounds, the debtor did not have on hand other currency than these kilograms of bronze, he was obliged to fragment them with shears and hammer, as was done in the past for bars of a indeline length; of this ma- nier, a portion only of the monetary type is found to subsist on the pieces thus brutal- lies separated. We have received specimens of this singular divisional currency (2). one of them, for example, found in Tor Marangio, in the countryside Roman, weighs 233 gr. 17; it's a fragment of quinciissis on which there no longer remains that a portion of the two front feet of Pegasus which formed the type of the entire piece (3). Besides very often, they are halves, quarters, 8- quincussis or of quadrussis, obtained by the same barbaric process. These practical difficulties, coming to join the force of habit, contributed to perpetuating for a long time time, alongside monetary ingots, the practice (1) Tile-Live, IV, 60, 6 : Et quia nondnm argentum signatum erat, cies serious plaustris quidam ad aerarium convehent speciosa)n eliam conlationem faciebant. See above, p. 79. (2) Fr. Gairucci, op. cit., pi. XVII, “g. 2; pL XXI, XXIV and XXV; L. Milani Aes rough, signature and grave returned alla Bruna, ft. XII and XIII. (3) E. Babelon, the Coins of the Roman Republic, t. I, p. 7.

Vji THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. exchanges in kind and also employment, as standard of values, of metal raw that we does not stated that for help of the scale. The pieces of harsh Yaes bronze served, as well as the fragments to'aes signature, to perfect the weight that we wanted to establish with rigor and precision sion (1). Thus, between the perfected processes of Vaes sif/nalHDi and the uses of the past, there is a connection narrow and intimate penetration. They do not follow one another not abruptly; long time they live coast to coast, and the new state of things borrows from the year well everything this that he can assimilate. What Servius TuUius has, or not, inaugurated types of beef and from the sheep we know that one of these types, at least, continues long after him and that he is the testimony of the previous social state in which the cattle were used of stallion. The legal texts The discs themselves are a reflection of the routine popular, since, as we have seen, they continue to be fixed in heads of cattle the evaluation (l)We could, by noinbreii.v examples, show that it in was the same in more modern societies. We we will quote only here the testimony of an Arab historian, Cazwini, who says, talking about the means of exchange used in Aderbaydjan : “The coins of Tebriz and that of the greater part of Aderbayd- jan are yellow copper struck in fels, and pieces of hot dron, mortar and of lantern. When the inhabitants want use it, they buy the merchandise with these parts and receive, for the difference, a small piece. » (H. Sauvaire, Materials for clamping the history of numismatics and of Muslim metrology, p. 125.)

I.ES ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 19:. fines, in competition with the metal nayé (1). This were the Deceinvirs who, towards i50 before Jesus Christ, in the law of Twelve tables, to the example of this what had done Solon to Athens, transformed to the first times in cash metallic the contributions specified so far in livestock (2). At the same time as they introduce know in Rome the silver coinage, — the denarius to the type of Dioscuri, — they reformed the mon- copper plate and inaugurated the Vaes system (jrarc liberal, that is to say the system in which the monetary unit, Go (seated, assarius), ^ese one book [as libralis, approximately 327 grams). .4^ erot libra laid, toii Varro(3). At a time when we can consider as contemporary Dice cemvirs, the liberal ace also appears in most of the cities of Latium and Etruria. Limiting ourselves, in this work, to studying the questions original systems, we do not have to expose the system theme if admirably combined with the currency liberal, of which he exists numerous specimens (1) See above, \). 2H. (2) Gains, III, 223; Cf. Schoell, Legis duodecim tabul. reliquix, p. lil;Mommsen, History of Roman currency, t. l, p. 181. (3) Varro, De ling. lat., V, 169; Festus, v Grave ses; Dionys. Halic, IX, p. 586. Mommsen, Hist. Roman coinage, t. I, p. 203 and siiiiv. ; K. Sainwer, in Numism. Zeitschrift of Vienna, 1883, p. 45 and following. of draw to part; E. Babelon, the Coins of the Roman Republic, 1. 1, Introd., p. XI; J. Mar- quartt, of the Financial Organization of the Roman Empire, tiad. Lookout, p. 5-6.

196 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. in all museums. But we will report, here again, a phenomenon analogous to that which we have already brought out after the appearance of Vaes signatum, namely, the persistence of the use and the manufacture of square ingots. Despite Fau- authority of the legislator and of advantages notorious what offered to public the new currency, less bulky, circular, more regularly sized related that the ingots of Yaes signatum, and offering, by the scale of its divisions, the most large for the payments even tiny, the tyranny of habit still found a way to practice for centuries, maintaining in commercial circulation old ingots and juices that at raw copper that he had to weigh to each transaction. There is even no doubt that we continued to melt quadrussis and quincussis because- res, because a number of these heavy bricks do, by their types, allusion to events after the Decemvirs (1). We will cite, by example, those of these quadrilaterals on which appear the tripod of Apollo and the anchor, symbol of a sea voyage: these emblems relate to the journey of the Decemvirs to Delphi and to the made in Rome of worship of Apollo Delphic, to the opportunity to the plague of the year 453 before our era. Of broadcasts of ingots to the same types (1) See especially on this subject, Luigi Milani, Aes rude, signatum and grave rïvemito allaBruna presseda Spolcto, p. 42 et seq.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 197 took place successively during the plague of the year V29; during that of 399, which coincides with the ins- titution of lectistcrnia; in 396, on the occasion of the capture of Veii, of which the fall had summer predicted by an oracle of Apollo, when the Romans in- saw a crater at Delphi gold; finally, after the taking Crotone, in 277, and after the disaster of Cannes, in -211, when the ludi were established saeculares in honor of Apollo (1). The most old square ingots type of sword and of shield relate to Roman victories on the Gauls (390-367 av. Jesus Christ) ; the most recent broadcasts allude at the mass- coronation of Gauls in 3i5 and in 283, then to Samnite wars which took place under the dictatorship by L. Papirius Cursor, from 32i to 309 (2). The ingots to the type of the elephant and pork have been hit in memory of the defeat that suffered the elements phants of Pyrrhus, at the battle of Asculum, in 279, thanks to the disorder thrown into the ranks of these anim- ills by a herd of pigs that the Romans launched against them (3 . The guy chickens cres is an allusion at Vaiispicium puUarium and auguria ex tripudiis (which we got from eating chickens), of 260 BC (i). We could thus multiply, with Mr. Milani, the (1) L. Milani, op. rt<., p. 50 to 52. (2) Ibid., p. 53 at 55. (3) Ibid., p. 56. (4) Ibid., p. 58; - Bouché-Leclercq , History of the divina- tion, t. IV, p. 203 et seq.

198 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. examples which demonstrate, without reply, that the ling-ots of the rtes signafum continued to be manufactured at the same time as the free currency ; but if it happened that it was still used, by tradition, in commercial exchanges, they were especially invested, because of their archaic form, the ca- character of commemorative medals and religious- its. The liberal and circular currency of the Decemvirs had sole legal tender, as proven by the terms legal terms that we use to designate it : pecunia signala form publica popidi ro?nani; she alone enjoyed of all the privileges of the currency guaranteed by the public authorities. The square ingots were not admitted that as mar- commodity, as well as foreign currencies that foreign trade brought as far as Rome. The State favored with all its power the use of the currency decemviral : all claim of a debt in this currency benefited, said Mr. Mommsen, of a more advantageous procedure [actio pecuniae certac); transactions carried out the help of ingots or currency other that the currency official <( don't gave right that at refund of equivalent value, and don't could motivate than a simple action [quanti ea res est) (1). The one who made a transaction to weight probably did not lose the right to ba- launch, when it pleased the creditor of pay it in ace; but the one who had to receive a sum (1) Lex Rubria, \.\I and XXll; Maecianus, of Asse.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 199 due determined, had no right to request that they were weighed and he had to accept them, whatever what else were the alloy and the weight » (1). When, in the long run, the habit was finally acquired, by the public, to serve exclusively as the decimviral currency, the character religious and commemorative square ingots becoming excluded sif became even more pronounced. Considered as pious relics of times past, we began to consecrate them as ex-votos in sanctuaries the most frequented, just as they offered wind up objects out of use or those that reminded us something memorable event. It's what we called stipemjacere (2). We will see- early the same use in Greece. Livy tells that the soldiers of Hannibal, in "211 BCE, after plundering the treasure from the temple of Feronia, taken, at the last moment, with religious scruple, devoted to this goddess a large quantity of bronze ingots that we found after their departure : aeris acervi cum ru- will nnlites, to religion induction, jacerent, post profectioiiem Hanniballs niaç/ni inventi (3). A similar custom seems to be preserved jus- than in the time of Augustus, because we see, at this era, the Roman knights throw, every year- (1) Mommsen, History of Roman coinage, trans. Blacas, l. I, p. 209-210. (2) Ibid., p. 174; Marquardt, ilc the financial organization at the Romans, p. 3. (3) Livy, XXVI, 2, 9.

200 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. born, a coin in the lake of Curtius, in testimony to the wishes they expressed for the health of the Emperor (1). Nowadays, we actually find linens tastes of Vaes rude and ïaes signatum in the middle other more recent bronze coins, especially in the sanctuaries deities rural, at the sources rivers and fountains sa- created. It was collected in quantity at the sources of the Arno, at the foot of the mountain Falterona. In Vicarello, close of ruins of the ancient Tarquinies, we has removed from sources dedicated to Apollo (the Acjiiae Apollinares) more than 10,000 of these ex-votos (2). At spring of 1890, we was made, in the center of Fmbria, near S[)olèto, at a place called La Bruna (Gastel Ri- taldi), a find of the same kind composed of coins Italians primitives, collage with raw ingots of Vaes rude, quadrilaterals from Vaes sir/rialtmi to various types, finally parts lenticulars of the library series (3). But the discovery the most significant in this like, that we reported, is the one of Vulci in (1) Suetonius, Aag., 75. (2) Father Marchi, La stipe tributata aile divlnita delV acqux Apollinari (Rome, 1852, in-4o); — Henzen, in the /i/

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 201 1828 : “We found,” says Mr. Moinmson (1), “a vase of earth coarse container pieces of bronze of three different species, namely : 1° of partly broken quadrilaterals, weighing from two to three books and having various prints, between others, those of the ox and the trident; 2° mor- copper cels cast, cube-shaped and in very poor condition, without any kind of imprint nor anything that indicated their value; their weight goes- laughed from an ounce to a pound ; these cubes formed about a sixth of the total mass ; 3° pieces in the shape of a flattened ellipse and whose weights represented the various fractions of the ace; the most numerous were those which corresponded sextan tooth ". Thus, in the treasury of Vulci, there had three kinds of parts copper : the some were absolutely raw pieces and without any imprint so, it's Vaes rough; the others, square ingots already coated with a symbol or type on each side, it is Vaes signature; finally, large lenticular pieces whose types are accompanied by marks of value, it is liberal currency. The presence if- simultaneously, in a religious sanctuary, of all these old coins issued centuries apart, is enough to demonstrate their ex-voto character, that they put on after to have been officially demonized- tized (2). (1) Mommsen, Hist. beyond Roman currency, t. I, p. 175. (2) Compare the colonial aces of Nimes, struck at the conimence- inent of black era who have the form of ordinary currencies

202 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY/ Another use that we will also see in Greece, consisted of using the ling-ots remaining in circulation with this superstitious character, for symbolize sales and exchanges, of a ma- purely theoretical and moral. In sales of a field or of a house, for example, the parties exchanged one of these ancient ling-ots to affirm and religiously consecrate the trans- mission of the item sold : it was the yer aes sale and liùra/n, which finds its analogy in the sale j)e?' festucam or per qleham from the Middle Ages (1). From their former monetary role, the ingots of Xaes signatum only kept the memory ; not having more legal or effective power, they remained in the hands of the people as a simulacrum, so accustomed to using it for transactions was deeply rooted in morals. III If the Romans were almost unanimous in attribute the institution of currency to Servius Tul- to which a pork leg is suitable : these are also parts struck specially to serve as religious offerings, and we do not only ever met them in the basin of the sacred fountain from Nîmes. (Fr. Lenormant, La Monnaie dans antiquity, t. I, p. 33.) These are, likewise, superstitions popular who we have preserved the most ancient coins of China. (J. Sil- vestre, Notes to be used in researching the coins of the Year nam, p. 45.) (1) Earnings, I, 119. 122:111. 174; —Festus, p. 265: — Varro, De Ungua lat.. v. 163.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 203 lius. the Greeks were experiencing more than difficulties in to agree on their national traditions in this which concerns the same invention. “It would be,” said Lice, a beautiful subject of study than to search if currency was invented by Phidon dWrgos ; or by Demodice, daughter of the king of Cyme, Agamem- no, and wife of the king of Phrygia, Midas; or by the Athenians, Erichthonios and Lycus ; or by the Lydians, like Xenophanes tells it ; or by the Naxians, as Aglosthenes thinks (1) ". If we took as a criterion the oldest products of monetary art preserved in the dailliers, many names should be added to those of champions listed by the conscientious lexicographer of the second century. We cited and reproduced above (2) some specimens of these primitive coins, issued, for the most part, by merchants, some perhaps already by authority public. That they be the products private broadcasts or official, these parts do not are of no help to us in clarifying the pro- a problem from which Pollux shrinks. The currencies primitives of Aegina and Euboea ; those of the lees of Naxos, of Geos, of Paros, of Siphnos, of Samos; those that we class, with more or less certainty study, in Gyzique, in Lesbos, in Cyme, in Phocaea, in Miletus, in Ephesus, or attributed to the kings of Lydia before Croesus; others, whose homeland is (1) Pollux, Onomasf., IX, 83. (2) See above, p. 110 et seq.

204 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. even more doubtful, appear, by their style, almost contemporary the some of the others. Is there anything in the number that we must place five, ten, twenty or even fifty years before their congeners, this is what it is impossible to say with confidence. Indeed, assuming that we note, for example, in some of these groups- pes, traits of a more archaic old, this could very well be the result of the state minus advanced from civilization and art in the country from which these groups originate, and in no way the indicator of a comparatively more re- abutment. Far from saving us from our embarrassment, the examination paying attention to monuments rather increases our uncertainty. I/general impression which results, is that the primitive currencies of these cities rival they are from the same time : currency, in the sense complete with the word, must have appeared little by little almost simultaneously in these large commercial centers mercials, in the seventh century BCE. However, it is a point who must hold our be careful : it is the tradition, so widespread throughout Greece proper, which attributed the invention of the currency in Phidon, king of Argos (1). The time when lived this prince, the first historical figure from the annals of European Greece, is uncertain. Among the reviews, some, leaning on the chronicle of Paros (2), take it back to (1) Fr. Lenonnant, Monr'iaie in antiquity, t. I, p. 125 and following. (2) Epoch. 31, in the Frogms. Jiist. graec. by Didot, t. I, p. 546.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 205 ninth century; others, with Éphore (l) and Pau- sanias (i2), place the moment of its apogee in the VHP Olympiad (7i8 BC) ; others finally, and this is the system adopted Mr. E. Curtius (3), think that Phidon only appeared around the year 6G0 BCE. If we believed certain old data, he would even have existed at less two Phidons, one to Corinth, the other at Argos, both legislators and organizers of weight, measurements and currencies (i). But this der- last opinion, unlikely , comes without doubt of something confusion in the traditions collected by historians (5). At any rate. Phidon of Argos passes no only for having invented the currency, but for introducing weights and measures into the Peloponnese : «fts-stovcç... toj -to \Kixpoc Trcir^^av- -z; IîAs-ovvY]!7iou , said Herodotus (6), and this witness- (1) Ephorus, in Strabo, VIII, 3, 33, p. 358. (2) Pausanias, VI, 22, 2. (3) E. Curtius, Greek History, t. I, p, 299. (4) School. adPindar. Olymp. XIII, 27; — Aristotle, Rep., II, 3.7. — Cf. Fr. Lenorniant, Coinage in antiquity, p. 127, footnote 1, and p. 129, footnote 8. (5) About the endless discussions that have given place the date of Phidon and its role history, see especially Fr. Le- norniant, the Mint in antiquity, t. I, p. 125 and next. ; — Weissenborn, Beitriige zur gricchischen Alterthumsliunde, p. 18; —Busolt, Griecliisclie Gescliichte, t. I.p. 611; ibid., p. 282 ; — Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertliums, t. II, p. 546; — G. Radet. Lydia, p. 166; — Th. Reinach, in the Revue numisma- tick, 1894, p. 1 et seq. (6) Ilerod., VI, 127; Theophrastus, Cliar.,W., — Cf. Hullsch, Grieffi. and rom. Metrology, p. 521 and following. 12

20(5 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. gagne is repeated by number of authors. Pliny and Ephorus (1) add to [j.i-poL of Herodotus the weight, ffTaOy.oî, and he is likely, moreover, that in the thought of the historian of Halicarnassus, the word ixizpy. encompassed not only measurements, but everything the weight system (2). The name of ç/£{oojv given, among the Greeks, to the standard of measurements res of capacity for the oil, attests to the merits of tradition regarding the role of Phidon as system organizer metric in the Peloponnese (3). However, if the weights and measurements have summer introduced or regularized by Phidon in the Peloponnese, it is impossible not to not admit at the same time, as for Servius TuUius, that this prince have extended his reform to ingots monetary. This is what what do they say in efïect Ephorus, Aristotle, the Chronicle of Paros and others authors more recent, in attributing to Phidon the invention of the currency money. “The Argive Phidon, said the Chronicle of Paros, was the author and the propa- pledger of a new measurement system, and he minted a silver coin in Aegina (4). » Ephorus is expressed as follows : “Phidon invented, besides (Ij Plin., Aa(. hist. VII, 198 -.ja))! measured and weighed Pin- Don Arcjivus came along. For Ephorus, see below, p. 207, footnote 1. (2) Th. Reinach, in the nuinismalic blunder, 1894, p. 2. (3) Aristotle, fragment 480, ed. Pink (Pollux, X, 179). (4) Chronicle of Paros, in Fragm. hist. thanks, by Didot, t. I, p. 54c, 1.45-46 : îiûwv ô 'Apysio; iort[i.s\jafzà [i-ETpa -/.ai àvsff- X£'jacr£, v.oà v6(j.ia[Aa àpyvjpo'jv èv Aiyr^y; stioÎ/'i'jSv.