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

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 227 some of the great Aegean ports, he had a fortune comparable to those of all the great human inventions. Its adoption spread with speed in all the Greek colonies spread along the coasts of the Mediterranean, also ])icn in the West than in the East. At the beginning from the sixth century BCE, he didn't exist an important trading post in the Hellenic world which had it not been for its official and autonomous currency.

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VI GOLD AND SILVER IN ANTIQUITY I. THE QUALITIES OF MONETARY METALS In the previous chapters devoted to the management birth of metallic money, we have been able to observe, firstly, that, by the application of the principle principle of convenience and ease (reuse, all the peoples in arrived, following groping- ments and prolonged tests, to choose the metals for be the universal equivalent and the municipality measure of all things. Secondly, he was also demonstrated that, of all metals, For and money are those who, everywhere, ended up being preferably adopted for this use , in America that, in Africa, in the Far East, as well that in the old societies of Western Asia and Europe. The very populations who had stopped at less noble metals, such as iron or bronze, only resisted temporarily in general training. So what are the reasons for this universal

230 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. appropriation, the principles of natural order who president of this selection, of this choice made spontaneously nely by all human races? As long as the standard, or the measurement of va- their, must be, at the same time, a rquiralcnt real, he is quite natural that the peoples, in the progress of their civilization, have sought a state lon which was an increasingly perfect equivalent. It is without any scientific calculation, pushed alone- ment by the commercial need not to give in payment only the strict value of the things, and by Innate instinct for perfection, that they abandon gave defective stallions to adopt others less random and more convenient. And from step to step, this search, everywhere for- followed them, brings everyone to fruition, by means differ- annuities, with the same result : the adoption of gold and money. After the in-kind exchanges, came the ijetail-currency , then currency utensils , then the iron, the copper, For, money, estimated at weight for the same use; finally, the currency of copper or iron, who, last place, gives in the place for silver or gold currency : this is the gradual and progressive march followed throughout the Hellenic world and in ancient Italy, by the stallion, equivalent of everything what sells or is bought. 11 in was like this because, we are going to cons- tater, gold and the money are the substances that the nature has endowed, to the highest degree, qualities of which would be invested the ideal stallion and perfect, if he

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 231 was feasible. Indeed, daily experience as well as philosophical reasoning teach that, to be a perfect standard, the equivalent should unite with the supreme degree the following conditions : 1. To be inalt(''ral)le, so that the one who receives it payment for goods that he delivered, is not exposed to seeing it decrease in value between his hands and cease to be a complete equivalent, which would be a dead loss. 2. Be easy to transport, store, preserve, without requiring incessant and onerous care rous. 3. Be divisible, of way to serve in the the smallest commercial transactions. v. To be homogeneous, that is to say to have all its parts similar the some to others, for that they ejugate each other. 5. Be common and widespread enough that each anyone can easily get one ; be in the same time rare enough for (jue no one can have to satiety. 0. Have a tîxo value and immutable. because if he is exposed frequently to the decline that can train, for example, a overproduction, or to the qifi increase is the consequence of a rarefaction tion, the prices of all things will soon be upset (1). (l)See above all, on this subject. Michel Chevalier, La Monnaie, t. III . I>. 5 next. Already, Nicolas Oresuie. in the fourteenth century. indicated the following qualities for the material or the commodity to which we

232 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. No substance, in nature, does not have this set of qualities in a complete way, and don't therefore provides a measure and a equivalent perfect. iBut if this ideal does not would know be achieved, riuality has a natural propensity and a interest manifest to look for this who go away brings together the most. However, of all the foodstuffs or merchandise that less advanced societies have taken or are taking again as a standard of values, he doesn't is not who satisfy this interest and this trend too completely than metals, in general. Wheat, for example, which populations farm coles have taken, sometimes, as equivalent and common measure, particularly in Mesopotamia and Norway, and that Jean Bon-Saint-André, in 1795, proposed again to adopt as a standard in France , don't would know, as well as Fa superabundantly demonstrated Michel Chevalier (1), be a good equivalent. Its value and price vary depending on the region, has- bounty of harvests, the difficulties we experience to plow the earth, the price of labor wants to attribute the role of standard of the price of things : “I have to, he said- he, that it is manageable [attrcctahile el palpabile) and a trans- easy to wear ; it is necessary that for a small fraction of this material, we can get a big one quantity of natural resources; this must so be a precious material and dear [maleria preciosa and cara), such as gold. However, we need to meet her against in quantity sufficient... But he is not in no way useful to the State that the material which constitutes money becomes too abundant dante, because she could not point preserve the same value. » (Oresrne, edit. Wolowski, p. xv-xvi.) (1) Michel Chevalier, op. cit., p. 64 and following. and p. 97.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 233 of workers, the seasons and a thousand circumstances occasional. It varies in quality : two cultivars tors neighbors don't sell their wheat the same price, for the harvest of the same year. Wheat, in as a standard commodity, is bulky, different easy to carry; he demands devastated stores and some maintenance to be preserved ; he is likely to deteriorate; his value is therefore essentially random. In short^ it's an in- sure, a bad stallion. The cattle and the herds, the furs, marine shells or certain utensils manufactured goods that less advanced societies have taken folded as a comparative scale and equivalent, never have summer, for of reasons analogs, only very approximate means of evaluation and singularly defective. Pastoral peoples are the only ones able to act convenience of payments made in oxen and in sheep, and it is only occasionally that hunting peoples, warriors, fishermen or metal- lurgists will agree to accept them. The price of livestock varies from one animal to another ; the same anim- evil does not retain the same value indefinitely. Age, illnesses, infirmities, a thousand circumstances tances influence it; a war, famine or the overabundance of fodder can degrade it or increase it tenfold. Nothing more unequal, more incomprehensible mode, more random than this standard which, for- so much, prevailed for a long time in Italy central, in the company Homeric and the civilizations

2.34 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. primitives of the East; stallion whose we have even, we can the say, noted the use in the whole world, but that daily experience also made everyone give up. Some economists, looking for a me- ideal surety of values, as stable and precise as the meter, the gram, the liter for the lengths, the weights, abilities, have believed to find in the working day of the worker this universal standard. “The work, said Adam Smith (1), is the alone universal measure, the only exact one , the only stallion by which we can compare the values different goods at all times and in all the places. » And Germain (manager, the translator of Adam Smith, adds in turn : “The human work considered in itself is inva- laughable... This gives the worker who works, the sacrifice that he made of one portion of sound time, of his strengths, of his freedom, is the same in all circumstances. This is a certain quantity tine and constant, determined by natural laws real, like the course of stars and walking seasons... In this sense, work is the measure of the value. If we know how much of work one thing could have paid for or ordered from a given time and in another time, we know what is the relative value of this object to two different eras. » (1) Adam Siiiiilh, research on prosperity of nations, 1, \. p. 47 of the Count Germain edition Garnior. (Paris, Giiillaumin, 1843, gr. in-8").

THE ORIGINS OF L.V MONNAIE. 235 This theory, perhaps inspired by a sym- generous pathology for the man who tra\'Tiille do his hands, received an application essay from al^ord in France : the constitution of 1791 adopted the day of work at least for census database electoral : we could not be part of the assemblies primary wheat only if you paid a contribution direct three days of work. This legislation tion has left its mark on the regulations local roads : taxpayers must, today again, a number determined of days of work, which they can buy back from a variable rate in each department. This use is maintained because that he is only an exception : it would not be applicable to all circumstances of individual or social life. a utopian attempt of the same kind was attempted in England, circa 1830, by the reformer Robert Owen, to monetize the work human. “In return of a pair of boots, said Louis Raybaud, we gave a certain number of working hours baker or weaver. A paper currency very curious, stating this value, was made to this opportunity and for this use » [{';. The abortion almost immediate reaction to this childish attempt exemption from insisting on the disadvantages that wore the choice of this theoretical measure of which Michel Chevalier had no difficulty in doing so, (1) Louis Reybaud. Studies on reformers or socialists modern, t. I, ji. 245 edition of 18G4).

236 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. in the name of common sense, prompt justice (l).No, let's say us with him, man's muscular work is not invariable; he doesn't look like himself anymore that men do not resemble each other; it varies depending on physical strength, intelligence, age, energy, the address; it varies according to the regions, the regions, the seasons; it is subject to the law of supply and demand, and it is not by statistics and taking averages that we could raise difficulties which would arise from the application daily of the day of work to the evaluation of all the goods. He had to the passions revolution- naries or the errors of an irrational philanthropy thoughtfully, so that legislators admit that everything can be measured with this moral convention or philosophical, as we measure lengths with the meter or capabilities with liter. Not more than wheat, the work cannot be a good one stallion. It would be superfluous to cite other designs pure theory. More logical than all systems economic, popular common sense, in the so- less advanced cities, began by recognizing wherever metals in general get closer the most conditions ideals assigned to the ins- common instrument of transactions. Their hardness and at the same time their malleability, their rarity relative, the ease of transporting them, store them, dictated the choice of all the (1) M. Chevalier, op. cit., p. 81 et seq.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 237 civilizations reached the knowledge of the metallurgy, whether they use metals in the form of bars or ingots, instruments luxury or domestic use, either that, more late, they would have learned to them prune, to them is- to stamp them convert into real currencies. But metals, in turn, are not all equally capable of playing the role of equivalent and measurement of values. They only have variously the essential qualities that we have listed above. The platinum, for example, is too rare and of too variable a value to that we can make one monetary metal, good let us use it, because of its non-dilatability, to make the measurement standards legal. Iron, tin, lead, copper are, on the contrary, too common ; they are, the a few too hard, the others too soft; they are too easily exposed to oxidation, that is to say to alteration or even to complete destruction. Their abundance done that they have little value, so payments would most often require that they be accumulated in enormous quantities. Their production varies sharply how and the app that we in made in the metallurgy exposes their price to of fluctuations incessant, following the offer and demand. The choice metals vile as a stallion of the value of things, would therefore provide “an elastic measure which lengthens and shortens, depending on the circumstances tances, who don't will be not the same today than yesterday and which can undergo at the same time, on the

.238 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. neighboring markets with variations in the opposite direction (1) » . In a word, by using these metals in its transformations commercial shares, a trader would not receive not a durable equivalent of its goods ; he would not be sure of being able to revive his metals- in the circulation for value that was to them given when he accepted them as payment. It is only in the absence pre-metals heavens that poor societies were able to resort at copper or iron like intermediate of exchanges and equivalent of values. In number of the inconveniences of such a system, appears in first place the enormous weight which should be monetary bars or the currency that can equi- be worth an object of somewhat high value. vee. We we have it already said, in Italy as well that in the Peloponnese, carts were needed for carry that bulky currency bronze or iron. Also was it abandoned in these very countries, as soon as trade and rela- tions exterior y had brought in quantity enough money and gold. Copper or iron served more that like extra, and as soon as gold or silver currency had been adopted, the weight of currencies bronze was everywhere stupid conventionally reduced, so that these parts, like our under current and as the sapèques of China, corresponded more at the ver- (1) Th. Mommsen, Hist. Roman coinage, t. I, preface, p. XIII.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 239 table value of metal on the market; they cons- titled a currency trustee; everywhere they became what they are now, of sim- ples tokens whose strike must necessarily be limited so that their credit is not reached. Alone, precious metals, i.e. For and money , satisfy almost completely to conditions that the nature of things demands the standard of values. This is why the experience of relationships social, on all the surface of globe, has them designated by excellence to replace fold the monetary metals office. If everything the world can get enough fa- cement by the sale of a object of something value, they are rare enough for everyone to be miserly and that the most opulent do not have never enough. They are the object and the goal of a passion unsatiable of the human soul, avarice, auri sacra famous. Each of us feels this passion like all the others and sleep on his treasures with a care jealous : the man the more rich, who would stop taking care and would fall asleep in carelessness, don't wouldn't be long to be in hillock requests and the machinations of others and he would very quickly find himself ruined. Precious metals are unalterable and indefinite structible; oxidation does not act on gold and does not tame the agent only the surface, of so that one portion of these metals, so long as we keep it serve, do not risk deteriorate. They are easy to transport because you need them

240 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY relatively small quantity to represent a big value. 11 enough to 100 g-rams approximately gold to represent the price of an ox of 400. kilograms. Their acquisitive power is therefore more high as the one of all others goods, apart from of precious stones and some extremely rare metals, such as the platinum. We saw some speculators monopolize of foodstuffs such as the wheat, the coffee, the cotton, or even metals such as copper, to cause for a rise prices on the market and se take control of course. He exists in codes tough laws against hoarding. No one in- ger of this kind is not to be feared with metals monetary, because that they are too expensive and that they have too high a price fixity. The hoarding don't would not benefit hoarders, since in under the legal tender of currency, the value of these metals cannot be elevated artificial- ment. “Gold producers cannot gang up for raise the value of their product. All the gold mines would belong to one and even company, that the value of gold, the power of every gram golden could become more big that she don't the east current- with a large number of companies (1) Gold and money are homogeneous, like all simple bodies : all the parts of a ingot (1) H. Cernuschi, Anaomie de la currency, p. 16-17.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 241 se worth, to equality of weight. Furthermore. For Australia and Transylvania has the same goes theirs than that of the California and the Transwaal. They are divisible almost to Tintini, and each plot, whatever its tenuity and the weight, retains its proportional value. They offeredTrent to the times enough malleability and hardness to receive and always maintain the imprint of a type monetary, not to power be worn out that by a friction incessant and extended, or to be cut into pieces without one too painful an effort. Of all metals, they are those he is the easier to recognize at first glance, at the view, to the sound, to weight, or the chemical experiment that : with others materials, we could more easily abuse public trust. There is, finally, no other metal nor any au- be merchandise whose value either also stable than theirs on the market. Wheat is expensive excessive in the years of famine; he is of a extreme cheap in oversubscription times dance. It is on its production that the sea depends curial. Like any other commodity or commodity say, gold and money are, without none doubt, subject to this law. The point has already been made by Xenophon : “When gold abounds on the market ché, its price falls, while that of money rises » (1), but this variation works slowly (I) Xenophon, Income, IV, 10. 14

242 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. and in smaller proportions than for any other commodity. Price fluctuations, in terms of concerns them, are very little sensitive to a year to another, and it is only by comparing centuries distant that we achieves to grab differences important. This relative stability in the value of metals precious is due to the forced rate that the law confers to currency; she is due also to this privilege that grants them the nature, not being able to be spread in profusion and not being of one ab- solitary necessity, to arrive on the market in moderate and sufficient tity, in a uniform manner and permanent, like a source who flows slowly without drying up and without ever overflowing. A little almost unsuitable for large industry as for domestic uses, their usefulness being restricted to individual luxury, they are, less than other me- rates, exposed to jolts of supply and de- asks. The form of individual payments they wear, to enter commercial circulation cial , fact that the share available to each indicator vidu only experiences from a great distance and in a way almost imperceptible the backlash of the pro- current production of mines. The flow rises or falls minute, but so slowly that each of us realizes that he has changed level only by doing a comparative return over a period of time quite long. In Besides, the extra that, each year, the gold mines and money add to the total mass

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 243 metals precious of which has humanity is not necessarily a cause immediate of the debasement of their value. Without doubt, we discovers new deposits, and the statistics who note that the yield of mines pro- grows quickly in a period of time determined. But this overproduction will not, on the commercial value of metals, that a counter- weakened blow, if, in the same space of time, the civilized societies have developed their movement commercial and colonial; if travel, industries tries, the railways and a thousand social cogs which require the use of the currency, are multiplied; if, in the countryside, between peasants, many deals that were concluded with a sim- ple barter of goods in kind, settle now with cash; if the use gold coin and money enters country where he was ignored until then; if, in a word, the stock of circulating cash that is necessary to each individual enlarged, and if individuals who need are become much more numerous. It is with precious metals like of any natural product : the price of prices on a market will not fall, despite a abnormal influx of animals, if the number of buyers has developed in the same proportion tion. Other items enter also online for combat, to a certain extent, the influence of overproduction mines on the market.

244 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Shipwrecks, the fires and thousand accidents cause a certain amount of ity gold and silver; chemistry and various industries sorts also absorb and consume it. The individuals have a tendency to hoard them from that they possess them in excess of their needs. Without doubt, today, in our complicated societies, enlightened men hoard less in kind than before; but the guarantee metallic of large banks, such as the Banque de France, do not does it not remove from circulation a huge stock metal precious; the treasure of war, in gold, amassed by the German Empire in the fortress from Spandau, is it not borrowed from the mass of ingot given by nature to society? He is impossible to the healthy criticism of holding account of all these combined elements which come influence the value of metals, such as atmospheric pressure on the mercury of the baro- meter. This is why the figures accumulated by Soetbeer and other Economists on the rendering annual mines, on the movement of metals market, on the comparison between the monetary production of each year, some sincere and truthful whatever they are, don't would know be that random indications. To the point of view that occupies us , he would be dangerous to take into account other than as indication general, and we let's see later that the quantity of gold and silver available to humanity manité appears to have remained, since ancient times,

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 2 15 more substantially identical to itself than we commonly believed (1). We has done, at subject of the future metals monetary, hypotheses which, if we consider the past of humanity, don't have hardly a chance of se never realize. We has said, for example : Assume that the normal production of metals valuable ceases or slows down considerably, the rarefaction of gold and of money would have a direct impact on the market. Not only commercial transactions could be embarrassed, because that precious metals becomes- would be insufficient and, therefore, unsuitable to play the role of common measure of things, but the price of everything sells would drop to fur and as would increase rarity of paid metal, and in the same proportions. This which amounts to saying that precious metals being rarer, would be more expensive, and their power would be increased, since with the same weight of gold or money, we could acquire more others things than before. On the other hand, if the pro- normal production of precious metals began to expand lift in proportions extraordinary, the phenomenon reverse se would produce. Metals precious would be degraded, their power diminished; we would acquire them at a low price , while the price of all the others goods would be aug- mented, since, to give the equivalent of a (1) H. Cernusclii, Analomie de the currency, p. 15. 14.

246 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. any object, you would have to pay a weight of gold or silver much more considerable than we had it done until then. In the two case, the society could only lose, because it would have to undergo an economic convulsion of all more dangerous as it would be more sudden. Without doubt, he existed, in autisticity as in modern times, periods of crises economic caused by the discovery and ];i putting in exploitation of new deposits gold and argentiferous, but these troubles don't could be that passengers and accidentals in history of humanity. F/balance normal re- soon takes its place, often to the detriment of those who had it troubled. It's as well as I.i overabundance of gold, in the Egypt of the Lagides. brought, when the mines of the upper Nile were exhausted seated, a crisis which ruined this country; and it was even for Spain after that she se was gor- age of gold from Peru. It is still a prejudice as widespread as it is angry. inclined to believe that humanity would enjoy to be taller; that commerce, industry all in a word, in society, j)would make a boom fast in the path of progress, if he us was given from see it come true the fantastic dream of El Dorado, and if the rains of the Transwaal and of Australia dumped into the com- circulation merciale a river of gold where each would go to draw. Antiquity, in its wisdom, has warned us, through fable of King Midas who changed into gold everything that

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 247 touched his hands, that such a present would be a scourge. 11 could temporarily enrich speculators wise who would be the first to receive this flow of gold, but the common of the eenre human in would suffer cruelly, until this that a balance is established which would not be final- lies profitable to no one. Each aur;iit more gold and silver coins in his pocket , but at the same time, everything that trafficked would have increased. Without doubt we would offer me, horse that I have to sell, a larger sum than once; but what would I gain, if I had to pay more expensive food and the maintenance of the horse? Economists are considering also the hypothesis next : If we stopped, they say, to make gold and silver coins, these metals would see a price drop, since one of their main applications or one of their outlets chés, as they say in commercial language, would have disappeared ; the stock the industry needs se would find suddenly increased in a strong proportion. This is only true to an extent very restricted : the decline current money has not for origin nor for main cause its de- monetization ; quite the contrary , this demonet- sation was only the necessary consequence of the decline suffered by this metal on the market, as a result of a great and sudden overproduction (1). The his- tory of old societies which have not not known (1) Social science, t. XXI, p. 309.

248 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. the currency , is there to attest that the metals precious, or superfluous, which is the same thing, will be always eagerly wanted, that they whether or not they are monetized. Everywhere, as soon as we meet against the presence of man on the surface of the giobe, we note at the same time that the superfluous is what , by instinct, seems to him the most necessary sary: man barely knows the use of clothes ments, which he hangs on his neck, on his arms, on his ears, on her legs, on her hair, necklaces, bracelets, of rings, pendants of all shapes, for the making of which the Noble metals are always and everywhere preferred. From the origin of the world, at the populations prehistoric as among the savages of pre- feels, the search for gold and of money do- mine everything; long before the invention of the currency and the intervention of legislator, peoples war to possess the me- valuable rate , organize to conquer them distant and perilous expeditions which left their memory in history or the fable, such that the expedition of the Argonauts for possession of the Fleece gold, the adventures of Hercules garden of the Hesperides. ship races of Tire and Sidon in the land of Tharsis. In the Homeric society or in the mycean civilization nienne as in the great Asian empires, gold and silver have always been appreciated for themselves and for their intrinsic value. If we came to demonetize them, they don't continue ^

THE ORIGINS OF MONEY. 249 ray not less to be very bitterly for- followed. Let's conclude : he there is so far clans the world none product , none substance known who can, better that gold and money, fill the function of currency . and it is probable that hu- manité will continue to use them for this purpose long enough for us to let's not have not to we worry of this that he will happen when she realizes replace them : the story is there to attest that the same eventuality don't will never happen. Without doubt , gold and money are not perfect re|uivalent, the measurement scientist- titic and ideal that our reasoning conceives. Ideal for the standard metals do not would consist not even in the absolute fixity of their product tion or of their mass. The stallion of values do not wouldn't be fair if it were as immutable as the one lengths or liquids; he must undergo the backlash of the activity commercial, of the multiplicity or slowdown in business. The i- ideal for the metal production precious , would be that they became sometimes more abundant, sometimes rarer, depending mobility or, if we wants , the number of exchanges ; God would have to establishes, in c[uek|ue sort, one sliding scale, to pour us out the dew of gold and silver in the right proportion necessary for transactions, way to what the value of the metals used of intermediaries remained absolutely fixed and im-

250 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. mutable. History general of the civilization seems to achieve almost this design, but the particular annals of each people and in each century we see crises of abundance or scarcity which , on the moment , produce discomfort social, more or less deep; in the absence of economic calculations, it is the strength of things which, slowly, level these ups and downs. II. — ABUNDANCE METALS PRECIOUS IN antiquity It seems that currently, according to the statistics citizens, the gender human has approximately of 18,000 cubic meters of silver, and 500 meters cubes of gold, i.e. a total stock of 18,500 m very cubes of metal money (1). We add that mining companies extract every year beyond the earth a little near aSi.OOO kilograms of gold and more than 5 million kilograms of silver, while that towards the end of fifteenth century the mining provided only G.000 kilogram- my golden and 47,000 kilograms money (2). In the first half of this century , the supply general market situation was, it is said, (1) H. Cernuschi, Anatomy of the monnak', p. 3. (2) Ad. Soelbeer, Material./ to facilitate the intelUfgame and review of reports economies precious metals and of the monetary question, transl. Ringeisen, p. 9 (Paris. 18S9. small in-f»); — L. Poinsard, The Monetary Question, p. 41.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 251 2i,000 kilograms of gold and 900,000 kilograms- my silver (1). We cannot have in these figures fres that one trust well relative. Because, if he is possible to dress the results of an extraction an- naked , we cannot appreciate that arbitrary- lies the stock left to us by the centuries year- ciens. How , on the other hand , set the figure of the daily loss in all the countries of world? But if we lack a serious basis who allows to add without restriction the product of the extraction of a year to the stock an- interior for have an idea of the total mass , always is it that we is generally carried to believe that today we are much more rich in precious metals than were the An- citizens : they didn't know the mines of the A- America, Australia, Southern Africa, where we will draw abundantly. This belief, following us, is only based relatively, and in the restricted measure we are going to try to establish. In antiquity , the peoples whose relations commercial products were based on pre-metals heavens, either in ingots either in currency, were confined to a geographical area who com- only takes part of Europe, the door tion western part of the Asian continent, Egypt and the northern coast of Africa. The rest of the world was outside of this economic movement (1) Mr. Knight, read Currency, p. 303.

252 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. miqiie and social ; so that it's only the trade focused on this portion relative- small part of the terrestrial lobe, which must have supplied lie gold and silver from the mines operated by the Ancients. On the contrary, mining products which we now use spread over an infinitely larger area; they feed the trade of the world whole. From sort that, in admitting that the mass golden and circulating money currently in the world, or more consi- derable than it ever was in antiquity, she disseminates and se distributed in the hands of a such a large number of individuals , she se say- tribe between so many diverse peoples, that we can ask if , relative to the number of those who have to make use of monetary metals, quantity of gold and money is not not rather diminished rather than increased. This general impression only increases and se fortify by a observation of detail. Obviously, we are not able to give, comparatively to statistics mo- latest, the number of cubic meters of gold and ar- people who have disposed of antiquity ; but the excavations archaeological we deliver these manu- invoiced or monetized in such quantities, that he is permit of doubt that modern times in never provide a similar mass to ar- cheologists of the fortieth century. In the ruins of our civilization slowly disappeared, hole- will we see jewelry golden and silver, vases.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 253 statuettes , metal utensils precious , also numerous than those revealed by the excavations of Egypt, beyond Chaldea and Assyria, beyond Persia, of Asia Minor, of Phenicia and of everything the basin of the Mediterranean? Everyone who visits the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg-, of- die stunned to the view monuments in gold exhumed from the sole ruins of ancient Panti- caped. Do I need of recall jewelry golden provided in so big quantity by the tombs from ancient Egypt and scattered in all the museums of Europe; those that Mr. de Morgan re- recently found in the alone pyramid of Dachour; the vases, bracelets, jewelry, ex-voto, golden statuettes, discovered by Schliemann and after him in the necropolises of the Mycenaean period ; the gold dishes from Petrossa, at the Buca-museum rest; the treasures silverware from Bernay, in Ca- medal bin, from Hildesheim, at the museum of Berlin, Boscoréale and Notre-Dame d’Alençon, at the Louvre Museum, Pompeii, the Xa Museum ples and so many others which are the glory of the principals blades public or private collections (t)?For- (1) The reader who is interested in these golden monuments and ar- ancient people, scattered in the museums of Europe, find some there would be an incomplete, but already abundant, bibliography in the following works : S. Birch, Upon an historical tablet of Ra- meses II relatlag to tke gold mines of Aethiopia, in ÏAr- chaeoloqia, t. XXXIV, p. 357 to 391 ; — Wilkinson, Manncrs and customs of ancient Egyptians, t. II, p. 3i2 and passim; — Lep- sius, Metals in Egyptian Inscriptions, trans. Berend, in-4°, 1S77 ; — Ch. de Linas, the Origins of goldsmithing cloi- 15

254 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. so much so, all these treasures are only wrecks escaped tolls at the great shipwreck centuries, poor debris torn from vandahsm and to hi greed of thirty generations of vandals I As for to coins golden and money ancient upstarts until us, everything the world knows that they are countless, and , every year , since centuries, the bowels beyond earth delivers them to us by the thousands. We cite finds, such as those of Brescello, which contained up to 80,000 pieces gold, all struck within eight years (from the year 708 to the year 716 of Rome (1). Literary or epigraphic texts which attest to the extraordinary wealth of antiquity in gold and in money abounds, and quote alone- lies the main would be out of proportion with the framework of this work. Let's remember only- ment that the inscriptions of Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea report to many repeats, and without hyperbole, statues, cups, stunned, 3 vol. in-8« {passim); — Fr. Wieseler, Der HUdeshei- mer-Silberfund, Gottingiie, 1869; — J. Arneth, Gold and Silver monuments in Wien, p. 10 et seq. ; — Knm&c, Angpiology, p. 88- 100; — H. Holzer, Der Hildesheimer Antilic-Silbcrfund, Hil- desheim, 1870; — J. Marquardt, the Private life of Jîo)nciins. tiad. V. Henry, t. He, p. 356; — Héron de Villefosse and H. Thédé- Nat, silver treasures found in the Gauls, in the Gazette archéolor/ir/eu, t.X, 1885 and next; — A. Odobesco, the Treasure of Petrossa, 1889, in-4"; — J. de Morgan, the Treasure of Dachour, 1894, in-4''; — Héron de Villefosse, the Treasure of Bos- coreale, in the Piot Monuments published by the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, 1896 (1) Mommsen, History of Roman Coinage, t. 111, p. 26.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 255 hles, various utensils in gold and silver, including we serves in the temples of the gods or in the palace of kings. The golden statue of Bel-Marduk , in the temple of Babylon, was celèl)rc, even among the Greeks (1) , thus that the one of Astarte to Hierapolis (2) and twenty others. The paneling and parquet floors themselves, in sanctuaries and the pa- lay , are covered with leaves golden (3). In the historical annals of Egypt and Assyria, the tributes in gold and silver imposed by the conquerors rants to vanquished peoples exceed everything that imagination the most bold would dare coujceive; they present in a thousand forms varied : in bricks, in powder, in purses, in jewelry, in rings, in vases, in statues [ï]. Like Egypt and Chaldea, Phenicia and Cypre were, in fact of precious metals, of a wealth that is a miracle. On many occasions, the prophets of Israel celebrate opulence in gold and in money Phoenician cities including they se show so jealous (5). In Homer's time, the Sidonians were without rival in the art of manufacturing for gold jewelry, gold and silver cups, weapons inlaid with gold strips (6). The heroes (1) Herodotus, I, 183; —Diod. Yes, II, ix, 5. (2) Lucien, De dea Syr., 33. (3)W. Helbig, the Homeric Epic, Itàd. Trawinsky, p. 147. (4) See, in Social Science, t. XXI, p. 143: cf. Lepsius, Metals, etc., p. 4 and following. (5) Zachar., ix, 3; — Ezek., xxvii. — See I Kings, ix, 11, 14, 28 ; X, 11; — IlChron., viii, 18. (6) Iliad, XXIII, 743; — Odyssey, IV, G15 et seq., XV, 117.—

256 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. of the Trojan War are covered in these rich armor; they drink in of cuts golden here salty ; gold shines on their clothes, on their har- born of their horses, in their chariots, and sometimes the statues of their gods are gold or silver massive people (1). Mycenae, the capital of Agamem- no, is nicknamed the city “rich in gold ", and he in is the same for Orchomenus. The palace of Mé- nelas dazzles Telemachus with the profusion of gold, silver and electrum that decorate it (2), and however the dwelling of his father Odysseus was no less sumptuous, since the cuts, sharpeners res, the hand-washing basins were made of gold. The throne of Penelope was in money and in ivory (3) ; the Ulysses' bed was made of gold, silver and ivory (i). We cover with leaves golden the horns of animals intended for sacrifice. In short, the Homeric poems display a profusion incredible sion of precious metals, and if he must, in these poetic descriptions, undoubtedly make a large part to fiction (5), he doesn't is not less See W. Helbig, the Epic Homeric, Irad. Trawski , p. 23 and next. (1} Iliad, \m. 193; —Odyssey, III, 425; XVIII, 293, etc. The name Greek of gold, -/o-jgo-, seems derived from the Semitic term ïTin. (2) Odyssey, IV, 72. (3) Ibid., XIX. 57. (4) Ibid., I, 137; XVIII. 120; XX, 261; XXII, 9 ; XXIII, 200. — Cf. Ch. de Linas, the Origins of cloisonné goldsmithing, t. III, p. 17. (5) See on this subject Schoemanh, Greek Antiquities, trans. Ga- Iuski,t. I, p. 82. The conclusions of the author are too much

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 257 true that Schliemann's discoveries , and more very to which we we were doing allusion everything to time, demonstrate until the obvious the more palpable, that society Homeric or, if we wants, the so-called Mycenaean and Trojan civilizations were prodigiously rich in pre-metals heavens. Later, it is the same among the Greeks of historical times : golden divine statues are not rare, although none are known to us came. Forty-four fm gold talents entered in the chryselephantine statue of Athena erected at the Parthenon by Phidias (1 i. In the vestibule from the same temple stood ten statues of Vic- tories of gold, each weighing about two talents, that is to say more than 60 kilograms; converted into currency in the summer of the year iOT, these statues were later replaced by other analogues, also element in gold (2). The great King gives to the Spar- tiates more than 5,000 talents gold for help them to make war in Athens. In the year i30, during the invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians, the Athenians received annually from their al- rigorous and contradicted by the discoveries archaeological d- cents. (l)Isocrates, VIII, 97; Philochoros, frag. 97, in the Fracj. hlst. j/rflec. by Didot, 1. 1, p. 400. — Cf. Thucydides, II, 13; —Diod. Yes, XIL40iThese forty-four talents were equivalent to 3,696,000 francs, and taking into account the power of the currency, approximate- vement to 30 million. (Th. Reinach, in the Review numismatics- that, 1893, p. 14.) (2) E. Babelon in the Revue des Éludes (jrecques, t. II, 1889, p. 137, and Numismadic mixtures, vol. I, p. 190.

258 THE ORIGINS OF LA. CASH. linked tributaries 600 talents in gold; they had reserve, ropisthodome clans of the Parthenon, jus- than 9,700 talents of coined silver, without ter uncoined gold and silver, in ingots or in sacred vessels (1). It was not only in Athens that gold and money were piled up prodigiously when tity in the treasures of the state , in the temples or even at individuals; it was everywhere : in Lydia as among the Phoenicians and the Per- its, at Delphi, as at Delos or at Olympia. The metallic riches of the king of Phrygia, Midas, and of the king of Lydia, Croesus, were and remained proverbial. The ingots offered to the oracle of Del- phes by the Lydian princes, and of whom we have spoken elsewhere, dazzled everyone the Greece (2). The king of Persia was no less opulent in bullion and in coins 3 i. In the time of Xerxes, a Lydian banker, the rich Pythes, had his own only four million dariques. He said to Xerxes : “I did my accounts and found that I had 2,000 talents of silver and all I need is 7,000 darics gold so that I has 400 myriads » (i). When Alexander had taken Susa, he found in the royal treasure iO.OOO talents in ingots raw, and only 9,000 golden talents coined. A Persepolis. he fit hand bass on (1) Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, U, 13. (2) See above, p. 2l8 et seq. (3) Herodotus, III, 96; —Diod. Sic, XVII, 66; XVII, 71. (4) Herodotus, VII, 28, 29; — above, p. 106.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 259 120,000 talents of gold; he had to use a large number of mules, both from ])at and to wait age, and three a thousand camels of pack, for transport these treasures to various places that he designated for the receive » (1). Gold and silver flow in the festivals that A- lexandre gives to Susa on the occasion of his marriage with Statira, the daughter of the great King. The witnesses oculars describe the costumes to us, the tempted- res, brocaded with gold and silver, the sparkling carpets of golden threads which adorn the tents of the chiefs of the mee and the big ones ; while the hundred divans of engaged couple rest on silver feet, that of king is solid gold; the guests who drink and eat from cups of gold and silver are at number nine thousand. The deputations of cities and provinces send to Alexander, nothing that in crowns gold, the value of fifteen thousand talents. Wanting to pay the debts of every penny ar- mee, the king arranged on several points of the camp tables laden with gold coins where everyone could present : officers and soldiers touched thus 20,000 talents (2). To reward the best of his generals, the Macedonian conqueror distributes gold in abundance ; he places wreaths nes golden on the head of Peucestas, by Leonna- tos, of Nearchus, of Onesicritos, of Hephaestion, of (1) Diod. Sic, XVII, 71. (2) Droysen, History of Hellenism, tiad. Bouchô-Leclercq, f. I, p. 637 and following.

260 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Ptolemy. by Perdiccas and of a large number others (li. The treasures in precious metals including the army of Alexander seizes Phenicia, in Syria, in Egypt are more still considerable (2). The hero himself had his statue melted into gold (3) ; his Ordinary tableware was made of gold enhanced with stone. laugh (4;. When Harpale, sound unfaithful treasurer, takes the leak and takes refuge in Athens, he doesn't door not with him less than 5,000 talents (5), that is to say more than 150,000 kilograms of gold. It was often in the form of crowns that gold and silver appeared in pubhc luxury or private from Greek antiquity. We offered free rings of gold or silver as ex-votos in due time pls of gods, we awarded as a reward in public games to athletes, singers, to musicians, to poets; we gave it to here citizens who had deserved well of their homeland. x\ Athens, following the numerous epigraphic decrees that have reached us, the golden crowns awarded by the people weighed 50 and until 100 staters; the foreheads of statues were surrounded with it, or even the heads of the corpses of famous dead : jewelry, the masks gold abounds in the tombs [G). (Ij Droysen, op. cit., p. 642. (2) Movers, DiePhœniùer^i. II, 3, 1, p. 39 et seq. (3) Athénée, Deipnosophistx, V, p. 202''. (4d Ibid.. YI, p. 23r. (5) Droysen. History of llieUcnismc, 1. 1, p. 636 et seq. v. and 673. (6) Dictionary of Greek Antiquities and Romans of Da-

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 261 The dishes of wealthy citizens were made of gold and in money; Domestic furnishings, luxury of people rested on gold and money works- les (1) ; in the centuries following the death of A- lexandre, numerous artists had the reputation tation to execute masterpieces of chiseling in gold and silver that amateurs were snapping up opulent, and of which it reached us a few specimens, such as the treasure of Bernay in Ca- medal bin and the one from Boscoreale, at Louvre museum. In the Dionysian pump established with a incredible splendor in Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and of which the description we summer transmitted by Athenaeus, according to Callixene of Rhodes, we see figure, advancing processionally the long from the Alexandria stadium , extraordinary objects by their dimensions and their wealth : there was a breastplate of gold, 12 cubits high; a kitchen rasse in money of 18 cubits, on which two thunderbolts were placed golden 10 cubits; several gigantic golden cornucopias ; numerous statues, their heads surrounded with crowns gold; a thyrsus gold of 90 cubits; a spear of silver 60 cubits; a golden phallus 120 cubits surmounted by a star of 6 cubits; a remberg and Saglio, v» Cohona; — Numismatic magazine, 1893, p. 21 and 165. (I) Plularchus, Alcibiades, 4 and 13, — Andocide, against Alci- biade,29; —Athenaeus, Deipnosoph.,\,[>. t'.)3<';VI, p. 201^; ix, p. 408", etc.; — Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, VI, 32, 1. 15.

2Gi THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. crown made from the assembly of 10,000 medals the gold ones, placed on the head of the statue of Ptolemy Soter ; a golden caduceus of 45 cubits ; a lightning bolt of gold 40 cubits; golden eagles of 20 cubits; a golden aegis; 3,200 gold crowns; a neck- mystical ronne of gold 80 cubits; twenty bou- golden keys, etc. Is there reason to accuse of exaggeration a similar description, if we think about the subscription dance of production of gold in the mines from the upper Nile; if you compare, among other things, the ri- no less extravagant chesses in pre-made metals heavens that Roman historians attribute to Mid- thridate? The King of Pontus had a golden statue 8 cubits high; he had one other in silver : both appeared in Pompey's triumph in Rome. His throne, his feast bed, his scepter were made of gold ; his weapons were encrusted with gems embedded in gold. In his storage room in Taulara, the Ro- hands confiscated “ 2,000 onyx cups in- chased into gold, a profusion of cups, of vases to refresh, of rhytons ; then beds, seats, bridles, breasts and head caparison valleys, sparkling with gold and precious stones.” In triumph- phe of Lucullus, parade “twenty loaded stretchers of silver crockery, thirty-two stretchers char- aged with cups of gold, with weapons of coined silver ". In Pompey's triumph, the official minutes skies mention : “... a golden moon weighing 30 liters- yours, three feast beds, nine buffets loaded with cVor vases and precious stones, three golden statues re-

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 263 presenting Minerva, Mars and Apollo,... a mon- square tagne in solid gold, on which were chiseled deer, lions, fruits, all together surrounded by a golden vine... » (1). From the beginning of the third century before AD, the wealth of the Romans in silver was become prodigious. In 293, Papirius Cursor collects 1,830 pounds of money in his campaign against the Samnites (2). In 205, Scipio reported of Spain li.3i2 pounds of silver, not counting coined species (3) ; four years later. Because- tiling him in provides more 100,000 books (i). From this time, the luxury of silverware penetrated into the houses of the most modest citizens. Gold, to in turn, soon became abundant in Rome. After the conquest of Macedonia, after the victories on the Carthaginians , after the triumphs of the regions in the East, in Egypt, in Africa, in Es- loincloth, in Gaul, we saw parade in Rome, following of the chariot of the triumphants, heaps of gold in ingots coined or worked, in quantities such as the boldest contemporary lies porains on the mining the California or Transwaal have never approached it (5). “The birth (1) Appian, Mithridates, lloet IIG;— Pliny, fl^«s<. nat., XXXIII, 11.1 52; 12, 151; XXXVII, 1, 13-li; _ Plularque, Luculhis, 37. — See Theodore Ueinach, Mithridates Eupator, king of Pont, p. 286-287 and p. 260, note. (2) Tile-Live. X. 46. (3) Ibid., XXVIIl, 3!?. (4) H)id., XXX, 45. (5) J. Marquarilt, of the financial organization at the lio- hands, transl. A. Vigie, j). 26 et seq. , 66 and following.

264 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. cessation of keeping very large sums existed above all, for Vœrariiun , when the wars of conquests made there flock gold in abundance. In the year 545 (= 209 av. AD), he there found 4,000 guest books (1); in 560 (= 194), T. Quinc- tius Flamininus made to pour at public treasury, at the continuation of the Macedonian war, 3,714 pounds of gold, a shield of solid gold, and 14,514 pieces golden Macedonia {philipps) (2). In 565 (= 189), Sci- pawn, after the war with Antiochus, pours 234 gold crowns, 140,000 philippes and 1,024 pounds gold (3); in the year 567 (= 187\ M. Fulvius draws of Aetolia 243 books golden and 12,422 philips; M.3Ianlius, of Galatia, 2,103 pounds of gold and 16,320 philippes (4); in the year 597 (= 157), there had in Yœrariwn 17,410 pounds; in 663 (= 91), the sum of 1,670,851 sesterces in gold ingots (5); the triumph of Sulla, in 673 [= 81), reported to the treasure 15,000 pounds of gold (6), and in 705 (= 49), Caesar took 15,000 gold bars from Yierarium (7). » This was not only Voerarium of the state which had immense reserves of pre-metals heavens : these were often also individuals. A from the time of the Punic Wars and think- (1) Livy, WVII, 10. 11. (2) Ibid., XXXIV, 52, 7. (3) Ibid., XXXVII, 59, 5; — Plin., Nat. IIist., XXXIII, 148. (4) Livy, XXXIX, 5, 14, XXXIX, 7, I. (5) Pliny, i\at. hist., XXXIII, 55. (6) Ibid., XXXIII, 16. (7) Ibid., XXXIII, 56. — Cf. J. Marquiiardt. of Orfjanization financial among the Romans, U-ad. Vigie, p. 216-217.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 2f)J Throughout the duration of the Empire, we see citizens who enjoy fabulous fortunes in ingots or in species coined. Let's quote , by example, under Augustus, a man dark, of name of Isidorus, who although he had lost much during the civil wars, left, upon his death, cash, 60 millions of sesterces, without count his capital committed in the com- merce (1). Vaiinim coronarhon that the cities from Italy, se contributing, had wanted to offer to Auguste, reached a weight of 35,000 pounds of gold (2). At the beginning cement of FEmpire, to own five millions of deniers, that is to say more of five millions of franks, it was almost the misery for the aristo- Roman cracy. We even cite freedmen who have a fortune exceeding this figure. “Still at the beginning of the fifth century key (3), we found of families who, besides the things that they had in nature, possessed a disposable cash income of 40 quintals of gold; and second-rate families who received of 10 15 quintals of gold, which, by carrying the quintal of gold at 112,500 francs, gave (in income) for the first 4,500,000 francs, for the second condes, from 1,125,000 to 1,500,000 francs (4). » (1) Pliiie, Nat. hist., XXXIII, 135; — Marquardt, op. cit.,\>. 68. (2) J. Marquardt, De the financial organization at the Ro- hands, p. 373. (3) Olympiodorus, from ajjri's Pholius. I, p. 63 of 1 edition Bekii. (4) J. Marquardt, op. cit., p. G9.

26G THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. In the tableware of the rich Romans, the manufacture of which was the object of the industry argcntiirii vascularii , we cites silver dishes who weigh until 500 books; and even of the solid gold tableware, including, under Tiberius, a law sumptuary prohibits use by simple individuals links (1). Under the Empire, gold is, with some exceptions, reserved mainly for the minting of coins and the jewelry making, specialty of fabri au- rarii (2i. Money serves to all domestic uses ticks : there were tables, seats, beds, bathtubs, kitchen utensils ar- gent, and often in silver golden; the objects of toilet the woman, the pencil case of doctors were made of silver (3). Pompeius Paullinus, who commanded the Roman legions in Germany, in the year 58 AD, had taken with him sound silverware, amount at 12,000 pounds {i). The treasures of king Dacian, Decebalus, contained of e- standards quantities of gold and silver (5) which report our thoughts towards the discoveries of Petrossa and Hildesheim. Romans and Rarbarians fought at will (1) Tacitus, Annal, II, 33; — Pliny, XXXIII, 49; XXXIV, 145; — Lanipride, Heliog., 19, 3; —Treb. Hair., Trirj. tyrann., 32, G; — Digest, XXXIV, 2, 19, 12. — CI". J. Marqiiardt, Private life (the Romans, transl. V. Henry, t. II, p. 354 et seq. ; — Wieseler, Hildcsheimer-Silberfund, p. 8. (2) J. Marquardt, the Privacy, t. II. p. 358. (3) Ibid., op. cit., t. I, p. 363. (4) Pliny, XXXIII, 50. (5) Xiphilinus, Trajan, 12; — Ch. de Linas, the Origins of Gold cloisonné feverware, t. III, p. 291.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 267 for the luxury of objects of all kinds made of metals precious. In large families, goldsmithing golden and money was so considerable that there exists were special slaves responsible for its conservation vation and its maintenance; these were the prepositus oh money potorio, the prrTpositus auri escari,\ç: proeposilus auri potori, the ab auro gemmato, the ab argento potorio, etc. (1). In the presence of all these examples that we can- would easily increase tenfold, who would dare to dispute that the luxury of gold and money has summer. in the anti- equity, as developed as at present, if not more floor? What potentate of modern times could, to this point of view, compete I don't say not with Darius, Alexander, Ptolemy or Mithridatc, but only with the Roman citizens including us have mentioned the names? What is the millionaire cjui eat and drink from golden plates and cups, and who melts his statue into solid gold; what are the heirs disposed to be buried in the tomb from a deceased person gold jewelry like those we deliver the necropolises of antiquity? In which, sanctuary do we worship golden statues; in which public competitions do we distribute , not even crowns of gold, but only real metals dailles gold? But let's continue our investigation and Let us now see how the Ancients obtained ray gold and money in such abundance. (1) J. Marquardt, the Ylc deprived of the Romans, t. I, p. 1G8.

268 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. III. MINING EXPLOITATION 1) GOLD AND money in ANTIQUITY The mining who provided to Elders the noble metals were within their reach, disseminated mined almost everywhere over the entire extent of Eu- rope, of Africa northern, of Western Asia dental and of India. The testimonies that in attest existence and inform us on their exploitation is nomlircux i li. We gave, in ranti({uité, the generic name of [j.i-oC/Ckyt, metallum, to any kind of mine, even to simple stone quarries and sa- lines; the word \i.i-.-x/'hv.x means “exploitation of mines i2) ". The famous mining golden that exploited the Egyptians, both under the Pbaraons that under the Ptolemies. were located approximately at the height (1) The main mines exploited in antiquity are located listed in Caryopliilus, De antUjuis auri, argenti, stanni, xris, ferri plumbifjue fodinis. Vienna, 1757, in-4<'; — J. and L. Sa- boatman, Production of gold, silver and copper among the an- citizens and mints of the Roman empires and Byzantine, St. Petersburg. 1850, in-S”; —Marquardt, the Live life of Romans, t. II, p. .326; — Boeckh, Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 3rd ed. by Frœnkel (1886), p. 6 et seq. ; — Biichsenchutz, Besitz und Erwerb im griechischen Al terthiime {llà\\(\ 1869), p. 232 et seq.; — J.-H. Hansen, De mellallis atliris (Strasbourg. 1885). (2) Marquardt, of the Financial Organization among the Romans, p. 317. The verb p.sTa))âw. in Homer, has the meaning of seeking [Odyss.. XIV, 373; Iliad, 125).

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 269 of the second cataract, not far from Koiiban, in the mountain range by TEtbaye (1). Gold there met in nuggets, middle of blocks of white quartz, and mixed to iron oxides and of titanium. Their wealth was a miracle, to this point that Pomponius Mela said hyperbolically that at the Ethiopians, gold was more common than copper, and that in this country they forged in gold the prisoner chains (2). Diodorus, which describes at length, according to Agatliarchides , the processes of extraction and the regime of miners, says nothing of the abundance of ore (3). The gold mines of Arabia, which books talk about biblical (i) , are also described by Strabo (5) and Diodorus of Sicily (6) ; they appear to have been of extreme abundance, if we judge by the little thought that the natives made gold by relation to iron and copper. India also had rich gold and silver mines. gent, what explored the minor Gorgos sent by (1) s. Birch, Upon an hlsforical tahlet of Rameses II relating to the gold mines ofAetliiopia^ù&n?, VArchcieologia, t. XXXIV, p. 357 to 391 ; — F. Robiou, Memoir on the political economy of iEgypt in the time of the Lagides, p. 191 ; — F. Chabas, the Inscriptions tions relating to the gold mines of Xubie, Chalon-sur-Saône, 1862 : — G. Maspero, Hist. anc. of the classical Orient, t. I, p. 480; — de Linas, the Origins of cloisonné goldsmithing, t. I, p. 18 and next; —Lepsius, Metals, p. 7. (2) Pompom. Mcla, III. 9. (3) Diode. Yes, III, 12 and 13. (4) Isaiah, XLV, 14; Ps. Lxxii, 13. (5) Strabo, XVl, 4, 18. (6) Diode. Yes, II, 50.

270 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Alexander (1). Fables were circulating about them. According to Megasthenes, reported by Strabo, these mines, located in the country of Derdne, were searched not by men, but by ovens put the g-thrower of a fox. These animals dug galleries in the ground like the tau- pes and they brought back to the surface, of the powder gold as loose earth (2). Near Caballa, in Armenia, there were mining golden who were visited by Memnon, name of Alexander (3\ In Carmania. on the Persian Gulf, silver mines were exploited, and the rivers of this countries were carrying glitter gold (4). Colchis, goal of the Argonauts' expedition, was one of the most fertile in gold that has known to antiquity, and the mines of the Urals, today, are only the pale image of what they were until the time Roman. Strabo said in speaking of the Caucasian Soanes : “It is claimed that in their territory the torrents carry of glitter of oi^ and these barbarians collect them by means of a certain type of rack or with of fleeces : from there undoubtedly came the myth of the Golden Fleece (5). » These fleeces, arranged in sieve in the gold-bearing waves, held back the straw (1; Strabo, XV. i. 30. (2) Ibid., xv, 1. 4i. (3) IbicL, XI, 14, 9. (4) Ibid., xv, 2, 14. (5; Ibid.. XI, 3, 6.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 271 letters of the precious metal; they were then burned and it was enough to collect the gold in the ashes re- resulting from this combustion. The ram's mytlies of Phryxus and of the doe with horns golden that pursues Hercules, as well as that of the Fleece of gold and the expedition of the Argonauts, make allu- sion to the discovery of gold in Colchis and the Hyperborean regions, as well as the process your ugly one from which we collected the glitter. Hero- dowry (1 informs us that the Greek colonies of the northern coast of the Black Sea, including the most important were Panticapaea and Olbia, ti- ray their local gold of Scythians and Issedones Arimaspes : the mines were, it was believed, guarded by fearsome griffons. In the Bridge, Mount Paryadres provided to Silver mithridates and copper (2) ; there was also, in the mountains of Cilicia and in the islands of the Archipelago, exploited silver mines for the account of the Phoenicians (3). Others d- regions of Asia Minor were fertile in gold, yellow or pale. Phrygia had of gold mines in which was linked to the legend of King Midas. No only the Pactole, but all the torrents which descended from Sipylus and Tmolus rolled sands gold. Also, this last mountain was she nicknamed -/puToppicr, and the Pactole, yp'j7zppby.:. The Atarnée also had gold veins (1) Herodotus, IV, 13 and 27. (2) Th. Reinach, MUhrklate Eupator, p. 2.31. (3) Herodotus, III, 89 et seq.

272 Li:S ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. ferries, and mines of almost pure gold were exploited located near Gyzique, at Cremasté, and near Aby- back, to Astyra (1). At eleven o'clock the Phoenicians came to put in exploitation the mines money from Siphnos, then the mines golden and money from Thnsos who were not copy the extension of the deposits if abundant in Macedonia and Thrace (2). In 356, Phippe. Alexander's father, founded Phi- lippi as the center of the mines of Mount Bermion, who him provided the gold needed to the strike of his admirable staters : he managed to extract from this alone deposit up to thousand talents by year 130,000 kilograms) (3:. Thrace had abundant mining golden and of silver at Mount Pangea (V) ; Epirus and Illyria only provided money 5) ; we discovered a mine golden in Dalmatia, under the reign of Nero (6). The sterility of the lands which form Cape Sunium was compensated by the silver mines of Lau- rium, ((yes were extending since Thoricos until Anaphlystos, and whose wealth is so praised by (1) Euripides, J>ac. (3) Diode. Sic.^ XVI, 8 ; — Livy, XLV, 18, 3 ; 29, 1 1 : — Pliny, Hist. nat., XXXIII. 66. (4) Strabo, VII. 34 ; Pliny, Hist. nat., XXXIII, 66. (5) Strabo. VII, 8. (6) Pliny. Hist. î!«^, XXXIII, 67.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 273 Xenophon (1). These mines, who provided to Athens an annual income of 30 to 40 talents, were already, in the time of Strabo, for a long time abandoned times (*2). The Alps region had silver mines in the Rypheus Mountains (3), and gold mines on several other points. In particular, he was a deposit significant gold on the territory from Vercelli, between Turin and Milan (ï] ; others were in the Noricum, the country of Salasses (the valley of Aosta) (5), in Pannonia, finally among the Taurisci, near Aquileia. These, upon their discovery, momentarily caused a certain per- turbation in monetary circulation, changing based on the relative value of precious metals. Here, indeed, what Polybius says : “We recently discovered near Aquileia, among the Taurisci Norici, a mine golden so abundant cju'il enough to dig the earth to a depth of two feet to meet this metal, and c[ue the excavations do not ordinarily exceed fifteen feet. Among this gold, there are some pure ones, in grains as big as a bean or a lupine, and who only loses one in the fire eighth of its volume; the rest needs to be (1) xenophon, Recvemts, IV, 1. — Cf. Schoemann, Antiquities Greeks, trans. Galuski, 1. 1, p. 510; — Rangabé, Du Laurium, in, the Memoirs presented to the Acad. Registrations and B. -Letters, t. VIII, 1874, 2" part., pp. 297 to 346. (2) Strabo, IX, 1 ; — Beulé, the Coins of Alhènes,\). 14 etlOl. (3) Athenaeus, Deipnosoph., VI, (4) Stiabon, V, 2.5; Pliny, Nat., Iiist., XXXIII, 78. (to) Strabo, IV, G, 5.

274 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. refined and still profitable of considered benefits rables. The Italians first joined forces with the Bar- bars for the exploitation of this mine and, in two month, gold lost in all Italy the third of its value. Educated by this circumstance, the Tau- risci chased away their associates and practiced alone the gold monopoly (1). » The gold and silver mines of Hungary and of Transylvania were in operation until the fall of the Roman Empire, and they fed particularly the monetary workshops of Siscia and Thessalonica, established nearby. These are they also who provided the civilization prehistoric Germanic and Scandinavian countries the most of the gold which. in these con- tress, was then transformed into jewelry [2). Western Europe, in turn, had For in abundance. Gaul was nicknamed Gallia aurifcra because of gold flakes rolling its main rivers, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Gar- don^ the Tarn, Ariège. In the Pyrenees, we still indicates vestiges of metal mining precious; at the Arverni. the Lemovici and in Morbihan, gold was mixed with tin (3). (1) Polybius, XXXIV, 10; — Strabo, IV, p. 208; — Plin., Nat. hist., XXXIII, 78. (2) O. Montelius, Prehistoric times in Sweden, Irad. S. Reinacli, p. 106, 200 et seq. (3) Diode. Sic, V, 27; — Strabo, III, 146 and IV, 187, 190, 191; — Daubrée, in the Revue archëologir/ue of 1878 and 1881 ; — Carlailhae, Gallic Gold, in the Anthropology Review, t. IV, 1889, |>. 273.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 275 At the Tarljelli family, not far from the Arcachon basin, we found, “ without dig deep in the earth^ masses of gold large enough to fill the hand, and who only needed one light wash (1) ". The territory of their neighbors, the Tectosages, was no less rich in gold (2). We knows the Gallic gold coins, in particular those of Arverni and central Gaul ; but^ strange thing, mining districts such as countries Tectosages and Tarbelli only have mounts silver coins. The Great Britain and Ireland owned also gold and silver mines (3). But the region mining par excellence, in Western Europe, was the Iberian Peninsula. If the country of the Turdé- tans (Andalusia) had gold and electricity mines trum [ï] and if gold flakes are reported in the course of several of the rivers of Spain, this However, the country was rather the homeland of money. In VIliad (5), remarked M. Théod. Reinach, “. the country where silver is born, the mysterious Alybé, land of the Halizônes (or men surrounded by the sea) is still^ for the author of the Catalogue, a three-quarters fabulous country. The commentators the ancients themselves were mistaken; they don't have understood that he it was simply a matter of the Es- (1) Strabo, IV. 2. (2) Ibid., 1, 11. Ci) 11) kl., 5.2; — Tacitus, A(jricola, 12; —Ridgeway, TJte oii- fjin ofmetallic ciirrcncy, p. 34. (4) Pliny, XXXIII, 23.80; 21, G8. (5) Iliad, II, 857.

276 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. loincloth, the arg-entiferous country par excellence, exploited of good hour by the browsers pheni- citizens (1). » Such was the abundance of money provided by the mines of Spain that he circulated about them the most ridiculous fables : “It is said that in the past, in Iberia, shepherds having burned forests, the earth became incandescent, the silver which was was disseminated melted and agglomerates in let's go. Later, following violent concussions, cracks formed and put to discovered large masses of metal {2). » Diodorc of Sicily relates a legend semi- bable, from where the Pijrénêcs mountains would have taken their name, and he adds : “The combustion of ground fit smelted masses of ore and produced name- flowing streams of pure silver. Ignoring the use of this metal, the natives sold it in exchange other goods of little value to Phe- Niceans, who continued this trade for a long time and who thereby became so powerful that they could send settlers to Sicily, in the neighboring islands, in Libya, Sardinia and even in Italy (3i... » Strabo, to sound tour, reports a passage of Posidonius, who, speaking of the mines of copper, tin, gold and especially silver from Spain, and of its rivers rolling with flakes of these metals, (1) T. Reinach. in the International School of Sociology, February 1894. (2) Arislote, De mirabil. auscultationibus, ch. lxxxvii. (3] Diod. Sic, V, 25 et seq.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 277 said : <( It is not only on its surface that the earth spreads its metals ; she conceals them in her entrails such a large quantity that we must look der these regions underground less like the stay of the god of hells as that is god of riches. » The Phoenicians, the Cartha- ginois, then the Romans did not ceased, for centuries and of centuries, of come and draw from this source that their greed eventually dried up, despite its extreme wealth. The Carthaginians, practical people, had ins- established the capital of their Iheric empire, Carthago nova (Cartagena i, near the silver deposit tififer the most considerable. Polybius gives us on this subject the following details, which relate to the beginning of Roman domination in Es- loincloth : “Twenty stadiums from Cartagena, there are silver mines considerable enough to for- sea one circumference of four cents stadiums (1,841 km.). In their flanks, work without ceases forty thousand men who, every day, brought the Roman people 25,000 drachmas... We grind the piece money after that he has summer washed, and then suspended in water using of a sieve ; we grind the residue again, and we grind again after having sifted it; the fifth residue, freed from lead by the action of fire, produces a pure silver (1). » The Carthaginian also bought the powder gold in the island of (1) Polybius, XXXIV,9. 16

278 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Surrounded, on the coast Western Africa (1). The caravans of inside of Africa their brought more gold dust, either directly tement to Cartilage, or in the established omporia all along the northern coast of the continent African. The only gold mines that have been observed exploitation ancient in ancient Numidia, are those of Jebel bou-Heudma, between the Sel>kha of Nouail and the Aïaïcha mountains (2); but, several torrents Algerians who wear the name to' oued ed I)(du;b^ “ river of gold ", were rolling perhaps once gold-bearing sands. It would be going beyond our framework to tell, from a technical point of view, how we proceeded, in these mines, in the extraction of ore, and com- lies, in CCS rivers, we washed the glitter gold (3). We will say, however, to show the im- lift of production, that the personnel of the mines constituted real armies. We ve- let us report the testimony of Polybius, noting that the silver mines located near Cartbagène occupied 'i-O.OOOmen, including vail brought in 25,000 drachmas (i) every day. In the gold mines of upper Egypt, under the Lagides, worked multitudes slaves, criminals, convicts, prisoners of (1) Herodotus, IV, 195. (2) Ch. Tissot, Comparative geography of the Roman province from Africa, t. I, p. 258. (3) Pliny, jVa^. hist., XXXIir,'cf. Rangabé, from Laurium, ioc. cit., p. 326 et seq. (4) Polybius, XXXIV, 9.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 279 war. “These unfortunate people, said Diodorus of Sicily, loaded with chains, work day and night, without released, deprived of any hope of fleeing, under the sur- surveillance of foreign soldiers, speaking languages different of the idiom of country, in order that they don't can be won neither by promises nor by of prayers... The rock which contains gold being very compact, it becomes brittle the help of a big fire, and we then works on the hand. When the ore, become so friable, is sus- likely to yield to moderate fire, thousands of these wretches break it with iron tools, which are used to cut stones. He who recognizes the vein of gold places himself at the head of the workers, and their designates the place to search . The more robust, among these unfortunate condemned people, are busy to break the flint with corners of iron, in em- folding no the means of Fart but the strength of their arms; the galleries that they practice in this way are not straight ; they follow the direction of the metallic vein, and like, in these sinuosities underground, the workers se find in darkness, they carry torches attached to the forehead. Often changing their body position, according to the qualities of the rock, they bring down on the ground the fragments that they detach. They tra- thus valiantly tirelessly, under the eyes of a sur- cruel watchman, who overwhelms them with blows. Children still immature enter through the galleries beneath land up to the cavities of rocks, ra- massage painfully the fragments ore

280 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. detached and the carry to deliors, at the entrance to the gallery. Others workers, aged of more than thirty years, take a certain amount of these fragments and grind them in of mortars of stone, with drumsticks of iron, so as to reduce to the size of a lens. The ore thus pounded is taken by women and of old- bacon which puts it in a row of millstones, and then, placing two or three at each mani- vel, they reduce by grinding each measure of crushed ore, into a powder as fine as the flour. Everyone is overcome with commiseration at the appearance of these unfortunate people, who engage in these tra- painful conditions without having around the body the least dre cloth that hides their nudity. We don't give thanks denied the crippled, nor the crippled, nor the feeble old man, nor to the sick woman. We force them all to work, with redoubled blows, until that, exhausted from tigue, they expire with difficulty... » The ore thus ground is washed several times in water, then we finish the purify by process ordinary of the coiipcUation that we take folds still today, with perfects them- ments however that includes progress of modern industry. Suffice it to say that the ore crushed and washed was, for five days and five nights, subject to the action of clan fire clay vases with determinate proportions born from lead, tin salt and barley bran (1). (1) F. Robiou, Memoir on the political economy of Egypt at time of the Lagids, p. 191-192.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 281 It was for the king's service {-Iz ty;v 'yj.zù.v/:rc) '/ov.y:t) that the unfortunate miners of Egypt were subject to the regime that we have described. But those who worked in the mining of Laurium for the republic Athenian, and those who were in the mines of Gartagena for the Carthaginians, then for the Romans were forced to endure of atrocities worst in- core (1). Pliny, after described the processes techni- what extraction and washing, the same as in Egypt, said when speaking of the galleries dug by the Spanish minors : “ They stay for months whole without seeing the day... Often of crevices, of landslides stop miners crushed. Also, the temerity of divers who search for pearls at the bottom of the ocean, yields it to the audacity of this other business : by us , the bowels of the earth are more fatal than the depths of the Wed. Consequently, we has care to support the mountains by of vaults powerful and many- his... » We must read, in Pliny, the account of the work required to these workers for break the rocks of flint, description of rudimentary precautions and often undoubtedly insufficient that we took to avoid landslides, the means that we used to provoke others deemed necessary cessaries. “The fall of the masses,” he said, “is coming by a tremor visible for that one alone (1) Diod. Sic, V, 25 to 28. 16.

282 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. who watches uninterruptedly over the summit of the mountain tagne ; he shout or strikes immediately to remind workers, and he himself fled in a diligence. The broken mountain crumbles far from the location which she occupied, with a noise that the imagination cannot design : a powerful wind escapes of its sides. The minors victorious contemporary please this natural disaster (1). » Never beasts of sum don't were submitted to the savage brutalities inflicted on the workers of the gold and silver mines by masters who, stifling lacking in them all human feeling, had only the odious thought of getting rich quick and at all costs. Of all vices, the blind thirst for gold is the one who has generated the most cruelty and injustice. The metal exhalations, and probably those of sulfur which accompanied, were, according to the report of Pliny, deadly to dogs and pernicious to all animals [odor ex argentis fodinis inimicus omnibus animalibus, sod maxime canibus) (2); we don't didn't worry about it when it came to slaves. Also of revolts terrible, de- desperate, se sometimes produced, despite the chains including those condemned to forced labor were loaded, and in the face of the jailers atrocities who kept watch, spear in hand. At the time of the Peloponnesian War, the workers of Lau- rium took advantage of distress public for (1) Pliny, ^'at. hist., XXXIII, 21, 4. (2j Ibid., XXXIII, 31.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 283 rebel (1). They suddenly came out fully armed with entrails of the earth : their surprised guards were massacred; they spread like crazy in the surrounding countryside, the sape and the torch by hand. Everything was put to fire and blood. Sunium was socket assault, and all the coast of FAttica was changed into a field of ruins and a vast cemetery. The repression was long and also terribly ble that the revolt herself. When Tordre was finally restored, the Athenians fortified Cape Su- nium and took the necessary measures to ensure that of the same attempts could not be repeated. Nevertheless, such had been the accumulated ruins related cju'à leave of this era the mines of Laurium does not were more exploited as by the past ; they declined and ended by be abandoned : avarice, it seems, had been ter- rorized. The products of the mines returned to the state or to individuals, depending on the case. The big mid- nes were at the state who the administered and the operated directly : it was a of its principles main sources of income. 3Iais there was also mines that were privately owned. Those of Laurium had been divided into lots that the State leased to individuals (2). The works of ex- (1) Posidonius, in Athenaeus, Deipnosopli., VI, p. 272<^. — See Rangabe, /. c, p. 336. (2) Xenophon, Revenues, ch. iv. — See Schoemann, Antiques (jrec(juices, 1. 1, p. 510 ; — Rangabé, from Laurium, in the Memoirs presented by various scholars at Acad. of Insc. and B.-Lettrcs, t. VIII, 1874, 2' part., p. 312.

284 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. exploitation were then carried out by slaves belonging to these private entrepreneurs. A cer- tain Nicias, son of Niceratos, occupied, for his only one thousand workers, hired by him to Sosias from Thrace, and he took from everyone, benefited from net income, one mite per day (1). Xenophon pro- poses that the city of Athens employs in the mines 10,000 slaves at least, who reports to him 100 talents annually. In Kome, the state where the emperor was holder of mining the more important; sometimes he the operated directly, sometimes he affirmed them, or even he the completely alienated the profit from individuals (2). It is hardly necessary to notice that all the mines we have listed have not been operated simultaneously. 11 in who is se hole- are going already closed and dead of consumption when others were discovered; and when we considers world history as a whole, Does it not seem, in truth, that the ma- magic of a prudent and wise fairy takes care not to desi- generate new deposits for humanity always unfulfilled, that as exhaustion progresses elders? It's that in fact the mines golden and money, to cause of monetary role of these me- rate , are not, from the point of view of profits (1) Xenophon, Revenues, ch. iv, 14. (2) For developments what would it include this subject, see J. Marquardt, of Financial Organization at the Romans. p. 317-319 and 326 to 328.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 285 that they provide, comparable to mines of other very ordinary products. For iron, lead, copper, coal, there is a variable course, a market in which these goods must be river; if they are too abundant, if their de- clogged comes to be closed, if the competition is develops , their price falls, the entrepreneur of the mine sees its profits decline, the investment of its products can become difficult ; if he se found had loss , he is forced to abandon the mine or to tend, at one's own risks and perils, for the return of two days. The situation of the producer is entirely different monetary metal. Like he has the faculty of convert all metal into cash at forced rate that he extracts from his mine, he always has a flow- insured for its products; there is no increase nor decrease for its twenty franc pieces, whatever or the number he strikes. The owner- the mine therefore has an immediate and di- rect to make him give back as much as possible, without fear to clutter the market, without ever fearing cune competition. “The producer of a mar- merchandise any, said Henri Cernuschi (1), does not know his account profits and losses that when he realized in gold, that is to say sold his merchandise for the currency. The producer gold itself produces money directly. Its realization is ready. If he fired from the mine more kilograms golden that he doesn't have any spent (1) H. Cernuschi, Anatomy of money, p. 12.

•286 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. for the extract, he is in profit; if he in has pulled less, he is in loss, and everything is said. He doesn't consult any market prices, he's not going to the mar- ché, it goes directly to the State which is obliged to it transform his metal into cash at forced exchange rate. . . Whatever the quantity produced, gold enters straight into traffic. All grams new gold are exactly the same to all grams of old gold. All have the same power. Old metal cannot block the path to metal. tal new. » Xenophon, at the beginning of the fourth century key before our era, already formulated the same laws in these curious terms to recall : “The less we have miners and researchers, he says, less too, depending on me, we find riches, while with more arms, we extracts much more ore. Also, is this the only company where we do not fear to increase the number of workers. All growers will tell you exactly how much he them need pairs of oxen, how many day laborers for their land; and if one of them has more than the sufficient number, they calculate that they are in loss : but in the extraction of metals pre- heavens, everyone says they need workers. In effect, he doesn't is not here like workers in copper: when copper works sell tooth at a low price, the copper workers are ruined; I will say the same about the iron workers. And, likewise, when there is a lot of wheat and wine, these products real ones sell at a low price, culture does not bring

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 287 nothing, so that many people leave there the land to become dealers, second-hand dealers, loan sharks. But more the ore product and more money gives, the more people we see carry oneself towards this profession. And in indeed, when we have made Fac- quisition of material necessary to a household, we no longer buy anything more ; but money, never no one owns enough so as not to want no more : to this point that those who have a lot find as much of pleasure to bury their superfluity only to use it. There is more : when the cities flourish, that's when we need the most money; men want to spend money to have beautiful weapons, good horses, houses, splendid furniture ; women have mind turned towards the rich stars, the adornments gold. A city, at contrary, is she reached by famine or by war, like the earth then is much less cultivated, you need to bare needed for food and for the allies... All these explanations come back to say that we we will resolutely send to the mines a large quantity of workers; that we must resolutely search there, certain that we don't miss the ore quera pas, and that money will never will lose sound price. The State, of remains, has thus judged long- time before me. It grants the privileges of toyen to any foreigner who wants to do excavations in the mines » (1). (1) Xenophon, Revenue, chap. iv.

288 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Rapid depletion of mines metal-my- nae, this is the forced consequence of these principles cipes. They explain the starving ardor of the seekers singers golden^ Fablind eagerness to the crowd as soon as we indicates a new deposit, the bold lies forged to abuse its credulity. Gold producers cannot be never in a competitive state, since the course forced is insured to all their indistinct products tement and hence that they come. They cannot have an interest in joining forces to raise the value of noble metal, nor for monopolize it, since they come will always have the kilogram of gold approximately same price and that there will be nor increase nor decline very appreciable. They do not work or rivals, nor in collaborators : they become more or less rich, depending on whether the mine yields more or less every day, the extraction fees once paid. They run no risk and don't could be victims of market fluctuations : they don't have than to stop, as soon as the mine does not product not enough gold so that he their had rest after that they have paid their workers.

VII THE RELATIONS OF GOLD TO SILVER AMONG THE ELDERLY r. — NATURAL INSTABILITY OF THE REPORT OF L GOLD To the money In simple societies where replacement in kind is the main system of commerce, it cannot there be a rule imposed on the value of things. This are the individual conveniences which fix the price of the items exchanged; ratings vary for each case and next good pleasure and acquiescence of both parts contracting parties. How many furs worth this bag of wheat? Com- many sheep is worth this utensil or this weapon? this beef is it the equivalent of this horse or of this field? A transaction agreed do not commit the parties for subsequent operations, and no power doesn't come constrain anyone at enter into a deal, accept a payment that don't would not have suited him (1). (1) J.-B. Say, Complete course, t. I, p. 373. 17

290 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. It was the same in the livestock diet- currency or currency utensils. But from from the day when more advanced societies began rent to employ the metals, concurrently, as an equivalent and common measure of exchanges aged, the question previous se complic|ua of this one : What is the value respective of these metals, in relation to each other? how much a kilogram golden is it worth of kilograms electrum, silver, copper, iron, lead, and recipro(|ucment? I buy a horse, a house sound, a field; I would have the ability to deliver payment of a determined weight of gold; but gold me done fault; to his place, my creditor consents to accept money, iron or copper. What weight of one or other of these metals should I considered as the equivalent in value, of the weight gold of which I am in debt? And when the experience had reduced the true monetary metals to two, gold and silver, we had to ask ourselves what was the report of these two metals between them, to sol- der the same sum, indifferently with one or with the other. This is the eternal restless question since the origins of the civilization up to our days, and whose humanity seems condemned by nature to seek the solution as long as it lives, since it's nature itself, we have it vile, who invested in times the two metals no- bles qualities essential that must have the sign of exchanges and the standard of values. Currently, in our countryside, the peasant

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 291 continue, by tradition, to measure often the [)oids to the book, the lengths at the league, to the height chart, to the thumb, while in others case and sometimes on the same market, he serves, for the same object, of the modern method, that is to say meter and kilometer, gram and of his multiple. This double system or , if we want, this double stallion, is not detrimental to person; person; he has no other disadvantage than requiring a calculation, moreover little conquered , when we wants convert the toises and the leagues to meters and in kilometers, the books in grams or in kilograms. He no didn't error possible : this is because the units of length or the units weight are of measurements abstract, in varia Ides, set for always and worthless by themselves. Since it is not so for gold and for silver, who jointly preside to exchanges in all complicjuated societies and are at the same time real equivalents, he must, of all necessity, know their report mutual. However, he is more easy, we will agree, to establish how many meters there are in a toise, or grams in a pound, than to say how- good he it takes grams of silver to counter balance the value of one gram of gold. Furthermore, the problem has a solution whose very essence is to be mobile and chan- giant, everywhere and always, despite the multi- ples efforts tempted by the laws to ensure their stability, and despite even the qualities which give

292 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. to precious metals fixity of value more greater than that of any other natural product or manufactured. Without doubt, like we have you explained at length, gold and the money is not subjects, — unlike any other commodity, — to suddenly suffer a worrying depreciation or a considerable added value. Surprises of purse would not know reach them; nevertheless, he enough of consult each day the mercurial to realize that the price metals pre- heaven is not of absolute immobility and that in normal time it gravitates around a central point, generally taken as a basis of the monated standard shut up. Comparing years distant, you notice that the amplitude of the oscillations is quite sensitive and that, in turn, a metal cherish when the other degrades, so that the equi- valence admitted, for the first time, between the two metals is no longer accurate and asks to be rectified constantly trusted. The causes of these variations are multiple; he will be enough point out a few. In ordinary times, he must be taken into account inequality of the production of two metals monetary. They do not increase in parallel and simultaneously an equivalent sum each year. A overproduction or slowdown in gold mines is not always counterbalanced days by a similar movement in the mines money. Therefore, the value ratio of the two metals on the market is trending to undergo the counter-

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 293 ( oiip more OR less sensitive do this inequality. Speculation can also contribute to influencing in a way more or less dummy the market precious metals. The operations of stock traders are based on the study of annual production mines, the diversity of monetary legislation of different countries, which favor a metal detriment of the other; the degree of wear of the parts that gold handlers transport from a country where they are only received by weight in another where we accept them for their nominal value and le- scabies ; the difference of the standard or monetized unit silence among various peoples, the transport costs and metal smelting; the rate insurance, commissions, customs duties, interests loans; bank credit, the degree of confidence what inspires the fiat currency of this or that country; wars, finally, political unrest, a ra- slowing suddenly or expansion fast of business operations ; the difference of treat- ment of the same commodity on markets different : such are, briefly indicated, the causes main ones that compete to establish a kind of seesaw game, an unstable balance, in the respective reports of gold and silver. The mass of the public does not surrender hardly matters of serious disadvantages fatally generated by this uncertainty. There is no question who touches its interests more closely and who, however, be more indifferent to him. This is due, on the one hand, to what the movement in rising or drop in

294 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. metal prices do not act in an apparent manner annuity on the value of the gold and silver coins that each of us holds in his pocket or cofi're-i'ort ; and then, in the space of time that last most contracts between individuals, the change in value metals is not, in general, large enough to modify the conditions normal contract when it expires. This holds finally, that in all countries, measurements legislative measures were taken to put, as much as possible, currencies subject to fluctuations in the market of gold or money. The course forced imposed by the law to the currencies national ga- rants every citizen against the disappointments that could lead to metal price mobility. He must hold state also, like we we have it demonstrated higher (1 ), instinctive respect for habits received in the circuit monetary of a specific country. But, in spite of this apathy of the crowd, it is easy to demonstrate, by examples, that the variation in value of the me- monetary rates is likely to cause disruption bation in international relations, and that it can even lead, for a nation, to the annihilation development of its foreign trade. The paragraphs that will follow this one will have for purpose of do bring out these eco-phenomena nomics for the Greek era and Roman. Here, we will limit ourselves, in order to better illuminate (1) See above, p. 148 et seq.

LKS ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 295 rer this (jue we must say about antiquity, to question the present tenses and ask them to provide us with one or two topical examples of these social upheavals. Gold mines discovered from 1848 to 1851, in Australia and California, threw on the market che Ijrusquement a such quantity of this metal (200,000 kilograms per year, instead of 55,000), that its value was depreciated. Therefore, for buy a kilogram of gold, he was no longer born- necessary to pay 15 kil. '/. money, next the equivalence fixed for the currency French ; we could get it for 15 and even 14 kilograms meas. Our currency golden had therefore fallen by report to our silver currency, and its value nominal, despite the law, had become super- laughing at its value real or intrinsic; the equi- free was broken between the room of 5 francs in gold and the piece of 5 francs in silver : this one was at a premium and benefited from a capital gain in foreign trade; also, by application of Gresham's theorem (1), she emigrated en masse abroad. It was India, whose trade was developing then, who absorbed a large part of our money, and here is how this trans- metal fusion. The banker who wanted to send of money to Calcutta, in Madras or Bombay, kept well to buy this metal in London, where (1) “Bad money drives away the good one. “See above, p. 151.

296 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. with a kilogram golden he could not have pro- cure that 14 kilograms money; he came obtain supplies in Paris where, by French law, for one kilogram gold, he received 15 kilo- grams '/has money. And this is how more than two billion of our silver coins were trans- brought to India where they are converted into rupees. Else leaves, the government French had interest in monetizing gold rather than silver, since gold cost him less, like everything other buyer : “Today,” wrote the Duke of Blacas in 18G5, money is premium, that is to say that four 5 franc coins are worth a little more that one 20 coin francs in gold. He results that the government finds it advantageous to issue a lot of gold and little money, and that the spec- lators indigenous and foreigners monopolize the 5 franc coins, who have almost dis- effect released from our markets » (1). Tel is the true secret of the crowd beautiful ones napoleons golden under the Second Empire; from 1853 to 1868, the Mint of Paris minted 5 billion 7i0 million in gold, and only 308 million in money. Our gold coins, which, since that time, have become so popular, have been emitted in such abundance, that because the metal from which they are made was then depreciated in commerce. To prevent the currency money of emi- (1) Duke of Blacas, in the History of the Roman coinage of Mommsen, 1. 1, preface, p. xxv, note.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 297 grate, we had the choice between two measures : sus- hang the minting of the money, or change the title or the weight of the currency this metal. We adopted to the times, but partially, these two means : the issuance of currency money was slowed down to the proportions that we have just indicated say ; and then, by an agreement concluded between France, the Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, the 23rd December 1865, the title of silver coins, hor- put the 5 franc coin, was lowered from OOO'IOOO to 835/1000, which took away from these pieces more than 7 "/« of their intrinsic value. There was no longer then great interest for speculators to export the new silver currency. Everything went well during some time and the monetary crisis appeared conjured. But now 1872, and in in the following years, we discovered, in the United States and elsewhere, ar mines people of extreme abundance. While, a- After Soetbeer's statistics, the production of the money was, in 1865, 1,100,000 k., she reaches gnawed 2,861,000 k. in 1881, and she exceeded 5,000,000 k. in 1893. The production of gold, far away of progress in proportions sem- blables, decreased even during this period, since, from 1851 to 1855^ she was annually of 200,000 k., and that, from 1881 to 1885, it fell at 1Y9,000k. From this it resulted that gold reconquered the place that he had lost in the period preceding tooth; to buy 1k. gold, it was no longer 15 k. of money that had to be paid on the market was 17.

298 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. successively 10, 18, 20 and up to 22k. The equi- free se found broken new, but this times in meaning reverse : Tor fit premium, and it's the money which was in turn depreciated. This was then, as we have explained more high, that speculators bought masses enormous quantities of this metal, at 150 francs per kilogram, or even cheaper; and they carried this ar- gent at the iMonnaie de Paris, where, by French law, cash, we were required to convert it into currency at title legal, or, which is all one, to give them the equivalent in gold coin, on the basis of the legal proportion 1 to 15 '/j- ï-ie stock which had them cost 150 francs gave them 200 francs in mon- nae; the difference was their net profit and represents felt the loss of the State. Repeated on a large scale, this operation could train to our country a real disaster : it's for warn her that we took the party, in 1876, of sus- hang the minting of silver coins, except for extra currency, the quantity of which is lega- ly limited and lower title. Another protective measure consisted of closing sea our border to foreign silver coins res, even to those which, like the currencies of Chile, Peru or the Argentine Republic , have the same title, the same weight and the same module as our piece of 5 francs. The public, without doubt, would have continued without repugnance to the accept, since they are similar to ours and that he don't does not notice of the harm

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 299 that they could cause him, but this inadver- tance him would have cost a lot. What would happen in ellet, if the 5 franc silver coins of the Ame- South America enjoyed the privilege with us of our 5 franc silver coin, that is to say if the law of forced exchange gave them a more- artificial value equal to 5 gold francs? We would hit, at Chile, in the Republic Argentina and at Peru, huge quantities of these parts who don't would cost manufacturer that 2 fr. 50 (1), and we the would export to France to exchange them against our room golden 5 francs. Our beautiful coins gold, following the Gresham's law, go away would fly to America, and we would receive in return of depreciated money (2). One day would come where we would notice, but too much late, that we have summer fooled, that we have received 2 fr. 50 in return of the 5 francs golden that we we gave, and we only have one left fiat currency and impoverished including the stranger doesn't want to. It is the application of the elementary principle for- mulated higher : a currency that has ceased to be a equivalent real, because that she is manufactured with a metal of which the value commercial has lowered, can only be received for its weight of metal iin and its market value, outside the country (1) The value real of money is today him reduced, in average, about half of what it was still in the middle of the century. (2) See above, p. 161.

300 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. WHERE it was issued and where she has forced course. He therefore matters of distinguish the mo- circulation international netaire , of the monetized circulation silence interior of a nation any. If the law or the tradition , in a country, can maintain the course forced and a value dummy to a currency which is no longer an equivalent real, nothing could make him cross the border to the same value. And if the forced price were to pro- fit any depreciated currency coming from abroad ger, the State would no longer be assured of the considerations that he draws from one's own monetary situation for maintain a portion of its cash at a value their trustee. This natural principle was recognized in the anti- equity as it is in modern times. At the Greeks, the currencies of a city had no currency than for their weight outside the limits of this city. It's what wants express Xenophon in a passage of the famous Revenue Treaty : “. In the most of cities others than Athens, he said, the foreign merchants are forced to barter their goods against others, because that the currencies of these cities have no currency beyond out (1) ". And also at the Romans, the drachma Illyrian, struck at Dyrrachium and to ApoUonia, which, around the third century B.C. era, flocked to the market from Rome, no was (1) Xenophon, IIcpi upô(7o5wv, cliap. m, 1... wo\)J.g\).ix(ji yap oO

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 301 received only as merchandise and there was not legal tender and obligatory : Hic mwuuf/s, here: Ilbjrico advecliis, mcrcïs loco tencbaluv^ says Pliny; it was the same with all Greek coins. what the commercial movement carried up to central Italy (1). When the Cars Thaginois, after having been defeated at Zama, get ready felt in Rome bearers of the tribute which had been imposed, they had the pretension to pay it with their national silver currency, which con- held a strong lead alloy. But the quaestors Romans, recounts Livy (2), declared that this money was not admissible ; we melted and we found a quarter of waste that the Carthaginians had to be replaced by pure metal, in contract so much a loan from Rome, straight away. Given that one any currency don't could cross the borders of the country where it travels cule for a value overrated, it follows that tually, since it's the case of our currency money, we are forced to pay in gold all the goods we buy from the foreigner. We will see how much our trade ex- interior suffers from this state of affairs. The crisis who rages on our agriculture, by example, comes partly from there : let's take a country which exports wheat to us, the Ar-Republic (1) Pliny, Hist. nnt., XXXIII, 3.4"; cf. Mœcianus, of Asse, §i5; Olim victoriatus ut peregrinus niimmus loco thanks, ut nunc tetradrachmum and drachma habebatur. (2) T.-Live, XXXII, 2.

302 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Gentine, where gold commands a premium of 350 per cent, which means that what we call 100 gold francs in Pa- ris is worth 350 francs a la Plata. When the Argentinians They sell us wheat for 10 francs Thectolitre, it is, for them, like if they sold it to us reality 35 francs, since the 10 francs that we let's give them payment equivalent to 35 francs at them. To be able to fight against the crowds American wheat, it would therefore be necessary for the farmer French farmer also delivered his wheat for 10 francs hectoliter, which is impossible for him, because he cannot prohter, like his competitor, of the premium of gold. The export trade of French products but in South America is no less direct ment reached, the Argentinian wants to be sent from Paris, I suppose, books for 100 francs; like the bookseller French cannot receive in payment in Argentinian currency, which has no currency with us, the American buyer will be oldig to obtain gold, and, to make 100 gold francs, he will have to pay 350 silver francs. He him wrong- will therefore, in reality, pay 350 francs for his books, which it will seem to him an exorbitant price, and what makes that he will abstain. And, to suppose that he buy nevertheless, this does not will not the French bookseller who will benefit from the surplus value of gold, but the changer of La Plata, C£ui, for 100 francs gold, will have received 350 francs of hard currency on site. Today, after nineteen years, the strike of

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 303 our 5 franc silver coin continues to be suspended, because the value of money by compared to gold did not come closer to the pro- serving of 15 '/, to 1, cjui is the basis of our system monetary theme. But this situation prolongs- will it last long? who could say it? Since cjuelques years, of news mining gold are discovered in Transwaal, Australia, in South America. Many compa- exploitation or research geniuses have formed meas; the quantity gold thrown on the pro-market grows every year, in enormous proportions : 1893 provides a top yield of 200,000 kilograms to that of 1892. All the speculations tors currently have fever gold, at the same degree intensity that the Egyptians when they pushed their slaves into the rich lions of mountains of Ethiopia. What will result in cjuekjue time, of this resurgence of gold? Will the balance be restored between the two nobles metals, or one of the two, money, is it defined- tively condemned; or even, their proportion normal operation will it have to be fixed on another basis than that which French law adopted ago a century? It is for those who study the monetary crisis current silence from responding to these questions complex and delicate. In theory, when gold is falling, we should add a little gold to each piece of this metal, for repair his depreciation proportional. When it's money, the opposite operation would be

304 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. necessary : he should be made parts of this metal heavier; if the room current of 6 francs are said to be worth only 2 fr. 50 gold, give it to him the weight of silver of two five-franc pieces, and thus perfect equivalence will be re-established. But, in practical, of such reforms are not achievable in modern states : he is not possible for a large country to rebuild constant- half of its circulating cash, sometimes the parts gold, sometimes coins money. Besides the enormous costs that such operations entail would hang around, since he should the state provides what would be missing the value real parts, the greatest dismay would result for the public in daily business affairs, so well that the remedy might be worse than evil. And yet, in ancient times, especially among the Greek republics, it is to this extent r- dical that was used to give back to the species these the character of money right, coin truly equivalent to its nominal value. Thus, the cities of Asia Minor which were part of ties of the Achaemenid empire were forced you to receive at par the gold darique and to pay their silver currency on the value of this coin. They therefore applied themselves to pruning their cash of such that these pus- feels exchange against a determined number and fixed of gold dariques. But, as soon as a modification considerable change occurred in the relationship of the two metals, “ it was necessary, as says it

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 305 Fr. Lenormant, coming to demonetization and to a redesign of the currency of one of the two me- rate, to change the weight and put it back, a- close to the basics of the new course, in exact relation of value with that of the other metal (1). » However, every time a phenomenon of this kind occurs duisit, this does not was not the king of Persia who threw crucible its gold coin : she remained immutable wheat, and these were the tributary cities that last demonetize their cash white. He was pos- sible to these small states , whose species , relati- vely not very abundant, hardly circulated in outside the territory of the capital, of change often the weight of these parts, to abandon for their size a weight system and adopt another, in the goal to give to coins the necessary equivalence between their legal value and their metallic value. But, in the times modern, the govern- nements had to look for a other solution to problem always reborn from equalization gold and silver. At the origin of the bi-system metallism such that he was organized in France, on the proposal from Gandin, by the law of 7 ger- minimum year XI (1803), the parts of 5 francs in gold and 5 francs in silver were equivalent, both as an intrinsic value and as value legal. In effect, at the time when it was established (1) Fr. Lenormant, Coinage in antiquity, t. I, p. 176- 177.

306 THE CURRENCY OUICINES. this system, the kilogram money was worth i200 francs ; five francs therefore represented exact- lies the value of 25 grams, weight which was given to the room of 5 francs in money. From a other side, to the same date, the kilogram of gold was worth 3,100 francs; for 5 frank we was buying thus 1 gr. 613, weight which was given to the room of 5 francs in gold. The equivalence of value of the two parts of 5 francs was therefore perfect. The room silver weighing thus 25 grams and the piece golden i gram G13, you need 15 gold coins and one half to make balance to a silver coin in the pans of a balance. But we have found that this ratio of 15 '/i î» 1> (jui stayed the Jjase of our monetary system, has been modified commercially, and that the peril of bimetallism lies above all in the application of the theorem of Gresham, according to which the bad currency chase the maid : silver coins, depreciated in themselves and overrated by the course forced, we remain, while the parts gold, which really have all their nominal value, not- feels foreign, the foreigner unwilling, and right, receive others. The English Economists, struck by the impossibility bility of fix between both precious metals a report who could last, in concluded that he had to adopt one alone like monetized metal shut up, the second in front,' like the copper, serve only to make extra money. Since 1816, England is under this diet,