England and on the Continent. We have abundant specimens still left of the weights carried by the wool merchants, slung over the back of a pack-horse.
Having said so much by way of preliminary, we can now adduce testimony in support of our thesis. Once more let us start with the Homeric Poems. The weighing of gold is already in vogue, but the highest unit known is the small talent, the value of an ox, weighing 130-5 grs, or 10-15 grs more than a sovereign. Silver is not yet estimated by weight, although large and handsome vessels of that metal are described and have their value appraised. But it is not by their weight that their value is estimated, but by their capacity. Thus as first prize for the footrace Achilles gave "a wine-mixer of silver, wrought, and it held six measures, but it surpassed by far in beauty all others upon earth, since cunning craftsmen, the Sidonians, had carefully worked it, and Phoenician men brought it over the misty deep." (Iliad, XXIII. 741 sqq.) Here we have a vessel wrought in silver evidently of considerable size, but it is simply by its content that its size and value are expressed. Among the lists of prizes in the same book we find the size of vessels made of copper or bronze similarly indicated. Thus the first prize for the chariot race consisted of a woman skilled in goodly tasks; and a tripod with ears, which held two and twenty measures; whilst the third prize was a lebes or kettle which had never yet been blackened by the fire, still with all the glitter of newness, which held four measures. So, too, in the case of iron. As the prize for the Hurling of the Quoit, Achilles set down a mass of pig iron, which he had taken from Eetion. It is a piece of metal as yet unwrought, so that here if anywhere its size and value ought to be reckoned by weight, since no account has to be taken of workmanship. But Achilles, instead of saying that it weighs so many talents or minae, describes its value in a far more primitive fashion. "Even if his fat lands be very far remote, it will last him five revolving seasons. For not through want of iron will his shepherd or ploughman go to the town, but it (the mass) will supply him[1]."
- ↑ Il. XXIII. 826 seqq.
