CHAPTER XI.
The Lydian and Persian Systems.
"The Lydians," says Herodotus, "were the first of all nations
we know who struck gold and silver coin[1]," a tradition
also attested by Xenophanes of Colophon, according to Julius
Pollux[2]. These statements of the ancient writers are confirmed
by an examination of the earliest essays made in Asia
in the art of coining; from which the best numismatists have
been led to ascribe it to the seventh century B.C. and probably
to the reign of Gyges, who from being a shepherd, by means
of the "virtuous ring" became the founder of the great dynasty
of the Mermnadae, and of the new Lydian empire as distinguished
from the Lydia of a more remote antiquity. The
first issues of the Lydian mint were rudely executed coins
of electrum, being staters and smaller coins of the standards
usually known as the Babylonian and Phoenician, of which the
earliest staters weigh about 167 and 220 grs. respectively[3]. It
is most likely that the Babylonian standard was intended for
commerce with the interior of Asia Minor, and the Phoenician
for transactions with the cities of the western seaboard, to
coincide with the silver standards in use in these respective
regions. The proportion of gold and silver in electrum is ex-*]
