I shall begin by showing that all men have gen­erally used the metals — principally gold and sil­ver — as money.

Money draws its value from the value of the metals.

How to augment and diminish the neutral of money? Circulation, and the ingenious representation in the public interest by paper.

Discussed interest, agio, foreign exchange.

In all nations which avail themselves of its use, money consists of three metals. One is of a high value, another of a middling value, and a third of a low value. Without exception, gold and silver are used for the first and second ranks of value, but the metal used for money of the lowest rank Has differed from century to century.

Today copper is the third of a low value material. Sometimes the Romans use yellow copper or brass, and bronze. Iron money, lead coins was also used. And back in the day of Galiani a mixture of the two medals was made for small coins.

Some nations used bitter almonds, cocoa and corn, salt, or shells.

Curiosity may well be the cause of the discovery of all great things.

Gold from the sea?

Sheer wonder, the mother of experience and of curious inquiry, probably first led men of the earliest ages to draw
these bodies of stone and earth up to fire and — upon seeing them run to the ground, molten and liquified
to understand their nature for the first time.

Gold adornment

There is no nation in which these metals are avail­ able today, however barbarian, in which women, children, and men are not most eager to adorn their persons, or even their coarse ornaments •— when they have any —
with gold and silver.

Silver is underrated?

In such works, silver is discussed considerably less frequently than gold. This indicates to me that even
in those days it was recognized that the scarcity and value of silver were equal to that of gold, and some­ times even greater.

Coins

Coins, thus, came to acquire the universal accetability which-makes them money.

Homer

Homer, for instance, was wont to say, with reference to men of wealth, that they were “rich in gold and copper,” and “a great deal of gold and copper was hidden” in Ulysses’ treasure.

Silver is actually more scarce than gold?

Valuations

Skillful and industrious male slave is worth 4 oxen.

Price of oxen.

Talents and balf-talents were their gold^^^ coins. Homer frequently-referred to them as
which corresponds to our g’uisto and trabboccante. Money of account was otherwise referred to as 60s, which is the same as the word for ox, whether every­
thing was valued in terms of oxen, or whether this was
just a name for a coin, as I tend to believe. If it
was a coin, it was surely a gold
in the twenty-third book of the Iliad/ of a slave, who, though most skillful and industrious, was valued at no more than Teaoapd6o\ov,‘‘’^ or four 6ous.

Hectacomb

This is probably^why,_b5r the time Homer wrote, that much celebrated SKaToySn
no longer stood for 100 oxen,^“=^^ but instead was -the name of a sacrificial ceremony sometimes performed with
goats and lambs.

In the east, silver money was adopted before gold?

Do you prefer gold or silver?

the Spartans could not find enough gold to gild a vault in the image of Apollo

117 bricks of gold!!!??

Some of these were 6 inches long, while others were only 3 inches. All of them were an inch thick.

In enumerating the wealth he saw in Delphi, Herodotus asserts that Croesus alone provided the ora­ cle with one hundred seventeen bricks of gold.*

Wealth and war and arms

The bravest men were the richest?

Whereas at that time the bravest of men were the richest, today the richest are the most unwarlike and peaceful. The differences, there­
fore, arise from different attitudes toward war.

In those days wealth was companion to arms and,
fore, followed the viscissitudes of’war; today, wealth follows the path of peace.