Note 430 — Chapter XXXIII · GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.

Herodot. iv, 166; Plutarch, Kimon, 10.

The gold Daric, of the weight of two Attic drachmæ; (Stater Daricus), equivalent to twenty Attic silver drachmæ (Xenoph. Anab. i, 7, 18), would be about 16s. 3d. English. But it seems doubtful whether that ratio between gold and silver (10 : 1) can be reckoned upon as the ordinary ratio in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. Mr. Hussey calculates the golden Daric as equal to £1, 1s. 3d. English (Hussey, Essay on the Ancient Weights and Money, Oxford, 1836, ch. iv, s. 8, p. 68; ch. vii, s. 3, p. 103).

I cannot think, with Mr. Hussey, that there is any reason for believing either the name or the coin Daric to be older than Darius son of Hystaspês. Compare Boeckh, Metrologie, ix, 5, p. 129.

Particular statements respecting the value of gold and silver, as exchanged one against the other, are to be received with some reserve as the basis of any general estimate, since we have not the means of comparing a great many such statements together. For the process of coinage was imperfectly performed, and the different pieces, both of gold and silver, in circulation, differed materially in weight one with the other. Herodotus gives the ratio of gold to silver as 13 : 1.