Chapter III · THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE OX AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD.

Let us now take a general survey of the results of our observations. First of all it is apparent that the doctrine of a primal convention with regard to the use of any one particular article as a medium of exchange is just as false as the old belief in an original convention at the first beginning of Language or Law. Every medium of exchange either has an actual marketable value, or represents something which either has or formerly had such a value, just as a five-pound note represents five sovereigns, and the piece of stamped walrus skin formerly employed by Russians in Alaska in paying the native trappers represented roubles or blankets[79].

To employ once more the language of geology, we have found evidence pointing to certain general laws of stratification. In Further Asia we have found a section which presents us with an almost complete series of strata, whilst in other places where we have been only able to observe two or three layers, we have nevertheless found that certain strata are invariably found superimposed upon others, just as regularly as the coal seams are found lying over the carboniferous limestone. As soon as the primitive savage has conceived the idea of obtaining some article which he desires but does not possess by giving in exchange to its owner something which the latter desires, the principle of money has been conceived. Shells or necklaces of shells are found everywhere to be employed in the earliest stages. When some men began to make weapons of superior material, as for instance axes of jade instead of common stone, such weapons naturally soon became media of exchange; when the ox and the sheep, the swine and the goat are tamed, large additions are made to the circulating media of the more advanced communities; then come the metals; the older ornaments of shells and implements of stone are replaced by those of gold (and much later by silver) and by weapons of bronze as in Asia and Europe, and by those of iron in Africa. Copper and iron circulate either in the form of implements and weapons, such as the axes of West Africa, the hoes of the early Chinese and modern Bahnars, and the ancient Chinese knives, all of which remind us of the axes and half-axes in Homer; or in the form of rings and bracelets, like the manillas of West Africa and the ancient Irish fibulae; or else in the form of plates or bars of metal, ready to be employed for the manufacture of such articles, as we saw in the case of the iron bars of Laos, the iron discs of the Madis, and the brass rods of the Congo. Again we are reminded of the mass of pig-iron, which Achilles offered as a prize[80].

It is of the highest importance to observe that such pieces of copper and iron are not weighed, but are appraised by measurement. We shall find that it is only at a period long subsequent to the weighing of gold that the inferior metals are estimated by weight. The custom of capturing wives which prevails among the lowest savages is succeeded by the custom of purchasing wives. The woman is only a chattel on the same footing as the cow or the sheep, and she is accordingly appraised in terms of the ordinary media of exchange employed in her community, whether it be in cows, horses, beads, skins or blankets. Presently male captives are found useful both to tend flocks and, as in the East and in the modern Soudan, to guard the harem. With the discovery of gold, ornaments made at first out of the rough nuggets supersede other ornaments, and presently either such ornaments or portions of gold in plates or lumps are added to the list of media, and the same follows with the discovery of silver. Such ornaments or pieces of gold and silver are estimated in terms of cattle, and the standard unit of the bars or ingots naturally is adjusted to the unit by which it is appraised. Thus we found the Homeric talent, the silver bar of Annam, the Irish unga all equated to the cow, and the Welsh libra, Anglo-Saxon libra, similarly equated to the slave. With the discovery of the art of weaving, cloths of a definite size everywhere become a medium, as the silk cloth of ancient China, the woollen cloths of the old Norsemen, the toukkiyeh of the Soudan, and the blanket of North America. This fact once more recalls Homer and makes us believe that the robes and blankets and coverlets which Priam brought along with the talents of gold to be the ransom of Hector’s body all had a definite place in the Homeric monetary system[81].

We have seen the Siamese piece of twisted silver wire passing into a coin of European style, and we shall find that the Chinese bronze knife has finally ended by becoming a cash, just as we have already found the Homeric talent of gold appearing, in weight at least, as the gold stater of historical times. Thus in every point the analogy between what we find in the Homeric Poems and in modern barbarous communities seems complete. We may therefore with some confidence assume that we are at liberty to fill up the gaps in the strata of Greek monetary history which lie between Homer and the beginning of coined money on the analogy of the corresponding strata in other regions. This assumption, resting on a broad basis of induction and confirmed, as we shall see, by a good deal of evidence special to Greece and Italy, will be found to explain the origin, not only of weight standards in those countries, but also of the Greek obol and Roman as, as well as of the types on the oldest coins, such as the cow’s head of Samos, the tunny fish of Olbia and Cyzicus, the axe of Tenedos, the tortoise of Aegina, the shield of Boeotia, and the silphium of Cyrene.

Let us now turn to the races who both in modern and in ancient times have dwelt around the basin of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, whether in Asia Minor, Central Asia, Europe or Africa. In what did their wealth consist? When we first meet in history the various branches of the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic races, they are all alike possessed of flocks and herds. To deal first with the Aryans; we have already had ample evidence that such was the case with the early Greeks. The ox plays a foremost part, and they likewise possessed sheep, goats and swine, whilst slaves formed also an important commodity. Further east again, in the Zend-Avesta the cow is found playing the principal part in every phase of the primitive life there unfolded, both as the chief article of value and in reference to their religious ceremonies. Still further to the east we find from the Rig-Veda that among the ancient Hindus the same important rôle was assigned to the cow. Turning now to Mesopotamia we find that in the time of Abraham the keeping of herds and flocks was the chief pursuit of the Semites. Passing on to Egypt, the hoary mother of civilization, we find evidence that although “every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians,” yet the worship of their great divinity Apis (Hapi) under the form of a bull and the worship of the sacred ram indicate that at a period preceding the invasion of the Hyksos the Egyptians regarded the ox and the sheep with love and veneration. Whether the Egyptians came from Asia into the valley of the Nile, or whether they came from some region of Africa more to the south, one thing at least is certain, and that is that in either case they came from a country eminently fitted for the rearing and keeping of cattle. The functions of the ox became limited under altered conditions, and their ancient esteem for the cow as one of their chief means of subsistence survived only in religious observances. So too in modern India the reverence for the sacred cow amongst a people who regard as an abomination the eating of beef is a survival from the time when in a more northern clime cattle formed the principal wealth of their forefathers.

In the Soudan, as we have seen to this day, slaves and oxen are the chief kinds of property. Crossing back to Europe we find the Italian tribes represented in the earliest records as a cattle-keeping people. The story of their invasion of Italy took the form of their driving before them a steer and following obediently to whatever new home it might lead them[82].

The same holds of the more northern peoples. When the Gauls entered the plains of Northern Italy they drove before them vast herds of cattle. Caesar found the Britons keeping large numbers of cattle, and especially those in the interior of the island subsisting almost entirely on their produce[83]. Strabo writing about A.D. 1, mentions hides as among the articles exported from Britain to the Continent[84].

The linguistic argument fully supports the literary evidence. All the Aryan or Indo-European peoples possess a common name for the cow. The Sanskrit gaus, Greek βοῦς, Lat. bos, Irish bo, German kuh, Eng. cow, taken together indicate that before the dispersion of the various stocks (whether the original home of the Aryans was in Northern Europe, as Latham first suggested, or in the Hindu Kush, as Prof. Max Müller maintains) they all possessed the cow. This is further supported by the name for the bull which is found amongst various stocks, the Greek ταῦρος, Lat. taurus, Irish tarb, and the name of the ox, which corresponds to the Sanskrit uksha, and finally the name of steer[85]. Here then we have undoubted evidence of the universal possession of cattle by the Aryans at a very early period.

Archaeology lends its support likewise. We have already found in the case of the Greeks the cow used as a unit of currency side by side with gold. This leads us to the question of the precious metals, which in course of time have come to be almost the sole medium of exchange. In the case of the Greeks we saw reason to believe that the barter-unit was older than the metallic. Is this the case universally? The evidence, I think, which I shall adduce will lead us to this belief.

First of all it is certain that man must have been acquainted with the ox long before he ever gathered a grain of gold from the brook. When primaeval man first stood on the plains of Europe and Asia vast herds of wild cattle met his eye on every side. The process of domestication was long and slow, but yet in all the ancient refuse heaps of Scandinavia and Germany, whilst the remains of the ox are found in plenty there is yet no trace of gold.

At this point it will be well to remind the reader that the area occupied by the cattle-keeping races whom we have enumerated was continuous. There was no insuperable barrier between Indian and Persian, Persian and Mede, Mede and the dweller in Mesopotamia, or again, between Persian and Armenian, Armenian and the Scythian who lived in his ox-waggon on the plains of what is now Southern Russia: the Scythian was in contact with the tribes of the Balkan Peninsula, who in turn were in contact with the Greeks and the dwellers along the valley of the Danube, who in their turn joined hands with the peoples of Italy, Helvetia and Gaul. Hence the value of cattle would be more or less constant from one end of this entire region to the other. The purchasing power of the cow might be greater in some parts than in others, just as with ourselves a sovereign has the same value from Land’s End to John o’Groats, although the purchasing power of the sovereign as regards the necessaries of life may differ widely in different places within the limits of Great Britain.

It is only when some impassable natural barrier intervenes that there will be a difference in the value of the unit of barter. Thus, in the case of Britain we cannot suppose that the value of oxen was necessarily the same there as it was on the Continent. If it was it would be merely a coincidence. The difficulty of transporting live cattle in such ships as the Gauls or Britons possessed would have been too great to permit of such a free circulation of the unit as would have kept its value exactly even on both sides of the Straits. In fact it was only with the invention of steam that facilities for transmarine cattle-trading came in which could tend to level the value on both sides of an arm of the sea. In the earlier half of this century cattle were extraordinarily cheap in Ireland in proportion to the prices which they fetched in England, but yet the difficulty and expense entailed in sending them across in sailing ships effectually prevented the export. When the first steamers began to convey cattle from Ireland to England the profits were enormous, although the freight of a single cow cost, I believe, several pounds. Steam-power has done much to equalize prices, but still there is a considerable difference in the value of cattle on both sides of the Irish Sea. But where no impassable barrier of sea or forest intervened, we may fairly assume the ox carried much the same value from Northern India to the Atlantic Ocean.

We have already proved in the case of most of the peoples with which we have to deal that the ox was the unit of value. We have likewise found that these primitive peoples, whilst employing a cow or ox of a certain age as their standard of value, had adjusted accurately to this unit their other possessions: for instance, the heifer of the second year bore a distinct value relatively to the cow of the third year, so likewise the calf of the first year and the milk of a cow for a certain period. These thus acted as submultiples of the standard unit, and as they were the same in kind and only differed in degree, the various sub-units of the cow remained in constant proportion to the chief unit and to one another. On the other hand, when there was a distinction in kind between animals, as between oxen and sheep, the relative value would probably differ according to the scarcity or abundance of either kind of animal, which difference would probably arise from a difference in the nature of the pastures and climate. Thus we have found in some places ten sheep regarded as the equivalent of an ox, in others again eight. The same holds good of goats. In the case of these smaller animals we have seen the same fixed scale of values according to age, and the same method of rating the value of the milk of an ewe or the goat as we find in the case of the cow. Amongst people who possessed horses, camels and asses, the same principle holds good, horses and camels on account of their great value being treated as higher units for occasional use, just as the elephant is regarded at present in parts of Further India. The slave, as we have before remarked, played an important part as a higher unit or multiple of the ox, the average slave having a fixed value, whilst of course in the case of female captives of unusual beauty a fancy price would be paid. As climate and pasture would not affect the keeping of slaves, and as human beings were fairly universally spread over the area of the ox, the probabilities are that it was almost as easy proportionally to get slaves as oxen, and to keep the one as to keep the other from being stolen. Thus there would be more or less of a constant ratio between slaves and oxen. There would be a tendency likewise to regulate the number of slaves by the amount of work to be done, and as this work in the pastoral stage is almost entirely that of the neatherd, the shepherd, the swineherd and the goatherd, the number of male slaves at least would be to a certain extent conditioned by the extent of the flocks and herds. Such we may infer from the picture of the household of Ulysses in the Odyssey was the practice in early Greece. The faithful swineherd Eumaeus, and his fellow the good neatherd, with the rascally goatherd Melanthius, and their underlings, seem, with the addition perhaps of a few house slaves who would assist in tilling the chieftain’s demesne (temenos), to have comprised all the menservants. The master of the house worked hard himself in his field and at various handicrafts, as we find Ulysses boasting of his expertness both as a ploughman and mower; he was also a skilled carpenter, having with his own hands built the chamber of Penelope and constructed a cunningly wrought bedstead[86]. Hence the amount of help to be required from male slaves, exclusive of their duties as herdsmen, would be but insignificant. When we come to deal with the question of female slaves, the conditions of their number seem at first sight entirely different. The question of polygamy here comes in, and we must bear in mind that they were acquired not merely as servants to perform menial duties, but likewise to be wives and concubines. It is evident then that the number of such attendants will depend on the inclination and wealth of the house-master. But here again the problem is simplified, for inasmuch as his wealth consisted in cattle, a man’s power to purchase handmaidens depended on the amount of his kine. Thus at the present day the number of women owned by a Zulu depends entirely on the number of cattle he possesses. Hence there was likely to be a fairly universal ratio in value between female slaves and oxen, over such a region as we have sketched above. The facility too in transporting human chattels from one place to another would be an important element in keeping the price almost the same over all parts of the area. It is a very ancient principle with the slave captor and slave dealer to sell their captives far away from their original home. Among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers the slave from beyond the sea was always worth more than a captive from close at hand[87]. The explanation of this fact was suggested by Dr Cunningham, and the proof of it was found by Mr Frazer in Further India; for there the slave brought from a great distance is always more valuable than one who comes only a short way from his native land, as the possibility of the former’s running away and succeeding in escaping is so much less than that of the latter. This too seems to be the true explanation of the fact that in Homer we regularly find persons sold into slavery beyond the sea. Achilles sold the son of Priam to Euneos the son of Jason of Lesbos[88], the nurse Eurycleia had been brought from the mainland, Eumaeus the swineherd had been sold to Laertes by the Phoenicians who had captured him with his nurse in his distant home[89]. This constant tendency to sell in one country the captives taken from another would do much to equalize prices everywhere, and the price being paid in oxen the ratio in value between oxen and female as well as male slaves would tend to be constant.

We have now reviewed the ordinary kinds of wealth amongst primitive pastoral people, but we have touched but lightly as yet on the subject of the metals.

We saw above that the two earliest kinds of currency consisted either of some article of absolute necessity, such as the skins of animals in the colder climates, or of some form of personal ornament, which being both universally esteemed as well as durable and portable will be readily accepted by all members of the community. It is of pre-eminent importance that it be universally esteemed. Travellers who have ignored this principle have found out its truth to their cost in Central Africa in modern times. As the chief currency consists of glass and porcelain beads, which the traveller must carry with him or starve, the European is too apt to assume that provided the beads are bright and gaudy in colour all sorts will be taken with like readiness by the natives. Sir Richard Burton in a valuable appendix to his Lake Regions of Central Africa warns travellers against this dangerous error. The African has his own firmly rooted canons of aesthetics, and will take as payment only those sorts of beads which he considers suitable and becoming. Again, some explorers brought supplies of cheap Birmingham trinkets, thinking that they would captivate the negro eye, but they proved a complete commercial failure, for the natives much prefer trinkets and jewellery of their own manufacture, and which are more in keeping with their standard of good taste. Again, the Arabs of the Soudan will not take gold as payment, in consequence of which our army in the late expedition had to take with them large and inconvenient supplies of silver dollars, coined for the purpose. The Maria Theresa dollar is the recognised currency in that region, not because of any notions as regards currency properly speaking, but because the Arab’s taste lies in silver ornaments for himself, his weapons and his horse. He values then the silver because of its utility as an ornament, whilst gold he cannot employ to the same advantage.

I have thus digressed in order that it may be clearly seen that mankind were not seized with the sacra fames auri from the very first moment when the eye of some wild hunter or nomad first lighted on a gold nugget as it glistened under the sunlight in the stream.

A considerable period may have elapsed after mankind became acquainted with gold or silver before man cast away his necklets or bracelets of shells such as have been found along with the most ancient remains of the human race yet discovered in Europe, and put on his person in their stead similar ornaments beaten out of the gold from the brook. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the primitive Aryan or primitive Semite, who wore ornaments of shells, used these as instruments of barter, or even currency, in the same way as we have found the peoples of Asia and Africa using their strings of cowries, the aborigines of North America their wampum belts, and the Fijians their whales’ teeth.

In what particular region mankind first employed the precious metals to adorn his person, it is of course impossible for us to say. But beyond all doubt already in Egypt at the very dawn of history gold was playing an important part. The question of the relative dates at which the metals were first employed by man is one of great interest and importance in studying the history of human development. Of the four chief metals, gold, silver, copper and iron, we have no difficulty in deciding that iron is most certainly the latest to come into use. It is only within historical time that implements and weapons of iron have superseded those of copper and bronze, at least within the area occupied by the great civilized races. The reason for this is obvious: iron is not found native, but must be obtained by a difficult process of smelting, and even when obtained requires great skill to make it available for use. The Greeks of the Homeric Poems were still in the later bronze age, although iron was known and employed for weapons and implements. But as we have no immediate need to discuss the date of the introduction of iron, we may pass on to the three remaining metals.

It is obvious that if a metal is found naturally in such a condition that it can be immediately wrought into various forms for ornament or utility, such a metal is likely to have been employed at a much earlier period than one which is rarely if ever found in a native condition. Now silver is a metal which is rarely found pure, and considerable metallurgical skill is needed to render it fit for use. On the other hand gold and copper are both found in a pure state. We may then on this ground alone infer that mankind was acquainted with gold and copper before they as yet had learned the art of working silver ore. It next comes to be a question of the priority of gold or copper. The probabilities will undoubtedly be in favour of that metal which is most universally found native, and which is the most likely by its hue to attract the eye, and which is the most easily worked. On all these counts gold can claim priority over copper. Still copper is found native in various countries, Hungary, Saxony, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Cornwall.

It is of course quite possible that in a region where gold is not native and copper is, the latter may have been the first metal known to the aboriginal inhabitants. This can be well illustrated from the case of iron and copper in Central Africa. The negroes never had a copper or bronze age, but passed directly into the iron age, for the very sufficient reason that no native copper was found in their country, and consequently they had no metal suited for implements until they had learned to smelt iron. Gold of course on the other hand was known to them from the most remote period. Finally, from a famous modern occurrence we may come to the general conclusion that wherever gold is a natural product of the soil there it has been the first metal to come under the observation of man. The great gold-field of California was first discovered on a memorable Sunday morning, when the eye of a lounger who was smoking his pipe by the side of Captain Sutter’s millrace happened to light on some glittering body in the sandy bottom of the stream. This was the first scrap of gold found in California, and whilst that fertile land has produced many natural treasures besides gold within the scarcely more than forty years which have since elapsed, its gold it will be observed was the earliest of its metals, both from the nature of its deposit and from the brilliancy of its colour, to attract the attention of man. In certain parts of Southern Europe, notably parts of Southern Italy and Southern Greece, where copper is found but not gold, copper perhaps may have been known before gold, and certainly before silver. It will be important to bear this in mind with reference to a stage in our future arguments.

That silver came under men’s notice at a later time than either gold or copper can be put beyond doubt by historical evidence. In the Rig Veda, where gold (heranya) is already well known and likewise copper (for there can be no doubt that the ayas of the Veda, Lat. aes, means copper), silver is entirely unknown; the word rayatam, which in later Sanskrit means silver, does indeed occur, but only as an adjective applied to a horse and meaning bright. Again, we know as a matter of fact that it was only at a comparatively late period that the famous silver mines of Laurium in Attica were developed. At least Plutarch (Solon, ch. 16) tells us that, owing to the scarcity of silver coin, Solon reduced the amount of the fines levied and also of the rewards for killing a wolf or wolf-cub, the former to five drachms, the latter to one drachm, the rewards representing the value of a cow and a sheep respectively. If they had already learned to work that “well of silver, the treasure-house of their land,” in the time of Solon (596 B.C.), there certainly could have been no such dearth of silver. Finally let us take a comparatively modern case, that of the Aztecs of Mexico. When the Spanish conquerors reckoned up their great tale of treasures found in the royal palace, whilst the gold amounted to the large sum of pesos de oro 162000 lbs., the silver and silver vessels only weighed the small sum of 500 marks[90]. Yet this was in the country that is now known as the richest silver-producing region that the world has ever seen.

We thus find a people in a highly advanced state of civilization, who had invented a calendar, had devised a system of picture-writing, who had actually a currency in gold-dust, as we have found, and who were skilled and artistic craftsmen in gold, and yet who were scarcely able to make the slightest use of the silver, with which almost every crevice in their native hills was charged.

We may thus with safety rest in the conclusion that silver only comes into use at a stage always and probably much later than gold.

We have been thus led to the conclusion that gold is known to man at a far earlier stage than silver; furthermore that copper is also prior in discovery and use to silver owing to its natural form of deposit, and that, although in a region where gold does not exist, copper may have been the first of the metals to come under human notice, yet wherever gold-bearing strata are found, there is a great probability that gold was the first metal known. Schrader (op. cit. p. 174) has discussed the evidence from the Linguistic Palaeontological point of view, and whilst much of what he says is interesting, there are some points in his conclusions which shake one’s faith in the infallibility of the Linguistic method for determining disputed points in archaeology. Gold he considers was known to the Egyptians from the remotest times, and so also to the Semites of Asia. As gold is found in abundance in the tombs of Mycenae (circ. B.C. 1400) he considers that just about that time the Greeks had acquired a knowledge of gold from the Phoenicians. The Greek Chrysos (χρυσος), gold, is derived, according to many scholars, from the Phoenician equivalent for charutz, the Hebrew name for the same metal.

There is plainly no relationship between the Egyptian name Nub and the Semitic appellation. The question, however, may arise as to whether, even granting that chrysos is derived from chârûz, it follows that the Greeks had no knowledge of gold prior to their contact with the Phoenicians. It is the skilful manufacture of a metal into beautiful and useful articles which gives it its real value. Hence arises the high esteem in which the cunning workman is held in early times. In Homer he is ranked along with the prophet, a sufficient proof in itself of the great importance attached to his functions. Again, in the Homeric Poems all articles of gold and silver of especially fine workmanship, if they are not the work of the divine smith Hephaestus himself, are the productions of the Sidonian craftsmen. The priest Maron gave Odysseus, amongst other presents, seven talents of well-wrought gold. Whether this took the form simply of rings we cannot tell, but plainly the value of the gift is enhanced by the epithet. From these considerations it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the Greeks, although possessing a name of their own for gold, may have adopted a Phoenician name, because they obtained the fine-wrought ornaments of that metal which they prized so highly from the Semite traders.

If any one thinks that this is a mere suggestion unsupported by analogy, my answer is not far to seek. The Albanian word for gold is φλjορι[91], so called because the first coined gold moneys of the middle ages with which they became acquainted were those of Florence. Now I think Dr Schrader will hardly maintain that the Albanians were unacquainted with gold as a metal until sometime in the mediaeval period they first obtained it from the Florentines. What took place in the case of the Albanians may have taken place again and again at earlier periods. A rude nation already acquainted with a certain metal receives by trade from a more advanced people the same metal wrought into various shapes and forms for personal decoration or use, and along with the superior articles it takes over the name by which the makers of those objects of metal described them.

These considerations well serve to show how unsafe is the basis afforded by Linguistic Palaeontology alone on which to build any theory of ethnical development. Let us now take another case where Schrader and his followers dogmatize without the slightest suspicion that the facts of recorded history may step in and rudely upset their conclusions. Schrader[92] holds that the Kelts were not acquainted with gold until their invasion of Italy in the beginning of the 4th cent. B.C. His argument is that the Celtic word for gold (Irish or, Cymric awr) is a loan-word from the Latin aurum. As the Sabine form of the latter is ausum, and the change of s to r did not take place in Latin until the fifth century B.C., and as the change of primitive s into r does not take place in the Keltic languages, he infers that it was only after the change in the form of the word had taken place in Latin that the Gauls became acquainted with the metal. Yet who will, on reflection, maintain that the Gauls had not already learned the use of gold from the Etruscans with whom they had been in contact long before they ever reached the Allia or sacked Rome? The Italian dialects were still employing the form of the word with s. Why should the Gauls have taken the form of the word with which they must have come least in contact in their invasion of Italy in preference to that used amongst the other Italians? Finally comes the irresistible evidence of Polybius that when the Gauls invaded Italy their only possessions consisted of their cattle and an abundance of gold ornaments, both of which could be easily transported from place to place[93].

Again, we can argue forcibly that it is contrary to all experience for primitive peoples to suddenly exhibit so strong a predilection for metals, or objects of which they have not had previous knowledge, as the Gauls showed in their rapacious demands that the ransom of Rome should be in gold. The legend that Brennus threw his sword into the scales, and ordered them to make up its weight in addition to the stipulated sum, shows, if it is true, that the Gauls were well acquainted with the art of weighing, which would be only gained from a long knowledge of the precious metals. The solution of the difficulty involved in the Keltic or can be readily found. The Iberians in Spain had long been skilled in the working and use of the precious metals. Tradition told how Colaeus of Samos, the first of the Greeks who ever sailed to Spain, brought back a fabulous amount of precious metal, and that the Phoenicians when they first traded in that region found silver so plentiful that in their greed for gain, when the ship could hold no more, they replaced their anchors by others made of that metal. The Phocaeans had traded with Iberia and Gaul from the end of the 7th century, Massalia had been founded by this bold people about 600 B.C. Are we to suppose that in all those centuries when the Kelts are in constant contact with the Iberians, and when already all Keltike, Helvetia, Northern Italy and even perhaps ‘the remote Britanni,’ were in constant touch with the traders of Massalia, the Kelts waited to learn the use of gold and silver until B.C. 400? The Basque name for gold is urrea. It is quite possible that the Keltic name was obtained from the Iberians, whom they found already in possession of Western Europe. But there is another alternative which is probably to be preferred. As we found the Albanians calling gold by a name derived from the gold coins of Florence, so the Kelts may have adopted the Latin names for gold used by their Roman conquerors. This is made almost certain by the fact that aura, in old Norse, derived from Latin aurum, became the regular word for treasure, although no one will deny that the Teutonic peoples had already gold and its cognates as terms of their own for the metal. Everyone is familiar with the influence exercised by the Roman coinage even in the countries of the East, where Rome met with a civilization hoary in age before Romulus founded Rome, and from which Rome herself had ultimately derived the art of coining. Yet by the time of Christ the Roman denarius, the penny of our Authorized Version, had already asserted itself in the Greek-speaking provinces of the East, and became in later days, when the rule of Rome and Constantinople fell before the Arab conquerors, under the form of dinar, the standard coin of the great Mahomedan Empires. Did then in like fashion the Roman form of the name for gold, which in all probability varied but little from the cognate Gaulish word, supplant at a comparatively early period that native form?

The same argument may be urged in reference to the silver. The Irish form is airgid, according to some a loan-word, being simply the Latin argentum. We have already seen that it is not possible that the Kelts, in constant contact with the Iberians who were so rich in silver, could have remained in ignorance of that metal. The Gaulish form of the name for silver was plainly in Roman times almost the same as the Latin, as is shown by Argentoratum, the ancient name of Strasburg. It is plain then that before the Roman Conquest the Gauls had a town called by the name for silver, whilst the Irish form has no nasal, the Gaulish coincides completely with the Latin. Is it not possible, that in this case too a native Keltic name, a close cognate of Latin argentum, whose lineal descendant is seen in the Irish form, may have been assimilated to the Latin form? But there is plenty of evidence from other quarters to show that the mere existence of a foreign name for a particular object in any language is no proof that the object in question came into use for the first time along with the borrowing of the name. When the Franks conquered that portion of the Roman empire to which they gave their name, they must have had Teutonic words of their own for silver and gold, closely related to our own forms of the words. Yet whilst many Teutonic words lingered and became absorbed into what became in process of time the French language, their names for the metals disappeared and the Latin derivatives remained in possession.

Again, we get another instance of such borrowing in the case of our own penny, old English pendinga, penning, German Pfennig. The philologists seem agreed in recognizing this as a loan-word from the Latin pecunia. Yet money was familiar to the northern peoples long before they ever came into contact with even the advanced posts of the Empire. The use of rings and spirals of gold as a form of currency in Scandinavia is well known; our word shilling seems to mean no more than portions of such a coil of gold or silver wire cut off, to be used as small change. But as the first coined money with which they became familiar was the currency of Rome, they seem to have taken the generic Roman name for money as their own expression for the Roman silver coins with which they became familiar, just as the Latin aurum under the form of aura (eyrir) became in old Norse the general term for coined money or treasure in money.

We may ask why did the Kelts especially choose the Roman form of the name for gold, if they were then for the first time getting a name for the substance then (according to Schrader) first known to them? Before they ever reached Latium they had been in contact with peoples in Northern Italy who undoubtedly were well acquainted with gold. The Etruscans were a wealthy people, who coined gold pieces before Rome had struck coins of any kind[94]. The Umbrians on the east side, the ancient Italic race who had in the days before the Etruscan Conquest held all Northern Italy up to the Alps, which was hence known to the earliest Greek geographers by the name of Ombriké[95], were, beyond all doubt, acquainted with the use of gold, and had a name for it probably the same as the Sabine ausum. Why then did the Gauls remain entirely ignorant of gold and of a name for it when they had been in constant contact with those peoples who had most undoubtedly abundance of the metal and names of their own for it? Until some sufficient answer is given to the objections here raised, we must on every logical and scientific ground refuse our assent to an argument, the sole basis of which is philological. It may not be inappropriate also here to remark that it is most desirable in all historical enquiries to rely as little as possible on Etymology. From the days when the Stoics laid such importance on arguments based on the originatio verborum down to the present time reasonings based on such foundations have been as a rule founded on the sand. Comparative Grammar as yet can hardly be described as a science. New principles and laws are brought to light each year, and, although of course the solid residuum of what may now be regarded as more or less positive knowledge is slowly growing in bulk, those laws which were the shibboleth of Philologists a decade ago, are now rudely hurled from their preeminence. The only sound scientific method in historical research is to employ linguistic science as merely ancillary to our enquiries.

We have now seen the importance of the ox over the whole area of Europe, Asia and Northern Africa, in which those ancient peoples dwelt of whom history has preserved for us some knowledge. We have likewise found that over the same area gold was known and played an important part from a very remote antiquity. This proof has depended of course almost entirely on the literary remains and archaeological evidence. Political Economists, when discoursing on the oft-vexed question of monetary standards, lay down as one of the reasons why gold has been found so convenient, that it is universally found. Whether that fact is of much importance in modern times, when the facilities of communication are so great, may perhaps be doubted (especially when we see some of the largest stocks of gold existing in countries like England and France, where there has been no production of gold for many years), but most certainly in early times it was of great importance, as we shall see, that the supplies of gold were not all concentrated in one or two places, but that at many points in all the different countries which came within the area of the ancient world, nature had had her treasure-houses.

To begin in the East, we shall first find that in all Central Asia there are rich auriferous deposits in many places. The stories told of the gold-digging ants and of the Griffins and Arimaspians are familiar to all readers of Herodotus. That historian (III. 102-5) gives an explanation of how the Indians are so rich in gold. To the north of India lies a region desert and waste by reason of sand. Close to this desert dwells an Indian tribe, who border on the city of Kaspaturos, and the land of Paktuiké, dwelling to the north of the other Indians, who live in the same manner as the Bactrians, and are the most valiant of the Indians. These men go on expeditions in search of gold. In this desert and in the sand are ants, which are in size smaller than dogs, but larger than foxes. As these ants make their habitations under ground they carry up the sand just as the ants in Greece do, and they are very like the latter in form. But the sand which is carried up is of gold. The Indians then make expeditions in quest of this sand, each man having yoked three camels. He then relates how the Indians time their arrival at the ant region so as to reach the ant-diggings at the hottest time of the day, which in that region is the early morning. The ants are then not to be seen for they have returned into their burrows to avoid the heat of the sun. The Indians hastily fill the sacks they have brought with the precious sand, and depart with all speed, as the ants from their keen sense of smell quickly detect their presence, and at once give chase. Their speed is such that though the camels are as swift as horses, the Indians would never manage to return in safety, unless they succeed in getting a good start whilst the ants are still assembling from their various habitations.

This story has been very ingeniously explained in modern times by Lassen (Alt-Ind. Leben) and others. Lassen pointed out that a kind of gold brought from a people of Northern India was called pipilika ‘ant’ (Mahābhārata 2, 1860) and that it was probable that the story referred to a kind of marmot which to this very day lives in large communities on the sandy plateaus of Thibet. On the other hand more recent explorations in Thibet show us that there are still communities of gold-diggers, who in the rigour of the Himalayan winter clothe themselves in skins and furs, which are drawn up right over their ears in such a fashion that they present at first sight the appearance of large shaggy dogs[96]. Whichever explanation may be right, it may be inferred that from a very early time the region north of the Panjab afforded vast supplies of gold. The remark of Herodotus (III. 105) that it was from this source that the Indians obtained their wealth, and that there was not much gold mined in their own land, is probably correct. It is beyond all doubt that the gold of Thibet at all times found its way largely into what is now the Panjab. We need have little hesitation in believing that from a very remote epoch the rude tribes of the Himalaya must have been acquainted with the gold-dust, which lay in rich deposits in the various mountain streams.

To come towards the west, the great wealth of the Persian kings seems to have been derived from the basin of the Oxus, which was famous in antiquity for its golden sands. Thus in the Book of Marvels (a work ascribed to Aristotle and largely composed of extracts from his writings) it is stated that the river Oxus in Bactria carries down nuggets of gold many in number[97]. But the region from which Herodotus thought that in his time came the greatest supply of gold was the Oural-Altai region of Central Asia. The Greek Colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea, the most important of which was Olbia at the mouth of the river Borysthenes, had a large and lucrative trade with the Scythians, who inhabited the wide plains of that bleak region. The Scythians were rich in gold which they obtained from the still remoter country of the Issedones, that people who, though righteous in all other respects, had the singular fashion of devouring their dead fathers. The Issedones again obtained by barter the gold from the Arimaspians, a race who had but one eye, and were hardly human[98]. They in turn, so report went, obtained the precious article not by traffic, but by theft from the gold-guarding griffins, who occupied the land where the gold was found. At least Herodotus says, “How the gold is produced I cannot truly tell, but the story is that the Arimaspians, people with one eye, carry it off from the Grypes[99].” He describes elsewhere (IV. 17) this region, which lay beyond the Scythians, where the cold was so great that the ground was frozen hard for eight months of the year, and that it was even cold in the summer season, that the air was so full of feathers that no one could see, by which, as Herodotus very properly explains, the thick falling feathery flakes of snow were meant, and that the cattle could not grow horns. All this seems to point beyond all doubt to the Ural and Altai ranges. Unquestionably there was a well-established trade route extending from the Black Sea through the country inhabited by the Scythians proper, which Herodotus describes as consisting of plains of rich soil, a true description of the fertile steppes of Southern Russia. Then beyond this lay a large area of rugged, stony land, inhabited by a people called Argippaei, who, males and females alike, were born bald. Their territory formed the lower part of a range of lofty mountains. They were a peaceful and a harmless race, dwelling in tents of white felt in the winter. It was easy to learn about them and their country from the Scythian traders who held intercourse with them, as likewise from the Greeks from the factories of the Borysthenes, and from the other Greek trading ports on the Euxine. No man could say of a truth what lay to the north of the “Baldheads,” as on that side rose the lofty, impassable range of mountains, but Herodotus had heard (but did not believe) that according to the “Baldheads” a race of men having the feet of goats dwelt there[100], a legend which may be plausibly rationalized into a simple statement that a race of mountain-folk, sure-footed as the wild goat, inhabited the mountains. But on their east the existence of the Issedones was an established fact.

It is plain then that from a date lost in the distance of time the gold of the Ural-Altaic region had been worked and exported, and that consequently it was known and prized by all the tribes who came within the influence of this wide district. The Scythians in the fifth century before Christ were engaged in regular trade with this region, and possessed abundant store of the prized substance. This is shown by Herodotus in a very remarkable passage wherein he describes the burial of a Scythian king. After recounting the ceremonials he thus proceeds: “In the open space round the body of the king they bury one of his concubines, first killing her by strangling, and also his cupbearer, his cook, his groom, his lacquey, his messenger, some of his horses, firstlings of all his other possessions and some golden cups; for they use neither silver nor copper[101].” From this passage we learn the interesting fact that the Scythians, although possessing great quantities of gold and being able to work it into articles of use, were yet ignorant of silver and copper, which nevertheless, as we know now, exist in large deposits in the Ural region. This is one of several cases which we shall have to notice which go far to prove that the knowledge and working of gold preceded not only that of silver, but also that of copper.

The remoteness of the age at which some branch of the Turko-Tartar family who dwelt in the Altai region, first discovered the treasures which Nature had stored up there, is evidenced, as Schrader (following Klaproth) rightly points out (p. 253), by the fact that among all the branches of that widespread family of languages, from the Osmanli Turks on the Dardanelles to the remote Samoyedes on the banks of the Lena, the same word for gold is found in slightly varying forms, altun, altyn, iltyn, etc., which can hardly be etymologically separated from Altai, the locality from which it first became known in far-off days. In the ancient graves of the Tschudi in the Altaic districts, have been found abundance of gold and silver utensils which according to Sjögren (Schrader 136), exhibit the representation of the Griffin of Greek fable.

Before passing further west into Europe we shall complete our survey of the gold-fields of Western Asia. One of the most beautiful of Greek stories hangs around the eastern end of the Black Sea, where lay the land of Colchis, the goal which Jason and his fellow Argonauts sought in their quest of the Golden Fleece. In the Homeric poems the voyage of the ship Argo is referred to as an event which had taken place in a past generation. In the time of the geographer Strabo (B.C. 63-A.D. 21) gold was still found in Colchis in a district occupied by a tribe called Soanes, scarcely less famous for their personal uncleanliness than their neighbours the Phtheirophagoi (Lice-eaters) who bore this appellation from the filthiness of their habits. “It is said that in their country the mountain torrents bring down gold, and that the barbarians catch it in troughs perforated with holes, and in skins with the fleece left on, from which circumstance they say arose the fable of the Golden Fleece[102].”

Strabo’s explanation, which seems from his words to have been the current one in his day, is extremely plausible, and it appears highly probable that from the first dawn of history the torrent-swept treasures of the Colchian land were well known to the dwellers in both Asia Minor and Europe. But this was not the only place in Asia Minor where gold was found. We shall have occasion again and again to refer to the Electrum of Sardis, obtained from the sand of the river Pactolus which flowed down from Mount Tmolus. Scholars are familiar with the account which Herodotus gives of these gold deposits, but probably the most convenient thing for our present purpose will be to quote Strabo’s enumeration of the kings and potentates of antiquity in Asia and Europe who were famous for their wealth, as he has added in each case the source from which their wealth was obtained. The current account as given by Callisthenes and others was, “that the wealth of Tantalus and the Pelopidae was derived from the mines of Phrygia and Sipylus, whilst the wealth of Cadmus came from the mines of Thrace and Mount Pangaeum, but that of Priam from the gold-mines at Astyra in the vicinity of Abydus, of which even now there are still scanty remnants. But the quantity of earth cast up is vast, and the diggings are proofs of the ancient mining operations. But the wealth of Midas came from the mines round Mount Bermion, whilst that of Gyges and Alyattes and Croesus came from the mines in Lydia. But in the district between Atarneus and Pergamus there is a deserted city, with places containing worked-out mines[103].” This passage gives a good picture of the gold-fields which in ancient days were worked round the shores of the Aegean.

In the time of Strabo some of them were already worked out and gave but a scanty yield, for he says, “above the territory of the people of Abydus lies in the Troad Astyra, which now belongs to the people of Abydus, a ruined city, but aforetime it was independent, possessing gold-mines, now affording but a scanty yield, as they are exhausted, just like the mines on Mount Tmolus in the neighbourhood of the Pactolus.” The latter district was still productive in the days of Herodotus, who declared that the land of Lydia had few marvels to chronicle except the gold-dust that is borne down from Tmolus[104]. Strabo too, elsewhere[105], when describing the river system of this part of Asia Minor says, “the Pactolus flows from Tmolus, carrying down that ancient gold-dust from which they say that the famous wealth of Croesus and of his ancestors became renowned. But now the gold-dust has failed, as has been stated.”

It is interesting to observe that according to tradition the wealth of Midas, the king of Phrygia, who is perhaps more famous for his ass’s ears than his riches, came from the Bermion Mount in that part of Macedonia, which was occupied in historical times by the powerful tribe of the Bryges. This in itself is an interesting indication of the intimate connection and close communication between the countries and peoples on both sides of the Dardanelles from the earliest epoch. There were on either side lands gifted by nature with stores of wealth, as well as possessing the portals of either continent. Hence the Hellespont and Bosphorus have ever been the seat of rich cities, and have ever been regarded amongst the greatest of prizes in the struggles of the nations.

It is possible that the ancient legend connecting the wealth of Priam of Troy with the mines of Astyra, still worked in Strabo’s days, may serve to explain the real cause of that invasion of the Achaeans, which in all probability did occur, although on what form or at what time we know not, and around which there grew in the mouths of the rhapsodists the tale of Troy Divine. In all our enumeration of gold-mines we do not find a single one allotted to Greece Proper. The wealth of Cadmus, the old Phoenician founder of Thebes, who was said to have introduced the art of writing into Hellas, came, according to Strabo’s tradition, from Thrace and the mines of Pangaeum. As Cadmus is the typical wealthy potentate of Northern Greece, so the line of Pelops are the typical wealthy potentates of Peloponnesus. Their wealth, like that of Cadmus, is adventitious, for it is the product of the mines of Phrygia and Mount Sipylus. This is quite consistent with the statement of Thucydides that “those Peloponnesians who have received the clearest accounts by tradition from the men of former time declare that Pelops first by means of the mass of wealth with which he came from Asia to men who were poor, having acquired for himself power although he was a new-comer, gave occasion for the land to be called after him.”

Of the three cities which are called rich in gold by Homer, two are in Hellas proper, namely Mycenae in Peloponnesus, and the Minyan Orchomenus in Boeotia. Gold has been found in abundance in the prehistoric tombs at Mycenae, thus confirming the ancient tradition. This gold, beyond doubt, was imported from outside Greece, and we may without hesitation accept the view of the Greeks themselves that it came from Asia Minor. The story of the wealth of Cadmus, who came to Boeotia as Pelops did to Peloponnesus is equally in harmony with the Homeric tradition of a great wealthy city in Boeotia. Dr Schliemann excavated the remains of Orchomenus, as he did those of Mycenae, and of the ancient city at Hissarlik, but his labours unfortunately gave no confirmation of the accounts of the ancient wealth of Orchomenus. The reason probably was that he came many centuries too late, as the great prehistoric tomb known as the Treasure-house of the Minyans had long since been repeatedly plundered and ransacked; not even one bronze plate of those that once had probably lined its walls was left. Still less likely was it that any vestige of gold would have escaped the rapacity of the spoiler.

The wealth of Northern Greece, then, by the earliest tradition is connected with the rich gold regions of Thrace, which, if we accept the same tradition, must have been worked from the remotest age. The connection of the Cadmus legend with this region points clearly to very early Phoenician trade in the days when as yet the Phoenicians had undisputed mastery over the Aegean Sea and the Hellenes had not begun to develop maritime enterprize.

As a matter of fact the name of the island of Thasos, which lay off the Thracian shore, was directly ascribed to a Phoenician settler. In the time of Herodotus the Thasians had a large revenue both from the mines on the mainland and from those in their own island. For he tells us that “from the gold-mines of Scapte Hyle they had a revenue on the average of eighty talents, and from those in Thasos itself a lesser one, but yet so good that the Thasians enjoyed exemption from taxation on produce and had a yearly revenue from the mainland and the mines together of two hundred talents on the average, but when the revenue was at its maximum, it was three hundred talents. And I myself likewise saw these mines, and by far the most wonderful were those which the Phoenicians who had colonized the island along with Thasos had opened up, it was this Phoenician leader Thasos who gave his name to the island. These Phoenician mines lie in the part of Thasos between the district of Aenyra and Coenyra; a great mountain has been upturned in the search[106].” But the most famous mines on the mainland of Thrace were those of Mount Pangaeum, Crenides, and Datum. Strabo gives a succinct account of this wealthy district: “There are other cities round the gulf of the Strymon, as for instance Myrcinus, Argilus, Drabescus, Datum. The last-named has very excellent and fruitful land and shipbuilding-yards, and mines of gold, from which comes the proverb a Datum of riches, just like loads of wealth.” And in another passage he says that, “there are very numerous gold-mines at Crenides[107]. The city of Philippi is now seated close to the Pangaeum Mount. And the Pangaeum Mount too has mines of gold and silver, and so has the region both on the other side of and on this side the Strymon as far as Paeonia. And they say likewise that those who plough the Paeonian land find some morsels of gold.”

It was in a struggle with a Thracian tribe, the Edonians, for the possession of the mines at Datum that Sophanes, the son of Eutychides of Decelea, who had distinguished himself above all other Athenians at the battle of Plataea, was killed[108]. The possession of Thasos and the coast of Thrace was not the least important means by which Athens held her supremacy in Greece, and when Philip (360-336 B.C.) finally got supreme control over all this region, and built his new capital of Philippi, his path of conquest was henceforward made easy by the golden Philippi, the regale nomisma of Horace,

Passing on now to Southern Asia we find that there gold was found in Carmania (the modern Kerman) on the Persian Gulf. Strabo states on the authority of Onesicritus that in Carmania a river carries down gold-dust, and that there is likewise a mine of dug gold and of silver and of copper[109].

That there was gold in Arabia is placed beyond doubt by various notices in antiquity. “He shall live and unto him shall be given of the gold of Sheba (Saba[110]),” says the Psalmist (Ps. lxxii. 13), showing that the inhabitants of Palestine regarded that country as a source from which the gold-supply came.

Strabo and Diodorus give somewhat similar accounts of the gold found along the Red Sea littoral. The former, describing the land of the Nomads who live entirely by their camels, which they employ for warfare and for travelling, and on whose milk and flesh they subsist, says: “a river flows through their land which carries down gold-dust, but they have not skill to work it up. Now they are called Debae[111]; some of them are nomads, others are tillers of the soil. But I do not mention the numerous names of the tribes on account of their uncertainty and outlandish pronunciation. Next to them come more civilized men, who inhabit a more genial soil. For it is well supplied with both river and rain water. And dug gold is produced in their land, not from dust but from nuggets of gold, which do not need much refining. The smallest nuggets are of the size of olive-stones (?) (πυρὴν), the medium-sized are as big as medlars, and the largest are of the size of chestnuts (?) (κάρυον). Having perforated these they pass a thread of flax through them in alternation with transparent stones and make themselves chains, and put them round their necks and wrists. And they offer their gold for sale to their neighbours likewise at a cheap rate, giving thrice as much gold as they get copper in exchange and twice as much gold as they get silver in exchange, for they have not the skill to work the gold, and the metals which they receive in exchange are rare in their country and more necessary for life[112].”

This is a most interesting and important passage, as it brings us face to face with primitive peoples in the very earliest stage of the use of metals. The Nomads do not possess skill enough to work the gold-dust of their river, although evidently aware of its existence. Their neighbours being more favoured by the nature of their gold deposit are able to use the metal in the way in which we may with safety conclude that mankind everywhere first employed it. Accustomed to use ornaments of shells made into rude beads, they had no difficulty in adapting for like use the small lumps of native gold. They readily pierced the soft metal and making the nuggets into beads used them to form their necklets and armlets. But although this people had made some progress in the working of gold, they were incapable of working copper and silver. We shall have to return to this passage hereafter. Let us now hear Diodorus in reference to the same region.

He speaks of it in two separate places in his Collections, first in his Second Book, when giving a brief general statement of Arabia and its natural products, and again in the Third Book, when he is giving a more detailed account of the tribes who dwelt along the shores of the Red Sea or, as he called it, the Arabian Gulf.

The first passage runs thus (he has just been describing certain quarries): “There are mines in Arabia likewise of the gold that is termed ‘fireless.’ It is not refined down from gold-dust as in other countries, but it is obtained straightway on being dug up in size like unto chestnuts, and so fiery in colour that the most precious stones when set in it by the craftsmen make the most lovely of ornaments. And so great abundance of all sorts of cattle is found in the country that many tribes having chosen a pastoral life are able to get a comfortable subsistence, and being completely furnished with the plenteousness derived from their herds, they even have no need of corn in addition[113].” In his second reference, after describing the hill district, where lay the Mount Chabinus, densely clad with forests of all kinds of trees he says: “The land which comes next to the mountain region those Arabs called Debae inhabit. Now these people are camel-keepers and make use of this animal for all the most important affairs in life. For from them, they fight against their enemies and conveying their wares on the backs of these effect successfully all their business, and they subsist by drinking their milk, and they range over the whole region on their fleet camels. Now about midway in their land flows a river which brings down so much shining gold-dust that the alluvial mud deposited at its mouth positively glitters. Now the natives are completely unskilled in the working of the gold, but they are hospitable to strangers, not to all comers, but to those alone who come from Boeotia[114] and Peloponnesus because of a certain ancient affinity of Heracles with their nation, a tradition of which in legendary fashion they relate they have received from their forefathers. The next region is settled by the Alilaean and Gasandan Arabs, not being torrid, like those near it, inasmuch as it is often overcast with soft dense clouds, and from these arise snowstorms and seasonable rains which make the summer season temperate. And the land is capable of producing everything and surpasses in excellence, yet it does not meet with proper attention, owing to the ignorance of the folk. And finding gold in the natural cavities in the earth they collect it in quantities, not that which is obtained by fusion from gold-dust, but that which is native and from the circumstance called ‘fireless.’ And as to size the smallest piece found is similar to an olive-stone, whilst the largest is not much less than a walnut. And they wear it round their wrists and necks when it is perforated, the nuggets alternating with transparent stones. But since this kind of metal is plentiful with them, but copper and iron are scarce, they barter these wares with the traders at an equal rate[115].” Strabo probably got his information from Artemidorus, who is his chief authority for everything connected with the Red Sea. Diodorus, whose authority is Agatharchides, substantially agrees with Strabo in all the main facts, such as the name of the tribe who cannot work up the gold-dust, whilst he adds the names of the Alilaeans and Gasandans, which are not given by Strabo[116].

From Arabia we naturally pass on to Egypt. We have already seen that the archaeologists assign reasons for supposing that the Egyptians were acquainted with gold from the remotest ages. The Egyptian word for gold is nub, from which the name Nubia, i.e. El Dorado, is commonly derived. Having fresh in our minds the interesting fact noticed above (p. 69) that the universal word for gold in use amongst the Turko-Tartaric races is probably derived from the Altai, the source from which they first got the metal, we are tempted to reverse the ordinary doctrine, and to derive the Egyptian name for gold from that of the region whence they first obtained it. The principle of naming products after the region or place from which they have been first brought is too well known to need illustration. Instances are familiar in all languages: Cappadocae, the Latin name for lettuce; Persica from which has come our peach, through the French; Indian corn, india-rubber, etc. are sufficient examples. The negroes of Eastern Africa call a certain kind of cloth Merikano, i.e. American. Perhaps, then, the name nub is rather a word of this class, and Nubia is not like Gold Coast, which belongs to the category of names formed by epithets applied in consequence of some article already well known having been found there.

Strabo (p. 821), describing Meroe, that large and fertile island formed by the Nile, says: “the island has many great mountains, and some of its inhabitants are shepherds, some hunters, and some husbandmen. And there are likewise copper-diggings and iron-works, and gold-mines, and varieties of valuable marbles. It is shut off from Libya by great sands, from Arabia by unbroken heights, and from the upper region from the south by the junctions of the rivers, Astaboras, Astapus, and Astasobus. On the north the Nile flows all the way to Egypt in that tortuous fashion which I have described.” This island virtually coincides with the modern province of Atbar. It is probably to this same region that Diodorus refers in his famous description of the Egyptian gold-mining. Although the passage is one of considerable length, it is of such interest and importance that it is perhaps advisable to give it in full: “On the confines of Egypt, Arabia which marches with it, and Ethiopia is a spot possessed of many great mines of gold, where the gold is got together with much suffering and expense. Since the earth is black and has lodes and veins of quartz of surpassing whiteness, and which excel in brilliancy all those natural objects which are noted for their lustre, those who are in charge of the mining works by the numbers of the labourers prepare the gold. For the kings of Egypt collect together and consign to the gold-mines those who have been condemned for crime, and who have been made captive in war, and furthermore those who have been ruined by false slanders, and who owing to an outburst of anger have been cast into prison, sometimes only themselves, but sometimes likewise with all their kindred, at one and the same time both exacting punishment from those who have been condemned, and obtaining great revenues by means of those who are engaged in the labour. Those who have been consigned to the mines, being many in number and all bound with fetters, toil at their tasks continuously both by day and all night long, getting no rest, and jealously kept from all escape. For guards composed of foreign soldiers, and who speak languages which differ from theirs, are set over them, so that no one is able by association or any kindly intercourse to corrupt any one of the warders. The hardest of the earth which contains the gold they burn with a good deal of fire, and make soft, and work it with their hands, but the soft rock and that which can easily yield to stone chisels or iron is worked down by thousands of hapless beings. And the craftsman who distinguishes the stone takes the lead in the whole process, and he gives instructions to the workmen. And of those who have been appointed to this misery those who surpass in bodily strength cut with iron pickaxes the glittering rock, not by bringing skill to bear upon their tasks, but by mere brute force, and they hew out galleries, not in a straight line, but according to the vein of the glittering rock. They then living in darkness owing to the bends and twists in the pits carry about lamps fitted on their foreheads, and changing in many ways the posture of their bodies according to the peculiarity of the rock throw down on the floor the fragments that are being hewn, and this they do unceasingly under the severity and stripes of an overseer. But the boys who have not yet reached manhood going in through the shafts into the excavations in the rock, laboriously cast up the rock that is being thrown down bit by bit, and convey it to the place outside the mouth of the shaft into the light. But the men who are more than thirty years old take a fixed measure of the quarried stone, and pound it in stone mortars with iron pestles until they reduce it to the size of a vetch. From these the women and older men receive the stone now reduced to pieces the size of a vetch, and as there is a considerable number of mills there in a row, they cast the stone upon them, they stand beside them at the handle in threes or twos, they grind until they have reduced the measure given them to the fineness of wheaten flour. And since they are all regardless of their persons, and have not a garment to cover their nakedness, no one who saw them could refrain from pitying the hapless creatures owing to their excessive misery. For there is absolutely no consideration nor relaxation for sick, or maimed, for aged man, or weak woman, but all are forced to toil on at their tasks until, worn out by their miseries, they die amid their toils. Wherefore the unhappy beings regard the future as more to be dreaded than the present owing to the excess of punishment, and expect death as more to be longed for than life.

“But finally the craftsmen get the ground-up stone, and complete the process. For they rub the ground-up quartz on a broad board placed on a slight incline, pouring water on it. Then the earthy part of it, melting away by the action of the liquid, flows down along the sloping board, but the part that contains the gold adheres to the board owing to its weight. Repeating this process frequently at first with their hands they gently rub it, but after this pressing it lightly with delicate sponges they take up by these means the soft and earthy part until the gold-dust is left in a state of purity.

“Finally other craftsmen, taking over the collected gold by measure and weight, put it into earthenware pots, and in proportion to the amount they put in a piece of lead and lumps of salt and furthermore a small quantity of tin, and they add barley bran. Then having made a well-fitted cover and having laboriously smeared it over with mud, they bake it in kilns for five days and as many nights continuously. Then after letting it cool, they find none of the other things in the vessels, but get the gold in a pure state with but a slight reduction in quantity. With so many and so great sufferings is the production of gold at the frontiers of Egypt completed. For Nature herself makes it plain, I think, that gold is produced with toil, is guarded with difficulty, is most eagerly sought for, and is enjoyed with mixed pleasure and pain. The discovery of these mines is of very ancient date, inasmuch as it was made known by the ancient kings[117].”

Such then is the vivid picture drawn by the humane Diodorus of the horrible torments of the unhappy bondsmen who worked these famous mines, sufferings only to be paralleled by the miseries endured by the miners in Spain under Roman rule, by the Indians in the mines of Peru under the yoke of the Spaniard, and by the helpless sufferers under Muscovite cruelty who at this hour endure a living death in the mines of Siberia.

For our immediate purpose it is interesting to notice that the Egyptians from a far back time obtained an abundant supply of gold from the confines of their own territory, and doubtless drew a further supply from those rich gold districts along the Red Sea of which we have just spoken.

Whilst in the latter case we had a most instructive instance of the first attempts to utilize the metals made by men, so in the case of Egypt we find an example of the most elaborate and scientific process of gold-mining known to the ancients. For we shall find that the process employed in Spain by the Romans for refining the crude gold was not nearly so elaborate as that employed by the Egyptians.

It is of course quite possible that supplies of gold either in the form of dust or of rings may have reached Egypt from the interior of Africa, but of that we have not as far as I am aware any historical record. For the negroes who are depicted in Egyptian paintings bringing tribute of gold rings might have brought them from Nubia or from a region on the coast of the Mediterranean further west. It is indeed a fact of great interest that down to the present day gold in the shape of rings or links is brought to Massowah on the Red Sea from Sennaar (Nubia). This is the best of the three qualities which reach Massowah; the second quality is Abyssinian gold, “in grains or beads,” and the third is also Abyssinian gold “in ingots.” Thus two most ancient ways of using gold are employed in this region still, for the gold in grains or beads reminds us at once of the story of its being employed by the Debae to form necklaces[118].

Once more let us advance westward, and notice the last gold-field on the continent of Africa. That gold was obtained by the Carthaginians from a district in North Africa is put beyond doubt by a passage of Herodotus (IV. 195), who, after describing a certain people called the Gyzantes, who coloured themselves red with raddle, and ate apes, says that “the Carthaginians declare that opposite this people lies an island named Cyraunis, two hundred stades long (25 miles) but narrow in breadth, with a crossing from the mainland; the island is full of olives and vines, and there is a lake in it from which the native maidens by means of birds’ feathers smeared with pitch take up gold dust out of the silt.” Whatever may be the exact spot meant on the coast of the Libyan nomads we may at least conclude that there is a distinct indication that the Carthaginians were well acquainted with gold deposits in this quarter. Whether or not the Carthaginians and in later times the Romans may have obtained by caravans across the desert supplies of gold from the great gold-bearing regions of West Africa, we have no means of judging, but it is on the whole probable that they did. The voyage of Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, along the western side of Africa can hardly have failed to make known to them the existence of rich gold fields, even if they had been previously ignorant of them; but it is still more likely that it was the knowledge of such an Eldorado far away beyond the great Sahara that induced them to send out the expedition.

It has often happened in the history of both ancient and modern commerce that the products of a certain region are known long before travellers or merchants from civilized lands have ever reached the country that produces them. Thus the merchants of Marseilles were probably familiar with the tin brought from Devon and Cornwall across Gaul before the famous Pytheas ever coasted round Spain and Gaul and visited our shores. Again, in modern times, it is only within the last thirty years that the source of that most familiar of drugs, Turkey rhubarb, has been discovered.

By whatever means they may have learned its existence the following passage of Herodotus (IV. 196) puts it beyond all doubt that the Carthaginians in the fifth century B.C. traded by sea for gold to the west coast of Africa, and that consequently the savages of that region must have been long acquainted with the metal: “The Carthaginians,” he says, “also relate the following: there is a country in Libya and a nation beyond the Pillars of Heracles, which they are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive than forthwith they unlade their wares, and having disposed them after an orderly fashion along the beach, leave them and returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke. The natives, when they see the smoke, come down to the shore, and laying out to view so much gold as they think the worth of the wares, withdraw to a distance. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look; if they think the gold enough, they take it and go their way, but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard once more and wait patiently. Then the others approach and add to their gold, till the Carthaginians are content. Neither party deals unfairly with the other, for they themselves never touch the gold until it comes up to the worth of the goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods till the gold is taken away[119].”

Let us now retrace our steps to Europe and take up our investigation at the point from which we diverged into Asia. We found Thrace and Thasos to have been for many ages an inexhaustible source of gold. We must now pass on from the Balkan peninsula to the Italian.

Although according to Helbig (Die Italiker in der Poebene, p. 21) no traces of gold have as yet been found in the lake-dwellings of Northern Italy, which were erected and occupied by the Umbrians, who occupied all that region until conquered by the Etruscans[120], we cannot take this negative evidence as at all conclusive proof that the inhabitants of these dwellings were utterly ignorant of gold and its use. Helbig has shown that the inhabitants of the lake-dwellings were in the bronze age at the time of the Etruscan conquest, which can be hardly placed later than B.C. 1100. Bronze implements are found in the remains. But as a matter of fact ornaments of gold are not generally found in the ruins of the habitations of the living, but rather in the tombs of the dead. That certainly has been the case at Mycenae, at Spata, on Mount Hymettus in Attica, in the island of Thera, and at Ialysus in Rhodes. Contrast the wealth of gold ornaments found in the tombs at Mycenae with the complete absence of that metal in the palace at Tiryns. Of course it may be urged on the other side that at Hissarlik amid the ruins of a burnt city great treasure in gold and silver has been found, and we must undoubtedly admit that in certain cases such as that of a city suddenly destroyed by a fire before there was time either for the owners to remove or the enemy to pillage the valuables therein, there is the possibility of finding such remains. If we were to apply this negative method consistently we must conclude that Orchomenus, which Homer called “rich in gold,” was inhabited by men who were not yet acquainted with that metal, and we should I believe be constrained to arrive at the same conclusion in the case of Nineveh and Babylon. At least Sir Henry Layard discovered scarcely a fragment of any articles of gold in the course of his excavations on the site of those two cities, which nevertheless we have the strongest grounds for believing were amongst the wealthiest of those of ancient days. In dealing with the question of Northern Italy we cannot separate it from the contiguous region of Switzerland or Helvetia. Dr Keller, in his well-known work on the Lake-dwellings (p. 459), gives instances where gold has been found in lake-dwellings amongst remains that indicated the owners to have been in the bronze period. Of course it may be said and said with truth that the lake-dwellings of Switzerland continued to be occupied down to a time posterior to those found in the Aemilia. But when we find that a gold ornament has been found in a dwelling of neolithic age, we have a positive proof not simply of the knowledge, but probably of the skill requisite to manufacture the metal. If any upholder of the negative method urges that gold has been found very sparingly in these lacustrine dwellings, let him remember that the existence of one single object of gold in these remains is sufficient to demolish all his argument. The objects found in the lakes are chiefly débris, the offal of the house, bones of animals, which had formed the food of the former owners, broken and disused implements, and such like. Ornaments of gold were not likely to have been flung into the bottom of the lake for the purpose of getting rid of them. Such precious articles were probably handed down with great care from generation to generation, and possibly in later days gold that once graced the neck or arms of prehistoric men and women has reappeared time after time in the form of coins, first the rude imitations of the staters of Philip of Macedon, again under the form of Roman aurei, and perhaps even bore the impress of some mediaeval monarch at a later time. There have been issues of coins both in ancient and modern times of which not a single specimen is at present known; yet if any one were to argue from this against the truth of the documentary evidence, the spade of a peasant by turning up a single coin might on the moment wreck all his logic. The sum of positive knowledge which we obtain from this discussion is therefore that some people who inhabited Switzerland in what is called the neolithic age (a vague and often misleading phrase) were acquainted with the use of gold ornaments. Could we but fix the inferior limits of this neolithic age, we should at least obtain an approximate date before which gold was already known. But it is most probable that stone, bronze and even iron long continued to be used side by side in the same areas. The man who had no articles to barter for bronze continued to use stone implements of his own manufacture, whilst his more fortunate coeval used weapons made of the superior but more costly material.

Granting now that bronze implements made their way from the Mediterranean into the middle and north of Europe, brought most likely by traders from the more civilized shores of the Aegean, let us ask ourselves how did the men of the neolithic stage obtain them. Did the kindly Phoenician trader generously bestow as free gifts these articles on the barbarians of the West? Does the trader of today among the isles of Melanesia lavish for mere thanks his wares upon the natives who gather round him on the beach? In Homer those Phoenician shipmen are described by an epithet, which by the mildest interpretation means knaves. The men who brought bronze got some valuable objects in exchange for it. Such objects must be portable: slaves, gold, silver, copper, tin, skins and furs would probably form the main objects of barter. If we make use of the philological method of Schrader and his school, there can be no doubt that copper was known to the Italians before ever a Phoenician keel grated against their shores, for the Latin aes is as we said a true Aryan word. There is no suspicion of borrowing here from the Semitic as there is in the case of the Greek chalkos. In such a case as this the philological argument has some distinct force; for whilst, as I argued, it is easy to realize a state of things under which a native name for a particular substance already known may give place to a foreign one, on the other hand it is difficult to see how a people who are receiving such a substance for the first time from foreigners, and who would therefore naturally apply to it a term obtained from the foreigners’ language, could afterwards replace this name by one which is found applied to the same substance by a cognate people dwelling thousands of miles away from them. The Italians therefore probably had copper from a very early age. But we have already seen good reason for believing that a knowledge of gold precedes that of copper whenever both are found in the same area. We saw that the Scythians, who got copious store of gold from the Ural-Altai region, made no use of copper in the fifth century before our era, although copper is found abundantly in the same area. From this we may infer with some probability that the Italian stock were acquainted with gold sooner than with copper. We may apply the same argument to gold in Italy as we did to copper. Aurum (older ausum), the Latin word for gold, is plainly not borrowed, as is perhaps the Greek chrysos, from the Semites. Hence it cannot be maintained that it was only with the Phoenicians that the knowledge of gold reached Italy.

It now only remains for us to see if the Italians had the means within their reach of discovering gold. No one I suppose will dispute that the Italian stock entered the peninsula from the north, driving before them older occupants. They must then have either entered Italy by the head of the Adriatic, coming round from the valleys of the Balkan peninsula, or through the Alpine passes. If they came from the first quarter it is impossible to suppose that a people in close contact with the tribes who occupied the Balkan peninsula, and who as we have seen above must have been acquainted with gold from a remote time, could have remained without a knowledge of the metal. On the other hand it will be seen from the following evidence that there was every opportunity for the discovery of gold in the Alpine valleys. Strabo gives various notices of the gold workings of this region. “Polybius states that in his own day in the vicinity of Aquileia, in the territory of the Taurisci of Noricum, was found a gold mine so productive that on clearing away the surface dirt to a depth of two feet gold which could be dug was straightway found, and that the pit did not exceed fifteen feet, and that part of the gold was pure on the spot, being the size of a bean or a lupin, only one-eighth being lost in refining, whilst some of it required a process of smelting which, though more elaborate, was still very remunerative. When the Italians worked them along with the barbarians for a space of two months, straightway gold coin went down one-third in value throughout the whole of Italy; but when the Taurisci became aware of this they expelled their partners and held the monopoly. But now all the gold mines are in the hands of the Romans. And there too, just as in Iberia, the rivers in addition to the dug gold produce gold dust, but not in such quantities[121].”

In another passage, speaking of the town of Noreia in Noricum, he says “this district possesses productive gold-washings and iron-works[122].”

Moving on again westwards, we easily find strong evidence of active gold-mining in the Alpine regions. All the granite strata on the southern side of the High Alps from the Simplon to Mont Blanc are auriferous. Not only have extensive mining operations been carried on at different points down almost to the present day, but the mines were beyond all doubt vigorously worked, not merely in Roman but in pre-Roman days. In the district of La Besse, at the foot of Mont Grand on the right bank of the Cervo between Biella and Ivrea, are still to be seen very extensive traces of gold washings and gold diggings[123]. These are no other than the once famous mines of Victumulae alluded to by Strabo when, in speaking of this region, he says that “there is not now as much attention bestowed on the mines as there used to be, because the mines in the country of the transalpine Kelts and in Spain are more profitable, but formerly they were well worked, since at Vercelli there was a gold-digging. Vercelli is a village near Ictumulae which is itself a village, and both of them are in the vicinity of Placentia[124].” So important were these mines that Pliny[125] says there existed a Censorian law relating to them, by which it was provided that the capitalists who farmed the mines were not to employ more than 5000 workmen.