found fixed at about 127 grains in the Egyptian rings. In Sicily and Magna Graecia we are fairly certain that the unit was in early times that of 130 grains. But whether this was native or brought in by the Greek colonists, it is impossible to prove. All that we know for certain is that there was in Sicily and Magna Graecia, a small talent used only for gold; which was equivalent to three Attic gold staters, or in other words the threefold of our Homeric ox-unit. Thus an ancient writer says “the Sicilian talent had a very small weight; the ancient one, as Aristotle says, 24 nummi, the later 12 nummi. But the nummus weighs three half obols11.” From this it is plain that the ancient form of this talent weighed 36 obols, that is, six drachms, or three staters.
Lastly, let us glance at those peoples who lay between Northern Italy and the Bay of Biscay. Although we have no direct evidence as to the unit by which the Gauls reckoned that gold of which, as we saw above, they had great store, before they came under the influence of either Phoenician, Greek, or Italian, we can perhaps make a justifiable inference from the fact that when the Gauls proceeded