of equal weight would have been permitted by the temple authorities. But we get some more positive evidence of great interest from the fragment of an anonymous Alexandrine writer on Metrology, who says10, “the talent in Homer was equal in amount to the later Daric. Accordingly the gold talent weighs two Attic drachms.” Here we can have no doubt that Attic drachms mean gold drachms. Are we wrong then in supposing that at Delos still survived the same dual system which we found in Homer, the Ox and the Talent? But that at Delos both were of equal value we can have little doubt. For the ox = 2 Attic drachms = 1 Daric = 1 Talent = (130 grains Troy). Who can doubt that at Delos was preserved an unbroken tradition from the earliest days of Hellenic settlements in the Aegean? Modern discovery comes likewise to our support, and we shall find that it is probable that the gold rings found by Dr Schliemann in the tombs at Mycenae were made on a standard of about 135 grs.
This identification of the ox and the Homeric Talent is of importance: for it gives a simple and natural origin for the earliest Greek metallic unit of which we read. It likewise incidentally explains the proverb, βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ which dates from a time long before money was yet coined, or even the precious metals were in any form whatever employed for currency; it possibly explains why the ox was such a favourite type on coins, without having to call to our aid recondite mythological allusions; and it clears up once for all some interesting points in Homer. In the passage of the Iliad (XXIII. 750 sq.) already referred to the ox is second prize, whilst an half-talent of gold is the third. The relation between them is now plain; the ox = 1 talent, and the half-talent = a half-ox.
The vexed question of the Trial Scene11 can now be put beyond doubt. In the Journal of Philology (Vol. X. p. 30) the present writer argued that the two talents represented a sum too small to form the blood-price (ποινή) of a murdered man, and consequently must represent the sacramentum (or payment made to the Court for its time and trouble, as in the Roman