Aristotle speaks in his Polity of the Argives20.” Here again we find a clear mention of the Pheidonian measures, coupled with the high authority of Aristotle’s treatise on the Constitution of Argos in his great “Collection of Polities,” formed to serve as the material from which to build his great philosophic work on Politics.
There is again no mention of Pheidonian weights in the newly found Polity of the Athenians (which seems beyond doubt the same as that known to the ancients under the name of Aristotle), where it is stated that “in his (Solon’s) time the measures (at Athens) were made larger than those of Pheidon” (c. 10)21. Although the writer refers to the Aeginetic coin-weights in the next clause, he does not refer to them as the Pheidonian.
Now let us pass on to a remarkable passage in the Etymologicum Magnum (s.v. Ὀβελίσος).
“First of all men Pheidon of Argos struck money in Aegina; and having given them (his subjects) coin and abolished the spits, he dedicated them to Hera in Argos. But since at that time the spits used to fill the hand, that is the grasp, we, although we do not fill our hand with the six obols (spits) call it a grasp full (δραχμὴ) owing to the grasping of them. Whence even still to this day we call the usurer the spit-weigher, since by weights the men of old used to hand (money) over22.” The writer of this passage evidently regards Pheidon as the first inventor of the art of coining but not of weight standards.
Finally the Parian Marble recounts that, “Pheidon the Argive confiscated the measures ... and remade them and made silver coin in Aegina23.” Such then is the body of evidence which we possess, all pointing to Aegina as the first place in Greece which saw a mint set up, and to Pheidon of Argos as the first to establish that mint. As we have pointed out above we have nothing but a very dubious statement of Strabo (which is coupled