| 135 × 15 | = | 2025 grs. of silver. |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 ÷ 10 | = | 202·5 grs. of silver. |
This gives a singularly close approximation to the weight of the existing coins of the Aeginetic standard of the earliest and heaviest kind. Taking the Homeric talent at 130 grains of gold, by the same process we obtain 10 silver pieces each of the weight of 195 grains (130 × 15 = 1950; 1950 ÷ 10 = 195 grs.)
The second standard which we find in Greece at the beginning of the historical epoch was the Euboic. This standard was used for both silver and gold. The ordinary account of its origin is as follows: “From Ionia possibly through Samos the Euboeans imported the standard by which they weighed their silver. This standard was the light Assyrio-Babylonian gold mina with its shekel or stater of about 130 grains. The Euboeans having little or no gold transferred the weight used in Asia for gold to their own silver, raising it slightly at the same time to a maximum of 135 grains, and from Euboea it soon spread over a large part of the Greek world by means of the widely extended commercial relations of the enterprising Euboean cities. This may have taken place towards the close of the eighth century and before the war which broke out at the end of that century between Chalcis and Eretria, nominally for the possession of the fields of Lelantum, which lay between the two rival cities”29.
This Euboic standard of 135-130 grains is seen at once to be identical in weight with the Homeric talent.