ABSTRACT
We have now examined the available evidence as to early monetary systems, and have inferred therefrom the probable motives behind them. Before we summarize the conclusions to which we have come, it will be well to recall the deficiencies in the evidence to which no positive reference has been made. The most serious deficiency is our lack of knowledge of the legal provisions under which each currency circulated. Throughout the whole period there is no evidence of the legal weight of the coins. Specimens that are found vary greatly, because of the variable amount of wear to which they have been subjected, and also because they were often widely different in weight when issued. The Athenian and Macedonian issues reached a high degree of uniformity, but others, and particularly those of Rome, varied very widely. Standards deduced from coins are, therefore, subject to a wide margin of error. Again, we do not know the circumstances under which coins were legal tender, or even the legal value of some of the coins that have been found, the denominations represented by Roman coins being especially difficult to identify. Again, holders were presumably permitted to melt coins, but were they entitled to have the monetary metals coined in unlimited quantities? If so, what charges were mints entitled to exact for their service? If we may assume that whenever metal was more valuable in coins than as metal the state increased the supply of coins until the margin disappeared? this matter would not be important. But this suggests a second broad deficiency in the evidence. What were the practical conditions in which the law operated and the currency circulated? What was the practice of the government in deciding the quantity of coins to be issued? What was the practice of the commercial world in accepting them? How far was the law effective in preventing variations of the value of different parts of the currency system, especially where base pieces were issued? What were the units in which commercial bargains were made? What was the commercial value of the monetary metals? Many more questions in these two general directions could be asked if there were any chance of answering them. At present there is not, but it is well to bear in mind how much we do not know, while we sum up what we think we know. 1
