Part 715

"We have an enormous number of the documents of this firm, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar the Great, and going on for some five generations or so to the time of Darius. The tablets are dated month after month and year after year, and thus they afford us a sure method of fixing the chronology of that very uncertain period of history. There is a small contract tablet in the Museum at Zürich, discovered by Dr. Oppert, dated in the 5th year of Pacorus, king of Persia, who reigned about the time of Domitian. There is a little doubt about the reading of one of the characters in the name, but if it is correct, it will prove that the use of cuneiform did not fall into disuse until after the Christian Era. … Some have tried to show that Egibi is the Babylonian form of Jacob, which would lead one to suspect the family to have been Jews; but this is not certain at present."

_E. A. W. Budge, Babylonian Life and History, page 115._

{2200}

"It is in the development of trade, and especially of banking, rather than in manufactures, that Babylonia and Chaldæa were in advance of all the rest of the world. The most cautious Assyriologists are the least confident in their renderings of the numerous contract tablets from which, if they were accurately interpreted, we should certainly be able to reconstruct the laws and usages of the world's first great market place. … The following account of Babylonian usages is derived from the text of M. Revillout's work. … It is confirmed in essentials by the later work of Meissner, who has translated over one hundred deeds of the age of Hammurabi and his successors. In Chaldæa every kind of commodity, from land to money, circulated with a freedom that is unknown to modern commerce; every value was negotiable, and there was no limit to the number and variety of the agreements that might be entered into. … Brick tablets did not lend themselves readily to 'bookkeeping,' as no further entry could be made after baking, while the first entry was not secure unless baked at once. Each brick recorded one transaction, and was kept by the party interested till the contract was completed, and the destruction of the tablet was equivalent to a receipt. Babylonian law allowed debts to be paid by assigning another person's debt to the creditor; a debt was property, and could be assigned without reference to the debtor, so that any formal acknowledgment of indebtedness could be treated like a negotiable bill—a fact which speaks volumes for the commercial honesty of the people. A separate tablet was, of course, required to record the original debt, or rather to say that So-and-so's debt to Such-an-one has been by him sold to a third party. Such third party could again either assign his claim to a bank for a consideration, or if the last debtor had a credit at the bank, the creditor could be paid out of that, a sort of forecast of the modern clearing-house system. The debtor who pays before the term agreed on has to receive a formal surrender of the creditor's claim, or a transfer of it to himself. The Babylonian regarded money and credit as synonymous, and the phrase, 'Money of Such-an-one upon So-and-so,' is used as equivalent to A's credit with B. … In ancient Babylonia, as in modern China, the normal effect of a loan was supposed to be beneficial to the borrower. In Egypt, judging from the form of the deeds, the idea was that the creditor asserted a claim upon the debtor, or the debtor acknowledged a liability to the man from whom he had borrowed. In Babylonia the personal question is scarcely considered; one person owes money to another—that is the commonest thing in the world—such loans are in a chronic state of being incurred and paid off; one man's debt is another man's credit, and credit being the soul of commerce, the loan is considered rather as a part of the floating negotiable capital of the country than as a burden on the shoulders of one particular debtor."

_E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, volume 1, pages 320-322._

MONEY AND BANKING: China.

"Not only did the Chinese possess coins at a very early period, but they were also the inventors of bank notes. Some writers regard bank notes as having originated about 119 B. C., in the reign of the Emperor Ou-ti. At this time the Court was in want of money, and to raise it Klaproth tells us that the prime minister hit upon the following device. When any princess or courtiers entered the imperial presence, it was customary to cover the face with a piece of skin. It was first decreed then, that for this purpose the skin of certain white deer kept in one of the royal parks should alone be permitted, and then these pieces of skin were sold for a high price. But although they appear to have passed from one noble to another, they do not seem ever to have entered into general circulation. It was therefore very different from the Russian skin money. In this case the notes were 'used instead of the skins from which they were cut, the skins themselves being too bulky and heavy to be constantly carried backward and forward. Only a little piece was cut off to figure as a token of possession of the whole skin. The ownership was proved when the piece fitted in the hole.' True bank notes are said to have been invented about 800 A. D., in the reign of Hiantsoung, of the dynasty of Thang, and were called 'feytsien,' or flying money. It is curious, however, though not surprising, to find that the temptation to over-issue led to the same results in China as in the West. The value of the notes fell, until at length it took 11,000 min, or £3,000, to buy a cake of rice, and the use of notes appears to have been abandoned. Subsequently the issue was revived, and Tchang-yang (960-990 A. D.) seems to have been the first private person who issued notes. Somewhat later, under the Emperor 'Tching-tsong (997-1022), this invention was largely extended. Sixteen of the richest firms united to form a bank of issue which emitted paper money in series, some payable every three years. The earliest mention, in European literature, of paper, or rather cotton, money appears to be by Rubruquis, a monk, who was sent by St. Louis, in the year 1252, to the Court of the Mongol Prince Mangu-Khan, but he merely mentions the fact of its existence. Marco Polo, who resided from 1275 to 1284 at the court of Kublai-Khan, … gives us a longer and interesting account of the note system, which he greatly admired, and he concludes by saying, 'Now you have heard the ways and means whereby the great Khan may have, and, in fact, has, more treasure than all the kings in the world. You know all about it, and the reason why.' But this apparent facility of creating money led, in the East, as it has elsewhere, to great abuses. Sir John Mandeville, who was in Tartary shortly afterwards, in 1322, tells us that the 'Emperour may dispenden als moehe as he wile with outen estymacioum. For he despendeth not, ne maketh no money, but of lether emprented, or of papyre. … For there and beyonde hem thei make no money, nouther of gold nor of sylver. And therefore he may despende ynow and outrageously.' The great Khan seems to have been himself of the same opinion. He appears to have 'despent outrageously,' and the value of the paper money again fell to a very small fraction of its nominal amount, causing great discontent and misery, until about the middle of the sixteenth century, under the Mandchu dynasty, it was abolished, and appears to have been so completely forgotten, that the Jesuit father, Gabriel de Magaillans, who resided at Pekin about 1668, observes that there is no recollection of paper money having ever existed in the manner described by Marco Polo; though two centuries later it was again in use. It must be observed, however, that these Chinese bank notes differed from ours in one essential—namely, they were not payable at sight. {2201} Western notes, even when not payable at all, have generally purported to be exchangeable at the will of the holder, but this principle the Chinese did not adopt, and their notes were only payable at certain specified periods."

_Sir J. Lubbock, The History of Money (Nineteenth Century, November, 1879)._

ALSO IN: _W. Vissering, On Chinese Currency._

MONEY AND BANKING: Coinage in its Beginnings.

"Many centuries before the invention of the art of coining, gold and silver in the East, and bronze in the West, in bullion form, had already supplanted barter, the most primitive of all methods of buying and selling, when among pastoral peoples the ox and the sheep were the ordinary mediums of exchange. The very word 'pecunia' is an evidence of this practice in Italy at a period which is probably recent in comparison with the time when values were estimated in cattle in Greece and the East. 'So far as we have any knowledge,' says Herodotus, 'the Lydians were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin.' This statement of the father of history must not, however, be accepted as finally settling the vexed question as to who were the inventors of coined money, for Strabo, Aelian, and the Parian Chronicle, all agree in adopting the more commonly received tradition, that Pheidon, King of Argos, first struck silver coins in the island of Aegina. These two apparently contradictory assertions modern research tends to reconcile with one another. The one embodies the Asiatic, the other the European tradition; and the truth of the matter is that gold was first coined by the Lydians in Asia Minor, in the seventh century before our era; and that silver was first struck in European Greece about the same time. The earliest coins are simply bullets of metal, oval or bean-shaped, bearing on one side the signet of the state or of the community responsible for the purity of the metal and the exactness of the weight. Coins were at first stamped on one side only, the reverse showing merely the impress of the square-headed spike or anvil on which, after being weighed, the bullet of hot metal was placed with a pair of tongs and there held while a second workman adjusted upon it the engraved die. This done, a third man with a heavy hammer would come down upon it with all his might, and the coin would be produced, bearing on its face or obverse the seal of the issuer, and on the reverse only the mark of the anvil spike, an incuse square. This simple process was after a time improved upon by adding a second engraved die beneath the metal bullet, so that a single blow of the sledge-hammer would provide the coin with a type, as it is called, in relief on both sides. The presence of the unengraved incuse square may therefore be accepted as an indication of high antiquity, and nearly all Greek coins which are later than the age of the Persian wars bear a type on both sides. … Greek coin-types may be divided into two distinct classes:

(a) Mythological or religious representations, and (b) portraits of historical persons.

From the earliest times down to the age of Alexander the Great the types of Greek coins are almost exclusively religious. However strange this may seem at first, it is not difficult to explain. It must be borne in mind that when the enterprising and commercial Lydians first lighted upon the happy idea of stamping metal for general circulation, a guarantee of just weight and purity of metal would be the one condition required. … What more binding guarantee could be found than the invocation of one or other of those divinities most honoured and most dreaded in the district in which the coin was intended to circulate. There is even good reason to think that the earliest coins were actually struck within the precincts of the temples, and under the direct auspices of the priests; for in times of general insecurity by sea and land, the temples alone remained sacred and inviolate."

_B. V. Head, Greek Coins Coins and Medals, edited by S. Lane-Poole, chapter 2._

MONEY AND BANKING: Early Banking.

"The banker's calling is both new and old. As a distinct branch of commerce, and a separate agent in the advancement of civilisation, its history hardly extends over 300 years; but, in a rude and undeveloped sort of way, it has existed during some dozens of centuries. It began almost with the beginning of society. No sooner had men learnt to adopt a portable and artificial equivalent for their commodities, and thus to buy and sell and get gain more easily, than the more careful of them began to gather up their money in little heaps, or in great heaps, if they were fortunate enough. These heaps were, by the Romans, called montes—mounds, or banks,—and henceforth every money-maker was a primitive banker. The prudent farmers and shopkeepers in the out-of-the-way villages, who now lock up their savings in strong boxes, or conceal them in places where they are least likely to be found by thieves, show us how the richest and most enterprising men of far-off times, whether in Anglo-Saxon or mediæval Britain, ancient Greece and Rome, China or Judæa, made banks for themselves before the great advantages of joint-stock heaping up of money were discovered. When and in what precise way that discovery was made antiquarians have yet to decide. … Perhaps Jews and Greeks set the example to the modern world. Every rich Athenian had his treasurer or money-keeper, and whenever any particular treasurer proved himself a good accountant and safe banker, it is easy to understand how, from having one master, he came to have several, until he was able to change his condition of slavery for the humble rank of a freedman, and then to use his freedom to such good purpose that he became an influential member of the community. Having many people's money, entrusted to his care, he received good payment for his responsible duty, and he quickly learned to increase his wealth by lending out his own savings, if not his employers' capital, at the highest rate of interest that he could obtain. The Greek bankers were chiefly famous as money-lenders, and interest at thirty-six per cent. per annum was not considered unusually exorbitant among them. For their charges they were often blamed by spendthrifts, satirists, and others. 'It is said,' complains Plutarch, 'that hares bring forth and nourish their young at the same time that they conceive again; but the debts of these scoundrels and savages bring forth before they conceive, for they give and immediately demand again; they take away their money at the same time as they put it out; they place at interest what they receive as interest. The Messenians have a proverb: "There is a Pylos before Pylos, and yet another Pylos still." {2202} So of the usurers it may be said, "There is a profit before profit, and yet another profit still;" and then, forsooth, they laugh at philosophers, who say that nothing can come out of nothing!' The Greek bankers and money-lenders, those of Delos and Delphi especially, are reported to have used the temples as treasure-houses, and to have taken the priests into partnership in their money-making. Some arrangement of that sort seems to have existed among the Jews, and to have aroused the anger of Jesus when he went into the Temple of Jerusalem, 'and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Bankers' or money-changers' tables were famous institutions all over the civilised world of the ancients. Livy tells how, in 308 B. C., if not before, they were to be found in the Roman Forum, and later Latin authors make frequent allusions to banking transactions of all sorts. They talk of deposits and securities, bills of exchange and drafts to order, cheques and bankers' books, as glibly as a modern merchant. But these things were nearly forgotten during the dark ages, until the Jews, true to the money-making propensities that characterised them while they still had a country of their own, set the fashion of money-making and of banking in all the countries of Europe through which they were dispersed."

_H. R. Fox Bourne, Romance of Trade, chapter 4._

MONEY AND BANKING: Ancient Greece.

"Oriental contact first stirred the 'auri sacra fames' in the Greek mind. That this was so the Greek language itself tells plainly. For 'chrusos,' gold, is a Semitic loan-word, closely related to the Hebrew 'charuz,' but taken immediately, there can be no reasonable doubt, from the Phœnician. The restless treasure-seekers from Tyre were, indeed, as the Græco-Semitic term metal intimates, the original subterranean explorers of the Balkan peninsula. As early, probably, as the 15th century B. C. they 'digged out ribs of gold' on the islands of Thasos and Siphnos, and on the Thracian mainland at Mount Pangæum; and the fables of the Golden Fleece, and of Arimaspian wars with gold-guarding griffins, prove the hold won by the 'precious bane' over the popular imagination. Asia Minor was, however, the chief source of prehistoric supply, the native mines lying long neglected after the Phœnicians had been driven from the scene. Midas was a typical king in a land where the mountains were gold-granulated, and the rivers ran over sands of gold. And it was in fact from Phrygia that Pelops was traditionally reported to have brought the treasures which made Mycenæ the golden city of the Achæan world. The Epic affluence in gold was not wholly fictitious. From the sepulchres of Mycenæ alone about one hundred pounds Troy weight of the metal have been disinterred; freely at command even in the lowest stratum of the successive habitations at Hissarlik, it was lavishly stored, and highly wrought in the picturesquely-named 'treasure of Priam'; and has been found, in plates and pearls, beneath twenty metres of volcanic debris, in the Cyclatic islands Thera and Therapia. This plentifulness contrasts strangely with the extreme scarcity of gold in historic Greece. It persisted, however, mainly owing to the vicinity of the auriferous Ural Mountains, in the Milesian colony of Panticapæum, near Kertch, where graves have been opened containing corpses shining 'like images' in a complete clothing of gold-leaf, and equipped with ample supplies of golden vessels and ornaments. Silver was, at the outset, a still rarer substance than gold. Not that there is really less of it. … But it occurs less obviously, and is less easy to obtain pure. Accordingly, in some very early Egyptian inscriptions, silver, by heading the list of metals, claims a supremacy over them which proved short-lived. It terminated for ever with the scarcity that had produced it, when the Phœnicians began to pour the flood of Spanish silver into the markets and treasure-chambers of the East. Armenia constituted another tolerably copious source of supply; and it was in this quarter that Homer located the 'birth-place of silver.'"

_A. M. Clerke, Familiar Studies in Homer, chapter 10._

"Taken as a whole the Greek money is excellent; pure in metal and exact in weight, its real corresponding to its nominal value. Nothing better has been done in this way among the most civilized and best governed nations of modern times. There is, indeed, always a certain recognized limit, which keeps the actual weight of the money slightly below its theoretical weight; and this fact recurs with such regularity that it may be regarded as a rule. We must conclude, therefore, that it was under this form that Greek civilization allowed to the coiner of money the right of seigniorage, or the benefit legitimately due to him to cover the expenses of the coinage, and in exchange for the service rendered by him to the public in providing them with money, by which they were saved the trouble of perpetual weighing. This allowance, however, is always kept within very narrow limits, and is never more than the excess of the natural value of the coined money over that of the metal in ingots. … Of course, the general and predominant fact of the excellence of the Greek money in the time of Hellenic independence is subject, like all human things, to some exceptions. There were a few cities which yielded to the delusive bait of an unlawful advantage, debasing the quality of their coins without foreseeing that the consequences of this unfair operation would react against themselves. But these exceptions are very rare."

_F. Lenormant, Money in Ancient Greece and Rome (Contemporary Review, February; 1879)._