The Syriac Chronicle

On page 140, line 20, Bar-Hebraeus reports that 5,000 "whites" (zuzim) were donated to the physician Gabriel by Caliph Harun, and in the Arabic text on page 236, line 13, the same number of dirhems. Indeed, there is not even a need for a collation of the Arabic text. On page 200, where he narrates that a certain jurist was fined 150,000 silver denarii, it immediately strikes the eye that zuzim and denarii are the same. Bar-Hebraeus also clarifies the ratio of gold denarii. The common opinion is that ten, then 12, and finally 20 and 25 dirhems equaled one gold denarius, but from Bar-Hebraeus’s Chronicle, page 426, lines 9 and 10, we are taught that even six drachmae were equal to one gold denarius. The passage just cited is of great moment and perhaps also proves that "white" denarii, that is, silver ones, were distinct from zuzim or dirhems; in which way, what we just wrote about the ratio of the gold denarius would have to be slightly changed. A Soltanin or Soltanicus, if we listen to d'Herbelot, was a gold coin. Bar-Hebraeus teaches on page 524, line 4, that Soltanici were also silver denarii. Castell explains mkhila as a measure of three logi an ancient measure, or 18 eggs; that this is not true appears first from the fact that Aziz, the Egyptian Caliph, when he attempted to bring the city of Aleppo under his power, is recorded to have amassed 200,000 mkhila of wheat and barley at Apamea for his army, which had set out to besiege Aleppo. How great his army was is not said in express words, yet it can be estimated from the fact that the Emperor of the Greeks, Basil, at the solicitation of Lulu, sent 30,000 men to the aid of the Egyptians. 200,000 mkhila, if set according to Castell's kephizo a measure of three logi, would equal 37,430 Roman modii peck-sized grain measures. But how meager this quantity of grain is for an army that besieged Aleppo for thirteen months!