CAPUT I.

ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF NUMISMATIC SCIENCE.

The origin of coins must be sought from that time when, with the dispersion of nations, different languages arose: for since the exchange of goods, the simplest and most ancient method of commerce, seemed no longer sufficiently convenient as the multitude of men grew, nothing seemed more suitable for commerce than metals, especially those which, due to their natural qualities, seemed permanent.

The beginning seems to have been made with silver, which was weighed out in masses or rough particles, as gold-bearing lands were not yet known: afterwards, the rough masses of silver and bronze were stamped with certain marks indicating weight and value, and finally, for individual pieces, a certain weight was established and a type was impressed. Compare HERMANN ULRICH VON LINGEN, A Sketch on the Origin and Inventors of Money and Coins, Jena, 1715, quarto.

The argument concerning the first inventor of coins is as uncertain and controversial as that which concerns the first inventor of letters: but yet it is highly probable that the coins, which were rough masses, were first in use in Chaldea, the land first inhabited after the flood, and from there were carried into Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and finally to the Romans and other peoples. See Genesis, Chapter XX, 16; Chapter XXII, 15, 16; and Chapter XXXIII, 19. Cf. OTTO SPERLING, Dissertation on coins not struck, both of the ancients and the moderns, Amsterdam, 1700, quarto, Chapters II and III.