________________
THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
of contact could have afforded. And, in another direction, these new suggestions may lead us to re-examine, with more authority, the later amplifications of the Zend alphabet, and to expose the needless introduction of foreign vowels and diphthongs—the assimilation of the anomalous Latin w q and the reception of the d f, which was only dubiously represented in the Sanskrit alphabet by u ph.
Prof. Max Müller has remarked that the mention of the word dinár is, in a measure, the test of the date of a Sanskrit MS., and so the use of the re-converted Roman aurei may serve to check and define the epoch of distant dynastic changes.
Pliny has told us of the “crime," as he calls it, of him who was the first to coin a denarius of gold,4 which took place sixty-two years after the first issue of silver money, or, in B.c. 207. Under Julius Cæsar the weight of the aureus/ was revised and fixed at the rate of forty to the libra, after which period the rate gradually fell, till, under Nero, fortyfive aurei were coined to the libra.
The average weight of extant specimens of Julius Cæsar's denarii of gold is stated to run at about 125.66 grains, while similar pieces of Nero fall to a rate of 115.39 grains.
The Persian Daric seems to have been fixed at 130 grains.5 The Greek gold pieces of Diodotus of Bactria weigh as much as 132-3 grains.6
The Indo-Scythian gold coins reach as high as 125," but this is an exceptionally heavy return. The Kadphises' group of coins range up to 122.5, and support an average of 122:4; an average which is confirmed by the double piece, no. 5, pl. x. Ariana Antiqua, which weighs 245 grains. The
1 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 340. Wilford, Asiatic Researches, vol. X. pp. 55, 101, etc. Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde, pp. 332, etc. Whitney, Lunar Zodiac, 1874, p. 371. Kern, Preface to “ Brihat Sanhita," p. 40, etc.
2 J.R.A.S. Vol. XII. 0.9. p. 272, and Vol. III. N.8. p. 266. Prinsep's Essays, yol. i. p. 171. 3 Sanskrit Literature, p. 245. 4 xxxü, 13. 3 International Numis. Orient., Mr. Head, p. 30. 6 Journ. Roy. As. Soc. Vol. XX. p. 122. 7 Gen. Cunningham, J.A.S.B., 1845, p. 435. Coin of Araei & Coin in British Museum.
23,
1. 11.).
