A History of Ancient Coinage. By Percy Gardner. (Clarendon Press.
18s. net.)—Professor Gardner's treatise is an. example of good co-ordination. From the innumerable memoirs on separate city coinages he has written a connected history of coinage from 700 to 300 B.C., with some introductory chapters on Greek trade- routes, early traders and bankers, the origin of coin-standards, the relations of the precious metals—the value of gold being to that of silver as forty to three—and other general topics. It is curious that the great trading city of Carthage should not have adopted a coinage till 410 B.C., during the invasion of Sicily, and that it should then have copied the Sicilian coins, though Asia and Greece had used various coinages for centuries. Professor Gardner regards the talent as a natural weight. " As the yard represents the length of the King's arm, measured from the breast-bone, so the Royal talents of Assyria represented what the King could comfortably lift in one hand or in two "—the heavy talent containing about eighty pounds of silver. The great value of coins in elucidating historical problems is repeatedly illustrated in this valuable book.
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