Show mON IRON WAS USED AS MONEY HONEY Rollins Ancient An History Says It Took Team of Horses to Move 88 Scientific American Plutarch says Not co content with this the equal division or of the lands etc o of the Lac lie he Ly Lycurgus I curgus resolved to make a division of their movables too that th re might be no odious distinction or Inequality left among them but finding that it would be very vary to go about it openly open he took another course and defeated de defeated their avarice by the following stratagem He commanded that aU all gold and silver coin should be called In and that only a certain kind of money made of iron should be current A 4 great Sloat weight and quantity Was ot of little Worth so that to lay up twenty or thirty pounds there was requIred a pretty large larse closet and to remove it nothing legs hess than a yoke of oxen With the diffusion of thIs money at once n a number of vices Ices were banished from for who Would rob an another another other of such a coin Who would un unjustly unjustly justly detain or take b by force or accept itS 05 a 0 bribe a thing which was not easto easy to hide nora noro credit to have haye nor indeed of any use to cut in pieces Per For When it was just red hot they QUenched it itIn ItIn In vinegar by that means spoiling it and made it almost incapable of being worked Clare Ciare in his Universal History ot of the World Vol 2 page sayS To render the state dep dependent only on Its ita own territorial products and to prevent any individual from accumulating an undue amount of wealth he Lycurgus prohibited the use of any money except art an iron coin with so small a value in comparison with its bulk built and that the necessity ot of using it as a medium of exchange would make it difficult to carryon carry on trade especially foreIgn commerce By subjecting thIs Iron cola coin to a process rendering it brit brittle the tle and unfit for tor 0 a an other use Ly Lycurgus Lycurgus curgus endeavored to destroy every avery de desire desire sire to hoard it ns as a treasure Rollins in his Ancient History Vol I 1 page 7 says First he Lycurgus L cur curgus gus cried down aU all gold and sliver silver money monc Ond nd Ordained that no other should be current than that of iron which lie made so very heavy and fixed at so loW a rate that a cart and two oxen oxen were necessary to carry homo home a sum of 10 French lines about ab urt 8 SiO gO and a whole chamber to it In InThis InThIs This was done for the purpose O or of sap sapping sapping ping the foundation of avarice Front From the a above ove quotations it would seem that while iron was much more valuable than It is now stIll It was not so v valuable as to justify its being coined Into money It seems that a atonal tonal team of f oxen could haul about 88 58 coin I presume the same sort f team might haul that value of iron fron at the present date |