Show forced morality on sparta lycurgus made currency of country so bulky and comparatively worthless that induce ment to hoard was lost plutarch says not content with this the equal division of the lands etc of the he ly curgus resolved to mal e a division of their movables too that there might be no odious distinction or inequality leu among them but finding that it would be very dangerous to go about it openly he took another course and defeated their avarice by the follow ing stratagem he commanded that all gold and silver coin should be called in and that only a certain kind of money made of iron should be cur rent A great weight and quantity ws of little worth so that to lay up awen or thirty pounds there was required a pret large closet and to remove it nothing less than a oke of oxen according to the scientific american with the diffusion of this money at once a number of vices were banished from tor who would rob another of such a coina who would unjustly detain or take by forca or accept as a bribe a thing which was not easy to hide nor a credit to have nor indeed of any use to cut in for when it was lust red hot they quenched it in vine gar by that means spoil ng it and made it almost incapable of being worked clare in his universal history of the world volume 2 page says to render the state dependent only on its own territorial products and to prevent any individual from lating an undue amount of wealth he lycurgus prohibited the use of any money except an iron coin with so small a value in comparison with its bulk and weight that the necessity of us ng it as a medium of exchange would make it difficult to carry on trade especially foreign commerce by subjecting this iron coin to a process rendering it brittle and unfit tor any other use lycurgus endeavored to de stroy every desire to hoard it as a treasure rollin in his ancient history volume 1 page says first he lycurgus cried down all gold and silver money and ordained that no other should be current than that of iron which he made so very heavy and fixed at so low a rate that a cart and two oxen were necessary to carry home a sum of 10 minae french livres about 88 80 and a whole chamber to keep it in this was done tor the purpose of sapping the foundation of avarice from the above quotations it would seem that while iron was much more valuable than it is now still it was not so valuable as to justify its being ned into money it seems that a team of oxen could haul about 88 worth of coin I 1 presume the same sort of team might haul one fifth that value of iron at the present date |