When the drachma was diminished in weight, the miná and the talent both dropped proportionately. Thus the standard of the Alexandrian talent, carefully preserved in Egypt, dropped in Greece.
Miná Talent Drachma of of 100 drachmæ 60 miná
Egypt 109-1/4 grs. 10,926 grs. 93·65 lb. Ægina, early 105 „ 10,560 „ 90·5 „ „ before 700 103·7 „ 10,370 „ 88·9 „ „ after 700 95·68 „ 9,568 „ 81·76 „ Athens, 600 B.C. 93·08 „ 9,308 „ 79·78 „
So in Athens, where the Ægina standard was in use, the drachma stood at 93·08 grains when, in 594 B.C., Solon’s Seisachthia law ‘unburdened’ the State and other debtors by decreeing that 73 (or more accurately 72-1/2) drachmæ should now be equal to 100 drachmæ, and altering the coinage accordingly.
This reduced the coin-weights of Athens to—
Drachma Didrachma Miná Talent 67·37 grs. 125·74 grs. 6737 grs. 57·75 lb.
But commercial weight remained the same. The miná emporikí, the trade miná, was fixed at 138 of the new drachmæ, so that it continued to be 100 of the old drachmæ: 138 × 67·37 = 100 × 93·08 grains.
The commercial miná thus remained at the 600 B.C. standard of 9308 grains = 1·33 lb. and the talent at 79·78 lb.[9]
There was a custom of _rhōpi_, turn of the scale, or long weight, which increased the legal commercial weight to a customary weight tending towards that of the Alexandrian talent series.
In settling the reduction of the Attic money-weight at 100 new drachmæ = 73 old drachmæ, Solon probably fixed on the latter figure in order to make the new talent, = 57·74 lb., have approximately the simple ratio of 4 : 5 with the Greek-Asiatic talent—
Thus the Roman As being = 5049 grains, 1/100 of the Greek-Asiatic talent, 80 As, = 403,920 grains = 57·7 lb., came to coincide with the Attic monetary talent.
To the talents and measures of capacity evolved from the feet of the three principal cubits of antiquity, must be added the talent and other measures evolved from the Black foot of Al-Mamūn’s cubit. They have had great influence on the weights and measures of Europe.
Al-Mamūn’s cubit was = 21·28 inches, the foot = 14·186 inches.
The foot cubed gave a measure of water, the weight of which was the Egyptian Cantar or Cental—
14·1868^3 = 2855 c.i. = 102·92 lb. water = 720,441 grs.