A few famous quotes from ancient literature.
"Bad money drove out good money", even in ancient times:
Quote:
The course our city runs is the same towards men and money.
She has true and worthy sons.
She has fine new gold and ancient silver,
Coins untouched with alloys, gold or silver,
Each well minted, tested each and ringing clear.
Yet we never use them!
Others pass from hand to hand,
Sorry brass just struck last week and branded with a wretched brand.
So with men we know for upright, blameless lives and noble names,
These we spurn for men of brass...
Aristophanes, "The Frogs", first performed in 405 BC
The earliest recorded coin collectors were collectors of counterfeits:
Quote:
It is truly marvellous, that in this art, and in this only, the various methods of falsification should be made a study: for the sample of the false denarius is now an object of careful examination, and people absolutely buy the counterfeit coin at the price of many genuine ones!
Pliny the Elder, "Natural History" Book 33, Chapter 46, circa 77 AD
Roman emperor Augustus was a coin enthusiast:
Quote:
On the Saturnalia, and at any other time when he took it into his head, he would now give gifts of clothing or gold and silver; again coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings and foreign money...
Suetonius, "The Twelve Caesars", Augustus, Chapter 75, 121 AD
The reason why denarii of Tiberius are so expensive:
Quote:
They came to him and said... "Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?". But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. "Why are you trying to trap me?" he asked. "Bring me a denarius and let me look at it." They brought the coin, and he asked them, "Whose image is this? And whose inscription?". "Caesar's," they replied. Then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."
The Bible, Mark 12:14-17, early 1st century AD
Gold and silver coin standards are enshrined in Islamic Shariah law:
Quote:
It should be known that since the beginning of Islam and the time of the men around Muhammad and the men of the second generation, the legal dirham is by general consensus the one, ten of which are equal to seven mithqal of gold, and an ounce of gold is forty dirhams. Thus, the legal dirham is seven-tenths of a dinar. A gold mithqal weighs seventy-two average-sized grains of wheat. Consequently, the dirham, which is seven-tenths of a mithqal, has a weight of fifty and two-fifths grains. All these values are accepted by general consensus.
Abd Ar Rahman bin Muhammed ibn Khaldun, "Introduction to Universal History", Chapter 3 Section 34, circa 1377 AD
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Posted 03/06/2011 01:29 am
