178 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS METALS, &c.
The
Lydians, adds the historian, were the first of men recorded to have
coined money of gold and of silver. He does not mention under which of
their kings, but numismatists agree in naming ' staters of Croesus,'
and with some foundation, those oblong lumps of electrum weighing a
Daric, but of evidently anterior make, stamped with the fore-part of a
lion and a bull regardant, the design purely Assyrian, and declaring its origin.
Before
the reign of Gyges the Pythian Apollo possessed neither gold nor
silver, says Pliny (xxxiv. 10), quoting Phaneas of Eresus. Yet
Herodotus (i. 14) makes Midas to have set him the example, by
dedicating his own royal throne, which was still to be seen when he
wrote, and a work to be admired. But Gyges, it is true, far surpassed
him, his being the greater part of the offerings in silver then
existing at Delphi ; and in gold he had presented, besides other
articles, six craters, weighing in all 30 talents (1800 lbs.). After
him came Croesus, whose munificence has just been detailed. Of the
Greeks, the first to offer the precious metals was Gelo, at the time of
the invasion of Xerxes, who gave a Victory and a tripod in gold. After
him his brother Hiero made a donation exactly similar.
This account of the quantity of gold then amassed in a
