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χρυσίον καθαρώτατον. The Persian darics (cf. iii. 89. 3 n.) have only three per cent. of alloy; cf. iii. 95. 1 n. Whether Darius was the first to coin them (as Grote assumes), H. does not say; Harpocration (Schol. ad Aristophanes, Eccles. 598) says they were coined before his time (cf. Hill, G. C. p. 27), but probably wrongly.

ἀργύριον. Aryandes' offence was not coining in itself, but doing it in obvious rivalry with the Great King; the satraps coined silver, but only when military officers. Babelon, Les Perses Achém. p. xxiii.

The revolt of Aryandes is variously dated from 517 to 494 B. C. (Macan, ii. 263; Busolt, ii. 532). The monuments are quoted in support of both dates; the literary evidence favours a later one; for H. conceives of Aryandes as copying the coinage of Darius, and this can hardly have been an established institution till after the settlement of the satrapies (iii. 89), circ. 516 B. C. Moreover, Darius suppressed the revolt in person (Polyaenus, vii. 11. 7), and he visited Egypt after the Scythian expedition (ii. 110).

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