Talent

Talent (Gr. talanton, from a root 'to balance or weigh') was the heaviest unit of weight among the Greeks. The word is used by Homer to signify indifferently a balance and a definite weight of some monetary currency. Silver coin was first struck in Hellas proper in the island of Ægina, and the Æginetan standard was apparently adapted to the Babylonian gold standard. The Babylonian commercial talent seems to have been either 65 lb. 5 oz. or 66 lb. 5½ oz., and its value in silver from £340 to £400. Derivatives of this (containing 3000 shekels) were in use in Phœnicia and Palestine; but there was another silver talent, and a gold talent worth $\backslash frac\{5\}\{8\}$ths of the commercial talent. The Euboic talent was of smaller monetary measure and weight than the Æginetan. Its use was mostly confined to Athens, Chalcis, and the Chalcidian colonies; while the Æginetan prevailed over the rest of the Greek world. About the middle of the 6th century B.C. the Attic standard arose, and it is impossible henceforth to distinguish the history of the Euboic from that of the Attic talent. These several talents were similarly subdivided into 60 minæ, the mina into 100 drachmæ, and the drachma into 6 oboli; and their relative proportions are Æginetan talent : Euboic talent : Attic talent :: 39 : 26 : 27, the weight and English money value of the first being 83½ lb. avoird. and £303, 2s. 6d., of the second 55½ lb. and £203, 2s. 6d., and of the third 57¼ lb. and £210, 18s. 9d. Besides the Attic talent there were other talents in use at Athens for weighing various articles. One of these was the Commercial or Emporic, which was identical with the Æginetan standard for coins and corresponded in use to our weight avoirdupois, being the ordinary weight in use in the market.