money, had found their way into the common speech
of Sicily in the third century of the city under the
corrupt and hybrid forms, —litra—,
—trias—, —tetras—,
—exas—, —ougkia—.
Indeed, among all the Greek systems of weights and
moneys, the Sicilian alone was brought into a determinate
relation to the Italian copper-system; not only was
the value of silver set down conventionally and perhaps
legally as two hundred and fifty times that of copper,
but the equivalent on this computation of a Sicilian
pound of copper (1/120th of the Attic talent, 2/3 of
the Roman pound) was in very early times struck, especially
at Syracuse, as a silver coin (—litra argurion—,
i.e. “copper-pound in silver").
Accordingly it cannot be doubted that Italian bars
of copper circulated also in Sicily instead of money;
and this exactly harmonizes with the hypothesis that
the commerce of the Latins with Sicily was a passive
commerce, in consequence of which Latin money was
drained away thither. Other proofs of ancient
intercourse between Sicily and Italy, especially the
adoption in the Sicilian dialect of the Italian expressions
for a commercial loan, a prison, and a dish, and the
converse reception of Sicilian terms in Italy, have
been already mentioned.(25) We meet also with several,
though less definite, traces of an ancient intercourse
of the Latins with the Chalcidian cities in Lower
Italy, Cumae and Neapolis, and with the Phocaeans
in Velia and Massilia. That it was however far
less active than that with the Siceliots is shown
by the well-known fact that all the Greek words which
made their way in earlier times to Latium exhibit
Doric forms—we need only recall -Aesculapius-,
-Latona-, -Aperta-, -machina-. Had their dealings
with the originally Ionian cities, such as Cumae(26)
and the Phocaean settlements, been even merely on
a similar scale with those which they had with the
Sicilian Dorians, Ionic forms would at least have made
their appearance along with the others; although certainly
Dorism early penetrated even into these Ionic colonies
themselves, and their dialect varied greatly.
While all the facts thus combine to attest the stirring
traffic of the Latins with the Greeks of the western
main generally, and especially with the Sicilians,
there hardly occurred any immediate intercourse with
the Asiatic Phoenicians, and the intercourse with
those of Africa, which is sufficiently attested by
statements of authors and by articles found, can only
have occupied a secondary position as affecting the
state of culture in Latium; in particular it is significant
that—if we leave out of account some local
names—there is an utter absence of any evidence
from language as to ancient intercourse between the
Latins and the nations speaking the Aramaic tongue.(27)