History of Europe, ancient and medieval: Earliest man, the Orient, Greece and Rome . Fig. 35. An Athenian Painted VaseOF THE Early Sixth Century b. c. This magnificent work (over thirty incheshigh) was found in an Etruscan tomb inItaly (see map, p. 192), whither it had beenexported (§ 161) by the Athenian makers inthe days of Solon no History of Europe with producing the first decked warships, a great improvement,which gave the warriors above more room and better footing andprotected the oarsmen below. For warships must be independent ofthe wind, and hence they were still driven by oars. The o
History of Europe, ancient and medieval: Earliest man, the Orient, Greece and Rome . Fig. 35. An Athenian Painted VaseOF THE Early Sixth Century b. c. This magnificent work (over thirty incheshigh) was found in an Etruscan tomb inItaly (see map, p. 192), whither it had beenexported (§ 161) by the Athenian makers inthe days of Solon no History of Europe with producing the first decked warships, a great improvement,which gave the warriors above more room and better footing andprotected the oarsmen below. For warships must be independent ofthe wind, and hence they were still driven by oars. The oarsmenwere now arranged in three rows, and the power of an old fifty-oar thus multiplied by three without essentially increasing theships size. Battleships having the oars in three rows were calledtriremes. These innovations were in common use by 500 Fig. 36. Specimens illustrating the Beginning of Coinage 163. Adoption of Coinage by the Greeks (Early SeventhCentury ). Meantime Greek business life had entered upona new epoch, due to the introduction of coined money. Not longafter 700 b. c. the kings of Lydia in Asia Minor, following orientalcustom (§ 70), began to cut up silver into lumps of a fixed they stamped with some symbol of the king or State toshow that the State guaranteed their value, and such pieces formedthe earliest-known coins (Fig. 36). This great convenience was quickly adopted by the the Athenians began to use as their commonest coin a lumpof silver weighing the hundredth part of a Babylonian mina (ourpound). It was worth from eighteen to twenty cents. It stillsurvives in large sections of Europe as the French franc. The The Industrial Revolution iii Athenians called this coin a drachma. The purchasing power ofa drachma was in such ancient times very much greater than inour day. For ex
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