elves in dyed and embroidered
stuffs was one of the effeminate habits with which the poet
Xenophanes reproached the Ionians as having been learned
from their Lydian neighbours.

*** M. Perrot points out that one of the vases discovered by
G. Dennis at Bintepe is an evident imitation of the Egyptian
and Phoenician chevroned glasses. The shape of the vase is
one of those found represented, with the same decoration, on
Egyptian monuments subsequent to the Middle Empire, where
the chevroned lines seem to be derived from the undulations
of ribbon-alabaster.

**** The stone funerary couches which have been discovered
in Lydian tombs are evidently copied from pieces of wooden
furniture similarly arranged and decorated.

[Illustration: 054a.jpg LYDIAN COIN BEARING A RUNNING FOX]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the Cabinet des
Medailles: a stater of electrum weighing 14.19 grammes.

[These illustrations are larger than the original pieces.--Tr.]

[Illustration: 054b.jpg LYDIAN COIN WITH A HARE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the _Cabinet des
Medailles._

Lydia, inheriting the traditions of Phrygia, and like that state
situated on the border of two worlds, allied moreover with Egypt as well
as Babylon, and in regular communication with the Delta, borrowed from
each that which fell in with her tastes or seemed likely to be most
helpful to her in her commercial relations. As the country produced
gold in considerable quantities, and received still more from extraneous
sources, the precious metal came soon to be employed as a means of
exchange under other conditions than those which had hitherto prevailed.
Besides acting as commission agents and middle-men for the disposal
of merchandise at Sardes, Ephesus, Miletus, Clazomenaa, and all the
maritime cities, the Lydians performed at the same time the functions
of pawnbrokers, money-changers, and bankers, and they were ready to
make loans to private individuals as well as to kings. Obliged by the
exigencies of their trade to cut up the large gold ingots into sections
sufficiently small to represent the smallest values required in daily
life, they did not at first impress upon these portions any stamp as
a guarantee of the exact weight or the purity of the metal; they were
estimated like the _tabonu_ of the Egyptians, by actual weighing on the
occasion of each business