No More Learning

An Islamic authority says the verse [Irnram's Family, iii, Medina, v, 60] is not about bar? rowing or lending money. It's about non? Moslems, some of whom are said to be trust? worthy and some not [Mohammed Shaheen, Pai, 11-3,420-428].
18. a king's head . . . benevolence: Stating that the prototype of the dinar was the Roman solidus, the source goes on: "The
dirhem [ten to a dinar] . . . was based upon an average of the three sorts of silver coins then circulating in the Persian dominions. Those with the effigy of the king and legend NOUCH KHOR, or 'Feast in Health' weighed one mithcal" [HMS, 145].
19. 1859 . . . Bassora: "In A. H. 1276 (A. D. 1859) a Persian, named Djevad, paid into the post office at Constantinople a dirhem struck at Bassora in A. H. 40. , . . Its weight is 36. 13 English grains" [ibid. ].
20. A. H. : L, "anna Hegirae" (from Arabic hijrah), meaning "in the year of the Hegira," the migration of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina in 622.
copied from the coins of Andoleoo, king of Paeonia (in Macedon), about A . V . [for A. V. C. (ab urbe condita), which dates the founding of Rome ca. 753 B. C. ] 470"
[HMS, 27].
28. Gold scrupulum: "In A . V . 437 a nota- ble -addition was made to the monetary sys? tern of Rome by the issuance of a 'Roma' gold coin, called the 'scrupulum' which was valued at twenty aces. " The word scrupulum was used early to mean the 9th, then 10th, then 12th part of anything: "At a still later date the game of draughts was played . . . with twelve men. . . . Hence in Rome during the fifth century of the city a scrupulum l1)eant, not a weight, but the ninth of any- thing; and in the case of money it meant the ninth of the gold aureus" [HMS, 27-28].
29. B. C. 316: Del Mar gives a table of coins and their values, with a heading that says: "Roman coinage system about A. U, 437 or B. C. 316. Ratio of silver to gold 9 for I"
[ibid. , 28].
30. "Outre . . . ": F, "Besides the book of weights. " "With regard to the 'libra' of ac- count, Gibbon says that, besides the libra weight, the Romans used a libra of account, which they called pondo" [ibid. , 29].
31. 2000 aces . . . : Del Mar gives several tables of various dates willch start by defin- ing the ace in relation to other coins and end with the phrase: "Hence 2000 aces~ 1 libra" [HMS, 31-34].
32. Gibbon . . . : Edward Gibbon,
1794. Del Mar cites The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Miscellaneous Works in his bibliography [ibid. , 13].
Mar finds two grievous errors made by Morn? msen and carried on by Lenormant: "The first one is that of mistaking the 'libra' of money . . . for a pound weight of silver met? al; the second one is that of calculating the ratio from anachronical coins" [HMS, 38-39]. After dealing with the errors, Del Mar cites Gibbon, whose judgment he finds to be better than that of these later author? ities.
35. "Qu'on decrie": F, "that they return. " From a ballad inVillon's Testament about old, worn~out prostitutes: "Car vieilles n'ont ne cours ne estre / Ne que monooye qu'on descrie. " Pound translates: "For. old they have not course nor status / More than hath money that's turned in" [SR, 176].
36. Caligula: Roman emperor, A. D. 37-41. "Upon the death of Caligula an attempt was made to reestablish the Republic" [HMS, 40-41].
37. Nero: Roman emperor, A. D. 54-68. "Upon the news of Nero's death many pea? pie . . . ran wildly through the streets . . . fomenting an excitement that ended by in? volving the Senate in their design, and the issuance of an Act proclaiming a Republican government. Among the first measures of the short? lived administration was the coin? age of money, designed to announce the restoration" [HMS,42-43].
38. June 9th, 68: "Besides the gold coins, there were struck silver and bronze ones. . . . All these must have been struck between June 9, A. D. 68, the date of Nero's death, and July 18, A. D. 69" [ibid. , 43].
39. L1BERTATI: L, "For liberty. " "A com- mon type of these coins was a citizen clad in a toga, with a cap of Liberty on his head and a wreath of laurel in his right hand, and the
21. Jrak . . . :
of importance) boasted: "I have left to Irak its dinar, to Syria its dirhem" [HMS, 146].
22. Percussum . . . : L, "Struck leather, a specie of the republic. " "The leather notes of archaic Rome are mentioned by Seneca: 'Corium forma publica percussum. ' . . . some authors trace the Ies [as orace, the earliest money of Rome] to Janus, whose face was stamped on the coins" [HMS, 18n].
23. Said Lear: King Lear, entering "fantasti- cally dressed with flowers," says: "No, they cannot touch me? for coining; I am the king Illmself" [King Lear, IV, vi, 84-85].
24. (Seneca): [Cf. 22 above]. Lucius An- naeus S. , ca. 4 B. C. ? A. O. 41, who wrote, besides tragedies, satires, epigrams, and anal? yses of moral questions.
25. Charisius . . . : Flavius Sosipater C. (late 4th century A. D. ). African grammarian. His work is valuable because of sections copied from others, such as Ennius, Lucilius, and Cato, which are not found elsewhere.
26. Scaliger: Joseph Justus S. , 1540-1609, French classical scholar who wrote (among many other things) 3 Latin tracts, cited by Del Mar, on numismatics [HMS, 15].
27. Andoleon: Writing about early Roman silver coins, Del Mar says: "The type of some of the Capuan coins . . . is apparently
Mohammed
(or someone else
Theodor M. , whose History
33. Mommsen:
German historian
has been long available in English. He wrote authoritatively on Roman law and econo? mics and received the Nobel Prize for litera? ture in 1902.
34. Lenormant: Del Mar cites two of his works: Mannaies et Medailles, 1879, andLa Mannaie dans l'Antiquite [HMS, 14]. Del
1817-1903,
1737-
o f Rome
legend LIBERT A TI"
[ibid. ].
40. LlBERT AS
restored. " One of 12 Latin phrases found on the reverse sides of various coins [ibid. ].
41. Caracalla: Marcus AureHus Antoninus, 188-217, the son of Septimius Severus, called
RESTITUT A:
L, "Liberty
? ? ? i ! I
612
97/669-670
97/670
613
"Caracalla" because he wore a Gallic tunic. While Roman emperor (211? 217) he raised taxes and used the money to bribe the army and people.
"This system of Caracalla con? tains all the elements of the decimo~
doudecimal or s. d. system" [HMS, 49J.
42. Venice . . . silver: "Even after the EmM pife fell and the Western States, as Venice, Florence, AmaIfi, Aragon, etc. , began to coin gold, they maintained the same ratio of 12 to 1 in their coinages" [HMS, 59J.
43. leather . . . (Aug. ): In a table "of the earliest gold coinages of Christian Europe," one item reads: "1241. FAENZE, Sieze oC-Leather notes issued by Frederick, pay? able in gold augustals" [HMS, 76J. Another entry reads: "1250. FRANCE. -Gold agnels, or dinars, struck for Louis IX. by Blanche, his mother. " A footnote to this entry CODM tains the phrase: "(M. Pads, sub anna 1250, vol. II. , pp. 342, 278, 280)" [ibid. , 77J.
"Aug. " is an abbreviation of "augustals. "
44. Avignon . . . : In the same table, another item reads: "1316. AVIGNON. -Sequino of Pope John XXII. " A footnote to this item reads: "This pope is responsible for a treatise on the transmutation of metals, the prolific exemplar of many similar works" [ibid. J.
45. Darius, and Targitaus: "For example, Targitaus, the first king of Scythia, a thou? sand years before Darius, the sacred king of Persia (this would make it about H. C. 1500), was the divine son of Jupiter. . . . In the kingdom of Targitaus gold was found in abundance, but being deemed sacred, it was reserved for the use of the sacred king"
hundred and may be fifteen hundred years older than Charlemagne, being clearly de? fined in the Theodosian Code (lib. xiii. , tit. ii. , II)" [HMS, 96J. Del Mar uses these facts in an argument to show that other writers are in error to suppose the English pound came from a pound of silver or of anything else.
49. Caracalla: Del Mar repeats the contribu? tion of this emperor [cC 41 aboveJ to rein? force his argument that the pound originated in ratios of value rather than weight: "In the reign of Caracalla 24 denarii went to the aureus, the ratio of value between the metals remaining unchanged. Such is briefly the genesis of ? s. d. " [HMS, 97J.
50. first fish . . . maravedis: "The
of Norse monetary systems . . . usually pro- ceeded in the following manner:-First, fish and vadmal (cloth) money; second, baug, or ring-money; third, imitations of pagan Ro- man coined money; fourth, Norse pagan coinage system (partly dervied from the Ro? man system) of stycas, scats, and oras; fifth, intrusion of the Moslem coinage system of dinars, maravedis and dirhems, sixth, re- placement of the last by Christian Roman coinage system of ? s. d. "
51. kelt coin . . . scat: "[Among NorsemenJ Sild, hring, or herring, is still used to mean money, and the scad or scat (corrupted to scot), a fish of the same genus, has the same meaning in North Britain" [ibid. , 115? 116J. "Eight stycas went to the scat, and eight scats to the ora" [HMS, 121 J.
52. Del Mar: "Money is perhaps the mighti? est engine to which man can lend intelligent guidance" [HMS, 5J.
53. King Offa . . . : "Offa, king of Mercia, and perhaps other early English princes [put the ratioJ at 61/2 silver for 1 gold" [HMS, 157J.
. . .
12-1 ration given in the table is the "valua- tions of Athelstan, son of Edward, elder"
[HMS, 158J.
55. Canute: "Canute, the Christian but anti? papal king of Denmark and England, has left us a greater variety of coin-types than any other English prince before the Plantage? net dynasty" [HMS, 183? 184J.
56. 20 scads . . . accountancy: A table gives these values: "I mancus, or dinar [=J 20 scats; I mark of account [=J 100 scats"
[HMS,162J.
57. Edgar's leather . . . : "The reign of Edgar, king of Wessex, is marked by the issuance of leather moneys" [HMS, 181J. Del Mar gives Edgar's dates as 959? 975 [po 182J and Athelstan's as 925? 941 [po 158J.
58. "thon yilden . . . ": "then he set up gilds" [91 :52J. The reference is to "peace? gilds set up by the bishops and reeves of London for mutual protection against cattle? thieves (Laws, VI Athelstan), echoing Pound's idea of good government" [CB. R,
ZBC, 198n. J.
59. the president: F. D. R.
60. old Lampman: Rex Herbert L. , a Wash? ington newspaperman who had a nervous breakdown because of the confusion of Cissie Patterson's will, in which she be- queathed the Washington Times Herald to 7 of her employees. He was confined in a violent unit at St. Elizabeths at first but later could visit Pound during his time on the grounds and told him inside stories about Washington between the wars [EM, Diffi? cult, 303? 306J.
61. Mencken: [81:31; 87:112J.
62. the London judge: In a letter of Sept. 3, 1954, Pound wrote: "Yes, the high point in American dignity was when Hoover voted in W. 8 election AND simultaneously the Brit? ish judge said: Mr. Hoover I am sorry that this has been brought as a civil, not a crimi- nal action. " Herbert Hoover was employed as a mining engineer by the defendants (a firm named Bewick, Moreing and Co. ) in a suit "brought to trial before Justice Joyce in the Chancery Division of the High Court in London. " The plaintiffs were a Chinese com- pany who sued "because the value of their
shares [in Bewick, MoreingJ had been reo duced by the issue of shares to the pro? moters of the company and their friends. " Justice Joyce said: "I cannot set the matter right in this action, which was not framed and is not properly constituted for the pur- pose. " Pound's source appears to be John Hamill's The Strange Case of Mr. Hoover Under Two Flags (New York, 1931). Hamill wrote: "The Judge was shocked. But his was not a Criminal Court but a Court of Equity and all he had to pass on was the claim before him" [po 190J. Hoover was also asso? ciated with the "Youanme" mine in China [79:76J. Say Kimpel and Eaves, who 10? cated these facts and others at Beinecke (in-
cluding an unpublished poem, "0, 0, 0 the Yewenmee / Is a vurry fine gole mine com- panee"): "The point of the poem is that the only limit to the nllmber of shares the com- pany sells is the time it takes to print more"
[BK and TCDE, Pai, 9? 3, 505. 507J .
63. Missenden, Dunmore . . . : Source: "In 1362 the abbot of Missenden was convicted of coining and clipping groats and sterlings;
in 1369 the canon of Dunmore was accused of counterfeiting gold and silver coins; and in 1371 the canon of St. Gilbert of Semping? ham was charged with secretly conveying coins abroad contrary to law" [HMS, 192? 193n. J. The canon's name appears to have been Lear.
64. Offa's gold . . . the Third: "The coinage of gold ceased when Christianity was intro- duced, and the last gold coins known to have been struck in England previous to the reign of Henry III, were the dinars of Offa" [HMS, 190J. Del Mar devotes a couple of pages to an outline of the continuous de- basement of the coinage, including counter- feiting, until "a re-coinage was ordered in 1108, and the severest sentences were threat- ened to false coiners. In 1123, to lend effect to these threats, the power of Rome was invoked in aid of the crown, and the penal- ties of the Canon law were added to those of the civil . . . much of the base coining was done by a class of people who knew too much a-bout the crimen majestatis to stand in fear of impeachment" [HMS, 192; the
[HMS, 81J.
. . .
: "In B. C. 59,
46. Cicero
'The Senate, on several different occasions, but more strictly during my consulship, pro- hibited the exportation of gold'" [ibid. , 85J.
. . .
48. Theodosian Code: "The lib'ra of money (not the whole triad of ? s. d. ) is at least five
47.
ing my consulship. " The Latin for a part of the quote given in 46 above.
"gravissime
: L,
strictly dur-
"more
: A table
valua?
Cicero said:
54. Alfred
tions of Alfred starting at 71/2 in 874, and going to 10 c. 878, finally to 12 in 901. The
shows the
evolution
? ? ?