DARCMONIM. We find this word in the Hebrew of the Book of Ezra ii. 69. and in Nehemiah vii. 70, 71, 72. and it is generally translated, Drachms. Now a Drachm is a piece of money which was current among the Greeks, worth about seven pence1.
St. Jerom, Ezra ii. 69. renders it Solidos, and the Septuagint in the same place translate it, golden Mina’s. In Nehemiah vii. 70, 71, 72. St. Jerom constantly translates it Drachms, and the Septuagint in the same place pieces of gold. We believe with M. Pelletier of Rohan, that the Darcmonim are the same coin as the Adarcmonim, to be met with 1 Chr. xxix. 7. and Ezra viii. 27. and that both signify Daricks, coin made of very fine gold, and, as it is said, stamp’d by Darius the son of Hystaspes, king of Persia, or rather by another Darius more ancient, according to the Scholiast of Aristophanes; for Darius the son of Hystaspes did not appear till Herod. l. 4. c. 166. the first p. xviii. Scholiast. in Aristoph. Ecclesiast. 598. Gronov. de pecunia vet. l. 1. c. 3.many years after Ezra.
M. le Pelletier, whom we lately mentioned, values them at eleven livres, eleven sous, nine deniers and a quarter; which, according to his computation, was the value of half a shekel of gold among the Hebrews. But M. Gronovius reckons that they were worth twenty drachms in silver; consequently, that a thousand Darcmonim would make about 550 pounds sterling, and twenty thousand Daricks about 11000 pounds sterling.
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Footnotes
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Translators’ note. An Hebrew Drachm, in the opinion of Dr. Prideaux, is nine pence. The Attick Drachm, he supposes might be equivalent to the Hebrew in Judea; what it wanted in weight being made up in fineness, and its ready currency in all countries. See the Preface to Prideaux’s Connection, &c. ↩