ignifies both a weight and a coin very common among the ancients, but very different among different nations. The common Attic talent of weight contains 60 Attic mina, or 6000 Attic drachms; and weighed, according to Dr Arbuthnot, 59 lbs. 11 oz. 17½ gr. English Troy weight. There was another Attic talent, by some said to consist of 80, by others of 100 mina. The Egyptian talent was 80 mina, the Antiochian also 80, the Ptolemaic of Cleopatra 86½, that of Alexandria 96, and the Insular talent 120. In the valuation of money, the Greek talent, according to Dr Arbuthnot, was equal to 60 mina, or, reckoning the mina at L3.4s.7d., equal to L193.15s. The Syrian talent, in this valuation, consisted of 15 Attic mina, the Ptolemaic of 20, the Antiochian of 60, the Euboecan of 60, the Babylonian of 70, the Greater Attic of 80, the Tyrian of 80, the Eginetan of 100, the Rhodian of 100, and the Egyptian of 80 mina. There is another talent much more ancient, which Dr Arbuthnot calls the Homeric talent of gold, which seems to have weighed six Attic drachms or three darics, a daric weighing very little more than a guinea. According to this talent, some reckon the treasure of King David, particularly that mentioned I Chron. xxii. 14, which, according to the common reckoning, would amount in gold talents to the value of L347,500,000, and the silver to above L342,000,000. As David reigned in Judrea after the siege of Troy, it is not improbable but Homer and he might use the same numeral talent of gold. Among the Romans there were two kinds of talents; the little and the great talent. The little was the common talent; and whenever they say simply talentum, they are to be understood of this. The little talent was sixty mina or Roman pounds; the mina or pound being estimated at 100 drachmas or denarii. It was also estimated at twenty-four great sestertes, which amounted to sixty pounds. The great talent exceeded the less by one third part. Budius computes that the little talent of silver was worth L75 sterling, and the greater L99.6s.8d. sterling. The greater of gold was worth L1125 sterling.

TALISMAN, as a species of money, among the Hebrews, was sometimes used for a gold coin, the same with the shekel of gold, called also stater, and weighing only four drachms. The Hebrews reckoned by these talents as we do by pounds, &c. Thus a million of gold, or a million of talents of gold, among them, was a million of shekels or nummi; the nummus of gold being the same weight with the shekel, viz. four drachms. But the Hebrew talent weight of silver, which they called cecar, was equivalent to that of 3000 shekels, or 113 lb. 10 oz. 1 dwt. 10½ gr. English Troy weight, according to Arbuthnot's computation.