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The πλίνθος or ‘ingot’ was square; they were ‘beaten out’ with the hammer (cf. 68. 1 for ἐξήλαυνε); these ἡμιπλίνθια were about 18 by 9 by 3 inches. H. no doubt takes all these measurements from the inventory of Delphic treasures, and therefore is calculating by the Greek πῆχυς, not the Persian (cf. 178. 3 n.). τρίτον ἡ., ‘2 1/2 talents’; for this colloquial commercialism cf. Latin sestertius, German drittehalb, &c. λευκοῦ χρυσοῦ: ἤλεκτρον, a natural alloy of gold and silver, obtained from the washings of the Pactolus; it was also made artificially later. It consisted of at least 20 per cent. of silver to 80 of gold (cf. Plin. N. H. xxxiii. 80 ‘ubicumque quinta argenti portio est, electrum vocatur’); the usual proportion of silver was 27 per cent. Its value was to that of silver as 10 to 1 (that of gold to silver was reckoned at 13.3 to 1, cf. iii. 95. 1 n.), and so it was the first metal used in coins (cf. 94. 1 n.), for convenience of calculation as well as for its greater durability (Head, H. N.1 xxxiv). Stein thinks that, as electron ingots of this size, if solid, would weigh more than two talents, these were hollow. The number he explains by the arrangement of the pedestal; the lion stood on the ‘four ingots of pure gold’, under which were three stages of electrum ones, 15 (5 by 3), 35 (7 by 5), and 63 (9 by 7) respectively (i. e. 4 + 15 + 35 + 63 = 117). The ‘ingots’ were melted down by Phayllus in the Sacred War (Diod. 16. 56, who makes them 120, and mentions statues of a lion (cf. 50. 3) and of a woman (51. 5) as meeting the same fate).
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