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Money was established because people did not
have everything they needed all together. One person had wheat,
another had wine, and yet another had cloth or other necessities.
The one who had wheat did not have wine unless he
exchanged the one thing for the other. People had to
exchange one thing for another every day in order to get
what they did not have, as people who did not know how
to do otherwise. When the philosophers saw this, they
arranged with the lords who were ruling to make
a small, light thing that each person could
carry, which he could use to buy what he needed
and what was necessary for his life. And so they [the lords],
taking counsel together, ordered a certain small thing to be made that was not
too cheap nor too dear, and that had a set value, to buy and sell and use
with each other for all legal merchandise, by means of
this symbol, and it came into common use everywhere and in
all situations. Then they established a small coin
to be used for going out in the world. Since
it led people along the way sentence ends next page]