How did the Lydians manage to pull this off?

而他们 到底是如何做到这一点的呢？

The Lydians hit on the idea of the state, or the king, issuing standard weights and standard purity.

吕底亚人选择让国家或国王来确定重量与纯度标准。

Checking a metal's purity was a tedious task-likely to hold up every business transaction, and even when the Lydians and their neighbours invented coinage, about a hundred years before Croesus, this problem still remained.

检验金属的纯度是项无聊的工作，几乎每次都得耽误贸易的进行。在克罗伊斯王登基前一百年左右，吕底亚人已发明了货币，但纯度问题仍无法解决。

Metal was first coined into cash between 700 and 600 BC by the Lydians, and banknotes have been in circulation since their first use in China around 1000 AD. These days, though, habits have changed.

公元前 700 至 600 年， 吕底亚人首次将金属铸成现金，纸币自公元 1000 年左右首次在中国使用以来一直在流通。 然而，这些天来，习惯已经改变了。