150 Accumulatioiis of Gold and Silver in Rome, 



ney which the maintenance of the commonwealth required at 

 L. 322,916,660. 



The debts of Milo amounted to H. G. septengenties *. Ju- 

 lius Caesar, before he held any office, owed 1300 talents. When, 

 after his proE?torship, he set out for Spain, he is reported to have 

 said, "Bis millies et quingenties sibi deesse, ut nihil haberet;'*'' 

 that is, that he was L. 2,0018,000 worse than nothing. When he 

 first entered Rome, at the beginning of the civil war, he took 

 out of the treasury to the amount of L. 1,095,000 Sterling, and 

 brought into it, at the end of that war, L. 4,843,000. He is 

 reported to have purchased the friendship of Curio, at the com- 

 mencement of the civil contests, by a bribe of L. 484,370 ; and 

 that of the Consul L. Paulus, the colleague of Marcellus, by 

 one of L. 279,500 f. 



Anthony, on the ides of March, when Caesar was killed, owed 

 L. 320,000, which he paid before the kalends of April, and 

 squandered of the public money more than L. 5,600,000 \. 



Many other instances might be found of vast masses of wealth 

 being collected, of large debts being contracted, and of prodi- 

 gious sums being expended, either on public occasions, or in pri- 

 vate indulgences of the dress, the tables, or the furniture of the 

 Romans, just after the acquisition of universal empire. At that 

 period the treasure, which had been acquired by conquest, had 

 not l)een generally in the hands of numerous individuals, nor 

 had much of it been consumed by the friction, which the prac- 

 tice, soon after extended, of converting large quantities of it into 

 coined money, necessarily occasioned. — Jacob on the Precious 

 Metals. 



On the Origin and Composition of Basalt, 



]>ASALT, like granite, appears composed of several different 

 minerals, and has not derived its existence from the fusion of 



• L. 565,1 04 SterUng. 



f It is remarked by Pliny (book xxxiiL cap. 3), that the city of Borne never 

 possessed so much money as at the beginning of the war between Caesar and 

 Pompey. 



:J: See Adam's Roman Antiquities, 9th edit. p. 461, from whence, as far as 

 regards Rome, the facts are selected, and where the evidence on which each 

 of them rests is pointed out. 



