6 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY/ [Book XVIII. 



day, even, in the registers of the censors, we find set down 

 under the head of "pascua," or "pasture lands/' everything 

 from which the public revenues are derived, from the fact that 

 for a long period of time pasture lands were the only sources 

 of the public revenue. Tines, too, were only imposed in the 

 shape of paying so many sheep or so many oxen ; and the be- 

 nevolent spirit of the ancient laws deserves remark, which 

 most considerately enjoined that the magistrate, when he in- 

 flicted a penalty, should never impose a fine of an ox before 

 having first condemned the same party to the payment of a 

 sheep. 



Those who celebrated the public games in honour of the ox 

 received the name of Bubetii. 22 King Servius was the first 

 who impressed upon our copper coin 28 the figures of sheep and 

 oxen. To depasture cattle secretly by night upon the unripe 

 crops on plough lands, or to cut them in that state, was made 

 by the Twelve Tables 24 a capital offence in the case of an 

 adult ; and it was enacted that the person guilty of it should 

 be hanged, in order to make due reparation to the goddess 

 Ceres, a punishment more severe, even, than that inflicted for 

 murder. If, on the other hand, the offender was not an adult, 

 he was beaten at the discretion of the praetor ; a penalty double 

 the amount of the damage was also exacted. 



The various ranks, too, and distinctions in the state had no 

 other origin than the pursuits of agriculture. The rural 

 tribes held the foremost rank, and were composed of those 

 who possessed lands ; while those of the city, a place to which 

 it was looked upon as ignominious to be transferred, had the 

 discredit thrown upon them of being an indolent race. Hence 

 it was that these last were only four in number, and received 

 their names from the several parts of the City which they re- 

 spectively inhabited ; being the Suburran, the Palatine, Col- 

 line, and Exquiline tribes. Every ninth day 25 the rural tribes 

 used to visit the city for the purpose of marketing, and it was 

 for this reason that it was made illegal to hold the comitia upon 



28 St Augustin, De Civ. Dei., mentions a goddess, Bubona, the tutelar 

 divinity of oxen. Nothing seems to be known of these games. 



23 See B. xxxiii. c. 13. Macrobius says that it was Janus. 



24 Table vii. s. 2. 



25 On the "Nundinse," or ninth-day holiday: similar to our market- 

 days. According to our mode of reckoning, it was every eighth day. 



