168 GOLD AND SILVER IN ROME CHAP. VU. 



CHAPTER VII. 



On the produce of gold and silver from the accession of 

 Augustus to the division of the Roman empire at the end 

 of the fifth century. 



THE secure occupation of the imperial dignity 

 by Augustus was followed by a period of tran- 

 quillity, little interrupted by the few and slight 

 hostilities which occurred either on the frontiers 

 or in the internal provinces of the empire. The 

 military legions were sufficient to repel the 

 former, and to suppress the latter. 



In his early career, Julius Csesar had found 

 in the public treasury a large mass of gold and 

 silver, which he seized and applied to the pur- 

 poses of his ambition. It had been long accu- 

 mulating, and owed its amount to a series of 

 conquests, a length of years, and a course of 

 parsimony, which have been delineated by Lucan 

 in his Pharsalia, where he describes that reso- 

 lute warrior bursting into the temple of Saturn, 

 where it was deposited, after his first return 

 from his wars in Gaul. 



Tune rupes Tarpeja sonat, magnoque reclusas 

 Testatur stridore fores : tune conditus imo 

 Eruitur templo, multis noil tactis ab 



