CHAP. VIII. IN ROME. 191 



eight shillings and sixpence, which he is said 

 to have bequeathed to each of the common peo- 

 ple, though it might have amounted to four 

 millions five hundred thousand pounds ; or that 

 Tiberius should have left in the treasury at his 

 death, as we have already related, twenty-one 

 millions seven hundred and ninety thousand 

 pounds. 



It does not appear that under the emperors, 

 the expenditure, denominated in modern time 

 the civil list, or expenses of the court, was ac- 

 counted for distinct from the general expenses 

 of the government, including the military opera- 

 tions. There was no control on the amount of 

 revenue or of disbursements, except the restric- 

 tion in the first, on the power of the government 

 to enforce, or of the people to discharge the 

 demands ; nor on the last but such as arose 

 from the parsimony or the profusion of the in- 

 dividual who exercised the supreme authority. 

 Accumulation was therefore within the power 

 of those monarchs, if such was their predominant 

 disposition ; and the sums before mentioned 

 seem no more disproportionate to this extent of 

 dominion, and to the quantity of the precious 

 metals then in circulation, than what is related 

 of our Henry the seventh, who, in 1507, left 

 in secret places about his palace at Richmond 

 no less than two millions seven hundred thou- 

 sand pounds in silver money. 



