BOOK XXXIII. XIV. 48-xv. 51 



hiinger for gold flared up with a sort of frenzy, 

 inasmuch as the friend of Gaius Gracchus, Sep- 

 tumuleius, a price having been set on Gracchus's 121 b.c. 

 head to the amount of its weight in gold, when 

 Gracchus's head had been cut ofF, brought it to 

 Opimius," after adding to his unnatural murder by 

 putting lead in the mouth of the corpse, and so 

 cheated the state in addition. Nor was it now some 

 Roman citizen, but King Mithridates who dis- 

 graced the whole name of Roman when he poured 

 molten gold into the mouth of the General Aquilius 

 whom he had taken prisoner.^ These are the 

 things that the lust for possessions engenders ! One 

 is ashamed to see the new-fangled names that are 

 invented every now and then from the Greek to 

 denote silver vessels filigreed or inlaid with gold, 

 niceties which make gilded plate fetch a higher 

 price than gold plate, when we know that Spartacus " 

 issued an order to his camp forbidding anybody to 

 possess gold or silver : so much more spirit was there 

 then in our run-away slaves ! The orator Messala 

 has told us that the triumvir Antony used vessels of c. 83-30 b.c. 

 gold in satisfying all the indecent necessities, an 

 enormity that even Cleopatra would have been 69-8-30 b.o. 

 ashamed of. Till then the record in extravagance 

 had lain with foreigners — King Philip sleeping with /'«'f<i 359- 

 a gold goblet under his pillows and Alexander the %n^%Q- 

 Great's prefect Hagnon of Teos having his sandals -^^s b.o. 

 soled with gold nails ; but Antony alone cheapened 

 gold by this contumely of nature. How he deserved 

 to be proscribed ! but proscribed by Spartacus ! ^ 



XV. It does indeed surprise me that the Roman Emmpies oj 

 nation always imposed a tribute of silver, not of gokl, ^^e!juihin^ 

 on races that it conquered, for instance on Carthaere precwus 



^ ° metals. 



41 



