VOL. L3CI.] a] philosophical TKANSACTIONS. H'l 301 



1000 divided by 14-|-, gives 69-f for the number of miliarenses coined out of the 

 pound. Therefore it is probable Constantine's number was either 69 or 70. 

 If the fonner, each piece should weigh 73-5*3- Troy grs.; if the latter, 72-r'o 

 Eisenchmid found the larger silver of Constantine to come up to 90 Paris grs., 

 or 73-,Vo Troy ; but the smaller, which should be its half, seldom amounted to 40 

 Paris grs., or 32-f troy ; which leaves it uncertain whether 69 or 70 of the 

 miliarenses were coined out of the pound. If 69, the proportion of gold to 

 silver was almost 14-i- to 1 ; if 70, 14f to 1. 



f^ 4. Of the Value of Gold in Greece and Rome. ^ 



Herodotus reckons the value of gold to silver in the proportion of 13 to 1. 

 Plato, who wrote about 50 years after him, says it was 1 2 times the value of 

 silver ; and Xenophon, Plato's contemporary, relates, that Cyrus paid Silanus the 

 Ambraciot 3000 darics for the 10 talents he had promised him ; which being, 

 Babylonian talents, agrees with Plato's estimate. ■ yinrri : 



After the conquest of Asia by Alexander, the immense treasures of the Kings 



of Persia circulating in Asia and Greece, reduced the price of gold to 10 times 



its weight in silver, at which it seems to have continued 200 years, or more. 



>:;The Romans did not coin gold till above 100 years after the death of 



Alexander. That the Romans kept their accounts in copper sesterces of 2\ 



asses, long after the silver sesterce passed for 4, appears from what Pliny says of 



the pay of the army, that notwithstanding the silver denarius passed for 16 asses, 



it was paid to the soldier for 10: which implies that the quaestor's accounts were 



kept in copper money, as all the public accounts probably were. Ceesar is said 



to have doubled the pay of the soldiers, and it appears from the account Tacitus 



gives of the mutiny of the legions in Pannonia, that at the accession of Tiberius 



to the empire, their pay was but 10 asses a day ; and they demanded a denarius, 



not on pretence that the legionary soldiers had ever received so much, but that 1 



asses were not an equivalent for the dangers and hardships a soldier underwent. 



Hence 5 asses appear to have been their pay before Caesar raised it; but if this 



was their pay on the quaestor's book, they actually (according to Pliny) received 



a quinarius of 8 asses, and Caesar only nominally doubled it; which is more 



probable than that their pay at the time he raised it, should be under two pence. 



three farthings English a day. Polybius tells us, that in his time the pay of a, 



Roman foot soldier was two oboles a day ; that of a centurion twice as much ; 



and that of a horseman a drachm or denarius. This must be understood of 



what they received, not of their nominal pay on the quaestor's book. The 



foot soldier, therefore, was paid at the rate of 5-i- asses a day, which, in a country 



where a traveller might have his lodging and all necessaries on the road for half 



an as, would be great pay, had not their cloathing, arms, and tents, been 



deducted out of it, as they were. But both the public and private riches of the 



VOL. XIII. D D 



