Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/313

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 293 from their estates an annual income of four thousand pounds of gold, above one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling ; without computing the stated provision of corn and wine, which, had they been sold, might have equalled in value one-third of the money. Compared to this immoderate wealth, an ordinary revenue of a thousand or fifteen hundred pounds of gold might be considered as no more than adequate to the dignity of the senatorian rank, which required many expenses of a public and ostentatious kind. Several examples are recorded in the age of Honorius, of vain and popular nobles who celebrated the year of their praetorship by a festival, which lasted seven days and cost above one hundred thousand pounds sterling."-^ The estates of the Roman senators, which so far exceeded the proportion of modern wealth, were not confined to the limits of Italy. Their possessions extended far beyond the Ionian and ^Egean seas to the most distant provinces ; the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded as an eternal monument of the Actian victoiy, was the property of the devout Paula ; -•' and it is observed by Seneca that the rivers which had divided hostile nations now flowed through the lands of private citizens. ^o According to their temper and circumstances, the estates of the Romans were either cultivated by the labour of their slaves or granted, for a certain and stipulated rent, to the industrious farmer. The economical writers of antiquity strenuously recommend the former method 28 The sons of Alypius, of Symmachus, and of Maximus, spent during their re- spective praetorships twelve or twenty or forty centenaries (or hundredweight of gold). See Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197 _ib.'^. This popular estimation allows some latitude ; but it is difficult to explain a law in the Theodosian Code (1. vi. leg. 5) which fixes the expense of the first praetor at 25,000, of the second at 20,000, and of the third at 1^,000 folks. The name ol follis (see M6m. de I'Acad. des Inscriptions, torn, xxviii. p. 727) was equally applied to a purse of 125 pieces of silver, and to a small copper coin of the value of iitjV^- part of that purse. In the former sense the 25,000 folles would be equal to 150,000 L, in the latter to five or six pounds sterling. The one appears extravagant [but is the true amount], the other is ridiculous. There must have existed some third and middle value which is understood : but ambiguity is an inexcusable fault in the language of Laws. ^ Nicopolis ... in Actiaco littore sita possessionis vestras nunc pars vel maxi- ma est. Jerom in praefat. comment, ad Epistol. ad Titum, tom. ix. p. 243 [ed. Migne, vii. p. 556]. M. de Tillemont supposes, strangely enough, that it was part of Agamemnon's inheritance. M6m. Eccl^s. tom. xii. p. 85. •*'^' .Seneca, Epist. Ixxxix. His language is of the declamatory kind ; but de- clamation could scarcely exaggerate the avarice and luxury of the Romans. The philosopher himself deserved some share of the reproach ; if it be true that his rigorous exaction of Quadragentics, above three hundred thousand pounds, which he had lent at high interest, provoked a rebellion in Britain (Dion Cassius, 1. Ixii. p. 1003 [c. 2]). According to the conjecture of Gale (Antoninus's Itinerary in Britain, p. 92) the same Faustinus possessed an estate near Bury in Suffolk, and another in the kingdom of Naples.