before
become obsolete. The sole true method for estimating the actual amount
of sums stated by the historians of the Empire, is to compare the
weight of the aureus with that (intrinsic) of the modern gold, and it
will be found that for the times of the Caesars, and even down to
Severus, the former was equivalent to our sovereign. And by a more
singular coincidence it will be discovered, on investigating the prices
of the necessaries of life at the same period, that the value of money
was by no means higher then than in our own times.
The
wealth of the later Romans, visible and tangible be it remembered, far
exceeded the nominal wealth of our Rothschilds, existing merely in
paper and in credit. M. Crassus, observes Pliny, had engrossed for all
succeeding times the title of " the Eich," and yet the historian had
known several surpassing him in that particular, especially three at
one and the same time, the freedmen and ministers of
Claudius—Callistus, Pallas, and Narcissus. And yet this Crassus
possessed landed property alone to the value of two millions sterling
(bis millies), and was used to give for his definition of a rich man
one that could afford to maintain a legion out of his yearly income.
The amount he intended is easily calculated. The pay of the private was
a denarius per day, making 141. 10s. per year. Now, putting a
legion at its full complement of 6000 men (which in his times it never
attained), so as to cover the excess of the pay of the officers, the
ready money required for the pay alone is 87,000l. ; to which
must be added the cost of feeding them, which also was supplied by the
state. A view of their general wealth may be gained from the will of
one CI. Caacilius Isidorus, made b.c. 8,
and quoted by Pliny (xxxiii. 52). Though the testator complains ci
immense losses sustained in the recent civil war, he was yet able to
leave 4116 slaves, 3600
