[240] “A sedition was already rising between the patricians and the people, and the terror of so sudden a war (with the Tiburtini) stifled it.” (Titus Livius, VII. 12.)—“Appius Sabinus, to prevent the evils which are an inevitable consequence of idleness, joined with want, determined to occupy the people in external wars, in order that, gaining their living for themselves, by finding on the lands of the enemy abundant provisions which were not to be had in Rome, they might render at the same time some service to the State, instead of troubling at an unseasonable moment the senators in the administration of affairs. He said that a town which, like Rome, disputed empire with all others, and was hated by them, could not want a decent pretext for making war; that, if they would judge the future by the past, they would see clearly that all the seditions which had hitherto torn the Republic had never arrived except in time of peace, when people no longer feared anything from without.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 43.)
[241] Claudius made war thus in Umbria, and took the town of Camerinum, the inhabitants of which he sold for slaves. (See Valerius Maximus, VI. v. § 1.—Titus Livius, Epitome, XV.)—Camillus, after the capture of Veii, caused the free men to be sold by auction. (Titus Livius, V. 22.)—In 365, the prisoners, the greater part Etruscans, were sold in the same manner. (Titus Livius, VI. 4.)—The auxiliaries of the Samnites, after the battle of Allifæ (447), were sold as slaves to the number of 7,000. (Titus Livius, IX. 42.)
[242] “The military port alone contained two hundred and twenty vessels.” (Appian, Punic Wars, VIII. 96, p. 437, ed. Schweighæuser.)
[243] Appian, Punic Wars, VIII. 95, p. 436.
[244] Strabo, XVII. iii. § 15.
[245] Appian, Punic Wars, VIII. 130, p. 490.
[246] 5,820,000 francs [£232,800]. (Appian, Punic Wars, CXXVII. 486.) Following the labours of MM. Letronne, Böckh, Mommsen, &c., we have admitted for the sums indicated in the course of the present work the following reckonings:—
The as of copper = 1/10 deniers = 5 centimes.
The sestertius = 0.975 grammes = 19 centimes.
The denarius = 3.898 grammes = 75 centimes.
The great sestertius = 100,000 sestertii = 19,000 francs [£760].
The Attic or Euboic talent, of 26 kilogrammes, 196 grammes = 5,821 francs [£232 16s.].
The mina, of 436 grammes = 97 francs.
The drachma, of 4.37 grammes = 97 centimes.
The obolus, of 0.73 grammes = 16 centimes.
The Æginetic talent was equivalent to 8,500 Attic drachmas (37 kilogrammes, 2 gr.) = 8,270 francs [£330 16s.]. The Babylonic silver talent is of 33 kilogrammes, 42 = 7,426 francs [£297]. (See, for details, Mommsen, Römisches Münzwesen, pp. 24-26, 55. Hultsch, Griechische und Römische Metrologie, pp. 135-137.)
[247] Nearly 700,000 francs [£28,000]. (Athenæus, XII. lviii. 509, ed. Schweighæuser.)