Ære solum terræ tractabant, æreque belli
Miscebant fluctus et volnera vasta ferebant.—V. 1286.
He justly determines its relation to gold—
Nam fuit in pretio magis æs, aurumque jacebat,
Propter inutilitatem, hebeti mucrone retusum.—V. 1272.
And he ends with the normal sneer at his own age—
Nunc jacet æs, aurum in summum successit honorem.—V. 1274.
Virgil, a learned archæologist, is equally explicit concerning the heroes of the Æneid and the old Italian tribes—
Æratæ micant peltæ, micat æreus ensis.—Æn. vii. 743.
And similarly Ennius—