CHAP. 14.—CONSIDERATIONS ON MAN’S CUPIDITY FOR GOLD.
But the invention of money opened a new field to human avarice, by giving rise to usury and the practice of lending money at interest, while the owner passes a life of idleness: and it was with no slow advances that, not mere avarice only, but a perfect hunger[813] for gold became inflamed with a sort of rage for acquiring: to such a degree, in fact, that Septimuleius, the familiar friend of Caius Gracchus, not only cut off his head, upon which a price had been set of its weight in gold, but, before[814] bringing it to Opimius,[815] poured molten lead into the mouth, and so not only was guilty of the crime of parricide, but added to his criminality by cheating the state. Nor was it now any individual citizen, but the universal Roman name, that had been rendered infamous by avarice, when King Mithridates caused molten gold to be poured into the mouth of Aquilius[816] the Roman general, whom he had taken prisoner: such were the results of cupidity.
One cannot but feel ashamed, on looking at those new-fangled names which are invented every now and then, from the Greek language, by which to designate vessels of silver filagreed[817] or inlaid with gold, and the various other practices by which such articles of luxury, when only gilded,[818] are made to sell at a higher price than they would have done if made of solid gold: and this, too, when we know that Spartacus[819] forbade any one of his followers to introduce either gold or silver into the camp—so much more nobleness of mind was there in those days, even in our runaway slaves.
The orator Messala has informed us that Antonius the triumvir made use of golden vessels when satisfying the most humiliating wants of nature, a piece of criminality that would have reflected disgrace upon Cleopatra even! Till then, the most consummate instances of a similar licentiousness had been found among strangers only—that of King Philip, namely, who was in the habit of sleeping with a golden goblet placed beneath his pillows, and that of Hagnon of Teos, a commander under Alexander the Great, who used to fasten the soles of his sandals with nails of gold.[820] It was reserved for Antonius to be the only one thus to impart a certain utility to gold, by putting an insult upon Nature. Oh how righteously would he himself have been proscribed! but then the proscription should have been made by Spartacus.[821]
CHAP. 15.—THE PERSONS WHO HAVE POSSESSED THE GREATEST QUANTITY OF GOLD AND SILVER.
For my own part, I am much surprised that the Roman people has always imposed upon conquered nations a tribute in silver, and not in gold; Carthage, for instance, from which, upon its conquest under Hannibal, a ransom was exacted in the shape of a yearly[822] payment, for fifty years, of eight hundred thousand pounds’ weight of silver, but no gold. And yet it does not appear that this could have arisen from there being so little gold then in use throughout the world. Midas and Crœsus, before this, had possessed gold to an endless amount: Cyrus, already, on his conquest of Asia,[823] had found a booty consisting of twenty-four thousand pounds’ weight of gold, in addition to vessels and other articles of wrought gold, as well as leaves[824] of trees, a plane-tree, and a vine, all made of that metal.
It was through this conquest too, that he carried off five hundred thousand[825] talents of silver, as well as the vase of Semiramis,[826] the weight of which alone amounted to fifteen talents, the Egyptian talent being equal, according to Varro, to eighty of our pounds. Before this time too, Saulaces, the descendant of Æëtes, had reigned in Colchis,[827] who, on finding a tract of virgin earth, in the country of the Suani,[828] extracted from it a large amount of gold and silver, it is said, and whose kingdom besides, had been famed for the possession of the Golden Fleece. The golden arches, too, of his palace, we find spoken of, the silver supports and columns, and pilasters, all of which he had come into possession of on the conquest of Sesostris,[829] king of Egypt; a monarch so haughty, that every year, it is said, it was his practice to select one of his vassal kings by lot, and yoking him to his car, celebrate his triumph afresh.
CHAP. 16.—AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER FIRST MADE ITS APPEARANCE UPON THE ARENA AND UPON THE STAGE.
We, too, have done things that posterity may probably look upon as fabulous. Cæsar, who was afterwards dictator, but at that time ædile, was the first person, on the occasion of the funeral games in honour of his father, to employ all the apparatus of the arena[830] in silver; and it was on the same occasion that for the first time criminals encountered wild beasts with implements of silver, a practice imitated at the present day in our municipal towns even.
At the games celebrated by C. Antonius the stage was made of[831] silver; and the same was the case at those celebrated by L. Muræna. The Emperor Caius had a scaffold[832] introduced into the Circus, upon which there were one hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds’ weight of silver. His successor Claudius, on the occasion of his triumph over Britain, announced by the inscriptions that among the coronets of gold, there was one weighing seven thousand[833] pounds’ weight, contributed by Nearer Spain, and another of nine thousand pounds, presented by Gallia Comata.[834] Nero, who succeeded him, covered the Theatre of Pompeius with gold for one day,[835] the occasion on which he displayed it to Tiridates, king of Armenia. And yet how small was this theatre in comparison with that Golden Palace[836] of his, with which he environed our city.