[316] One Rhodian Law quoted in the Digests decreed that silk, if saved, when shipwrecked, from wetting, should pay a salvage of ten per cent. as being equal in value to gold. Cf. Vopisc. in Aurel. c. xlv.
[317] Orelli. Inscript., Nos. 1494, 2973, &c. Cf. Horat. Ars. Poet. v. 329.
[318] Cicer. pro Rosc. 2, 3, and 9, where the whole argument turns on the point that Roscius’s creditor, Fannius, claimed simply on the assertion of a note in his “adversaria.” This, Cicero argues, is no valid claim at all.
[319] “Volumina,” whence our “volumes.”
[320] In our own time, merchant ships have carried fire-arms for their protection, and up to within the last few years there was an armoury on board of all merchant vessels.
[321] Gibbon, c. xxxi. under A.D. 408, estimates the probable population of Rome at 1,200,000 souls; and his reasoning seems satisfactory. Its present population probably does not exceed one-sixth of this amount. David Hume has an interesting essay, “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,” in which he examines this and other similar questions.
[322] Claudius began, and Nero and Trajan completed, this great work.
[323] Gibbon, c. xxxi. See also Admiral W. H. Smyth’s “Mediterranean.”
[324] Pliny, xxxvi. 83.