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 the people 476 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv the old ; they were transcribed and illustrated with learned diligence ; they had escaped the flames of the Gauls, they sub- sisted in the age of Justinian, and their subsequent loss has been imperfectly restored by the labours of modern critics. 22 But, although these venerable monuments were considered as the rule of right and the fountain of justice, 23 they were over- whelmed by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the end of five centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than the vices of the city. 24 Three thousand brass plates, the acts of the senate and people, were deposited in the Capitol ; 25 and some of the acts, as the Julian law against extortion, surpassed the number of an hundred chapters. 26 The Decemvirs had neg- lected to import the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long main- tained the integrity of his republic. A Locrian who proposed any new law stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and, if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled. Laws of The Decemvirs had been named, and their tables were approved, by an assembly of the centuries, in which riches pre- ponderated against numbers. To the first class of Komans, the proprietors of one hundred thousand pounds of copper, 27 ninety - 22 See Heineccius (Hist. J. R. No. 29-33). I have followed the restoration of the xii tables by Gravina (Origines J. C. p. 280-307) and Terrasson (Hist, de la Jurisprudence Romaine, p. 94-205). [See above, note 12.] 23 Finis eequi juris (Tacit. Annal. iii. 27). Fons omnis publici et privati juris (T. Liv. iii. 34). 24 De principiis juris et quibus modis ad hanc multitudinem infinitam ac varie- tatem legum perventum sit altius disseram (Taoit. Annal. iii. 25). This deep dis- quisition fills only two pages, but they are the pages of Tacitus. With equal sense, but with less energy, Livy (iii. 34) had complained in hoc immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, &o. 25 SuetoniuB in Vespasiano, c. 8. 26 Cicero ad Familiares, viii. 8. 27 Dionysius, with Arbuthnot and most of the moderns (except Eisenschmidt de Ponderibus, &c. p. 137-140), represent the 100,000 asses by 10,000 Attic drachmae, or somewhat more than 300 pounds sterling. But their calculation can apply only to the later times, when the as was diminished to ^th of its ancient weight, nor can I believe that in the first ages, however destitute of the precious metals, a single ounce of silver could have been exchanged for seventy pounds of copper or brass. A more simple and rational method is to value the copper itself according to the present rate, and, after comparing the mint and the market prioe, the Roman and avoirdupois weight, the primitive as or Roman pound of copper may be appre- ciated at one English shilling, and the 100,000 asses of the first class amounted to 5000 pounds sterling. It will appear, from the same reckoning, that an ox was sold at Rome for five pounds, a sheep for ten shillings, and a quarter of wheat for one pound ten shillings (Festus, p. 330, edit. Daoier. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 4) ; nor do I see any reason to reject these consequences, which moderate our ideas of the poverty of the first Romans.