Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/285

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 261 nor can we expect any improvements in agriculture CHAP, from a people whose property every year experienced ^^' a general change by a new division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation, avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to lie waste and without tillage ^, Gold, silver, and iron were extremely scarce in Ger- and of the many. Its barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill ^^^^^ "®" and patience to investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony. Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant of its own riches ; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors ®. To a mind capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more instruction than a tedious detail of subordinate circum- stances. The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our pro- perty, as letters were invented to express our ideas ; ^ and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure factitious ; but it would be im- possible to enumerate the important and various ser- vices which agriculture, and all the arts, have received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the opera- tion of fire, and the dexterous hand of man. Money, «* Tacit. Germ. 26 j Caesar, vi. 22. « Tacit. Germ. 6.