Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/150

 of gold, silver and copper at Rome, we shall encounter considerable obstacles in our attempt to find the value of an ox in gold.

As Dr Theodore Mommsen has laid down certain propositions in reference to inter-relations in value of the metals at Rome, which were generally received until a very recent period, when Mr Soutzo, in a clever brochure, put forward views of a widely different character which have met with the approval of some competent critics, and as the matter is still sub judice, I think it best, after briefly giving the historical evidence for the value of cattle, to give the views of both these writers.

The Law known as Aternia Tarpeia (451 ) dealt with questions of penalties; certain notices of it fortunately preserve for us some valuable material. Cicero says, "Likewise popular was the measure brought forward at the Comitia Centuriata in the fifty-fourth year after the first consuls (451 ) by the consuls Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius concerning the amount of the penalty." To the same law Dionysius of Halicarnassus refers : "They ratified a law in the Centuriate Assembly in order that all the magistrates might have the power of inflicting punishment on those who were disorderly or acted illegally in reference to their own jurisdiction. For till then not all the magistrates had the power, but only the Consuls. But they did not leave the penalty in their own hands to fix as much as they pleased, but they themselves defined the amount, having appointed as a maximum limit of penalty two oxen and thirty sheep. And this law continued to be kept in force by the Romans for a long time." Festus (s. v. Peculatus p. 237 ed. Müller) says: "Peculation (peculatus), as a name for public theft, was derived from pecus 'cattle,' because that was the earliest kind of fraud, and before the coining of copper or silver the heaviest penalty for crimes was one of two sheep and thirty oxen. That law was enacted by the Consuls T. Menenius Lánatus and P. Sestius Capitolinus. As regards which cattle, after the Roman people began to use coined money, it was