Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/407

 APPENDIX B.

Th. Mommsen in his Roman History ( 95-96 English Trans.) has laid down that land was the basis of assessment, on the analogy of the Teutonic hide. He makes the members of the First Class those who held a whole hide; and the remaining four classes were made up of those who held proportionally smaller freeholds. When Mommsen has once spoken, it is presumptuous to raise doubts. If however it can be shown that the Italians rather based their assessments on cattle, and that furthermore the statements of the later historians point to an original rating which harmonizes well with such an original condition, it may have been worth while to start enquiry once again in a case where the data are so scanty and obscure.

Pliny H. N. 3. 13. Maximus census assium fuit illo rege, ideo haec prima classis. This is confirmed by Festus (s.v. infra censum, p. 113 Müller) infra classem significantur qui minore summa quam centum et viginti millia aeris censi sunt.

Livy 42 says the rating of the prima classis was Centum millia aeris, of the secunda classis was infra centum assium ad quinque et septuaginta millia. Tertia classis quinquaginta millia, Quarta classis, quinque et viginti millia. Quinta classis, undecim millia.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( 16-17) puts the rating of the 1st class at 100 minae (of silver) or 10,000 drachms; of the 2nd at 75 minae, of the 3rd at 50 minae, of the 4th at 25 minae, and that of the 5th at 12 minae.

All are agreed that it is absolutely incredible that the original rating of the first class was 120,000 libral asses of bronze. The