sterling;
without computing the stated provision of corn and wine, which, had they
been sold, might have equalled in value one third of the money. Compared
to this immoderate wealth, an ordinary revenue of a thousand or fifteen
hundred pounds of gold might be considered as no more than adequate to
the dignity of the senatorian rank, which required many expenses of a
public and ostentatious kind. Several examples are recorded, in the
age of Honorius, of vain and popular nobles, who celebrated the year of
their praetorship by a festival, which lasted seven days, and cost above
one hundred thousand pounds sterling. The estates of the Roman senators,
which so far exceeded the proportion of modern wealth, were not confined
to the limits of Italy. Their possessions extended far beyond the Ionian
and AEgean Seas, to the most distant provinces: the city of Nicopolis,
which Augustus had founded as an eternal monument of the Actian victory,
was the property of the devout Paula; and it is observed by Seneca, that
the rivers, which had divided hostile nations, now flowed through the
lands of private citizens. According to their temper and circumstances,
the estates of the Romans were either cultivated by the labor of
their slaves, or granted, for a certain and stipulated rent, to the
industrious farmer. The economical writers of antiquity strenuously
recommend the former method, wherever it may be practicable; but if
the object should be removed, by its distance or magnitude, from the
immediate eye of the master, they prefer the active care of an old
hereditary tenant, attached to the soil, and interested in the produce,
to the mercenary administration of a negligent, perhaps an unfaithful,
steward.

The opulent nobles of an immense capital, who were never excited by
the pursuit of military glory, and seldom engaged in the occupations of
civil government, naturally resigned their leisure to the business
and amusements of private life. At Rome, commerce was always held
in contempt: but the senators, from the first age of the republic,
increased their patrimony, and multiplied their clients, by the
lucrative practice of usury; and the obsolete laws were eluded, or
violated, by the mutual inclinations and interest of both parties. A
considerable mass of treasure must always have existed at Rome, either
in the current coin of the empire, or in the form of gold and silver
plate; and there were many sideboards in the time of Pliny which