s regarded as the minimum census of the first class; to
which the census of the other four classes stood in the (at least
approximate) ratio of 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, 1/9. But these rates are
understood already by Polybius, as by all later authors, to refer to
the light -as- (1/10th of the -denarius-), and apparently this view
must be adhered to, although in reference to the Voconian law the same
sums are reckoned as heavy -asses- (1/4 of the -denarius-: Geschichte
des Rom. Munzwesens, p. 302). But Appius Claudius, who first in 442
expressed the census-rates in money instead of the possession of land
(II. III. The Burgess-Body), cannot in this have made use of the light
-as-, which only emerged in 485 (II. VIII. Silver Standard of Value).
Either therefore he expressed the same amounts in heavy -asses-, and
these were at the reduction of the coinage converted into light; or he
proposed the later figures, and these remained the same
notwithstanding the reduction or the coinage, which in this case would
have involved a lowering of the class-rates by more than the half.
Grave doubts may be raised in opposition to either hypothesis; but the
former appears the more credible, for so exorbitant an advance in
democratic development is not probable either for the end of the fifth
century or as an incidental consequence of a mere administrative
measure, and besides it would scarce have disappeared wholly from
tradition. 100,000 light -asses-, or 40,000 sesterces, may, moreover,
be reasonably regarded as the equivalent of the original Roman full
hide of perhaps 20 -jugera- (I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform);
so that, according to this view, the rates of the census as a whole
have changed merely in expression, and not in value.

61. III. V. Fabius and Minucius

62. II. I. The Dictator

63. III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia

64. III. V. Flaminius, New Warlike Preparations in Rome

65. III. V. Fabius and Minucius

66. III. XI. Squandering of the Spoil

67. III. VI. Publius Scipio

68. III. VI. The African Expedition of Scipio

69. III. X. Humiliation of Rhodes

70. II. II. Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius

Chapter XII

The Management of Land and of Capital

Roman Economics

It is in the sixth century of the city that we first find materials
for a history of the times exhibiting in some measure the mutual
connection of events; and it is in that century also that the economic
condition of Rome emerges