enth and eighth centuries of Rome at one -denarius- for the
Roman -modius-, or 2 shillings 8 pence per bushel of wheat, for which
there is now paid (according to the average of the prices in the
provinces of Brandenburg and Pomerania from 1816 to 1841) about 3
shillings 5 pence. Whether this not very considerable difference
between the Roman and the modern prices depends on a rise in the value
of corn or on a fall in the value of silver, can hardly be decided.

It is very doubtful, perhaps, whether in the Rome of this and of later
times the prices of corn really fluctuated more than is the case in
modern times. If we compare prices like those quoted above, of 4
pence and 5 pence for the bushel and a half, with those of the worst
times of war-dearth and famine--such as in the second Punic war when
the same quantity rose to 9 shillings 7 pence (1 -medimnus- = 15 --
drachmae--; Polyb. ix. 44), in the civil war to 19 shillings 2 pence
(1 -modius- = 5 -denarii-; Cic. Verr. iii. 92, 214), in the great
dearth under Augustus, even to 21 shillings 3 pence (5 -modii- =27 1/2
-denarii-; Euseb. Chron. p. Chr. 7, Scal.)--the difference is indeed
immense; but such extreme cases are but little instructive, and might
in either direction be found recurring under the like conditions at
the present day.

12. II. VIII. Farming of Estates

13. Accordingly Cato calls the two estates, which he describes,
summarily "olive-plantation" (-olivetum-) and "vineyard" (-vinea-),
although not wine and oil merely, but grain also and other products
were cultivated there. If indeed the 800 -culei-, for which the
possessor of the vineyard is directed to provide himself with casks
(11), formed the maximum of a year's vintage, the whole of the 100
-jugera- must have been planted with vines, because a produce of 8
-culei- per -jugerum- was almost unprecedented (Colum. iii. 3); but
Varro (i. 22) understood, and evidently with reason, the statement to
apply to the case of the possessor of a vineyard who found it
necessary to make the new vintage before he had sold the old.

14. That the Roman landlord made on an average 6 per cent from his
capital, may be inferred from Columella, iii. 3, 9. We have a more
precise estimate of the expense and produce only in the case of the
vine yard, for which Columella gives the following calculation of
the cost per -jugerum-:

Price of the ground 1000 sesterces.
Price of the slaves who work i