Amusements

46. In Sicily, the country of production, the -modius- was sold
within a few years at two and at twenty sesterces; from this we may
guess what must have been the fluctuations of price in Rome, which
subsisted on transmarine corn and was the seat of speculators.

47. IV. XII. The Finances and Public Buildings

48. It is a fact not without interest that a political writer of
later date but much judgment, the author of the letters addressed
in the name of Sallust to Caesar, advises the latter to transfer
the corn-distribution of the capital to the several -municipia-.
There is good sense in the admonition; as indeed similar ideas
obviously prevailed in the noble municipal provision for
orphans under Trajan.

49. V. XI. The State-Hierarchy

50. III. XII. The Management of the Land and Its Capital

51. The following exposition in Cicero's treatise De officiis
(i. 42) is characteristic: -Iam de artificiis et quaestibus, qui
liberales habendi, qui sordidi sint, kaec fere accepimus. Primum
improbantur ii quaestus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt, ut
portitorum, ut feneratorum. Illiberales autem et sordidi quaestus
mercenariorum omnium, quorum operae, nonaries emuntur. Est autem
in illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis. Sordidi etiam
putandi, qui mercantur a mercatoribus quod statim vendant, nihil
enim proficiant, nisi admodum mentiantur. Nec vero est quidquam
turpius vanitate. Opificesque omnes in sordida arte versantur; nec
enim quidquam ingenuum habere potest officina. Minimeque artes eae
probandae, quae ministrae sunt voluptatum,

"Cetarii, lanii, coqui, fartores, piscatores,"

ut ait Terentius. Adde huc, si placet, unguentarios, saltatores,
totumque ludum talarium. Quibus autem artibus aut prudentia maior
inest, aut non mediocris utilitas quaeritur, ut medicina, ut
architectura, ut doctrina rerum honestarum, eae sunt iis, quorum
ordini conveniunt, honestae. Mercatura autem, si tenuis est,
sordida putanda est; sin magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans,
multaque sine vanitate impertiens, non est admodum vituperanda;
atque etiam, si satiata quaestu, vel contenta potius; ut saepe ex
alto in portum, ex ipso portu in agros se possessionesque
contulerit, videtur optimo iure posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum,
ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil
uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius-. According to
this the respectable man must, in strictness,