214 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

beyond what it is at present. The high price paid by theRomans, in the time of their greatest grandeur, for rare birdsand fishes, may in this manner easily be accounted for.These prices were not the effects of the low value of silver inthose times, but of the high value of such rarities and cu-riosities as human industry could not multiply at pleasure.The real value of silver was higher at Rome , for some timebefore and after the fall of the republic, than it is through thegreater part of Europe at present. Three sestertii, equal toabout sixpence sterling, was the price which the republic paidfor the modius or peck of the tithe wheat of Sicily . Thisprice, however, was probably below the average market price,the obligation to deliver their wheat at this rate being consi-dered as a tax upon the Sicilian fanners. When the Romans,therefore, had occasion to order more corn than the tithe ofwheat amounted to, they were bound by capitulation to payfor the surplus at the rate of four sestertii, or eight-pencesterling the peck; and this had probably been reckoned themoderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average con-tract price of those times ; it is equal to about one-and-twentyshillings the quarter. Eight-and-twenty shillings the quarterwas, before the late years of scarcity, the ordinary contractprice of English wheat, which in quality is inferior to theSicilian, and generally sells for a lower price in the Eu-ropean market. The value of silver, therefore, in those an-cient times, must have been to its value in the present, as threeto lour inversely; that is, three ounces of silver would thenhave purchased the same quantity of labour and commoditieswhich four ounces will do at present. When we read inPliny , therefore, that Seius* bought a white nightingale, asa present for the empress Agrippina , at the price of six thou-sand sestertii, equal to about fifty pounds of our presentmoney; and that Asinius Celery purchased a surmullet atthe price of eight thousand sestertii, equal to about sixty-sixpounds thirteen shillings and four-pence of our present money;the extravagance of those prices, how much soever it maysurprise us, is apt, notwithstanding, to appear to us aboutone-third less than it really was. Their real price, the quan-tity of labour and subsistence which was given away for them,was about one-third more than their nominal price is apt toexpress to us in the present times. Seius gave for the night-ingale the command of a quantity of labour and subsistence

* Rib. x. c. 29. t Lib. i*. c. 17.