CHAP. VIII.

IN ROME.

191

eight shillings and sixpence, which he is saidto have bequeathed to each of the common peo-ple, though it might have amounted to fourmillions five hundred thousand pounds ; or thatTiberius should have left in the treasury at hisdeath, as we have already related, twenty-onemillions seven hundred and ninety thousandpounds.

It does not appear that under the emperors,the expenditure, denominated in modern timethe civil list, or expenses of the court, was ac-counted for distinct from the general expensesof the government, including the military opera-tions. There was no control on the amount ofrevenue or of disbursements, except the restric-tion in the first, on the power of the governmentto enforce, or of the people to discharge thedemands; nor on the last but such as arosefrom the parsimony or the profusion of the in-dividual who exercised the supreme authority.Accumulation was therefore within the powerof those monarchs, if such was their predominantdispositionj and the sums before mentionedseem no more disproportionate to this extent ofdominion, and to the quantity of the preciousmetals then in circulation, than what is relatedof our Henry the seventh, who, in 1507, leftin secret places about his palace at Richmondno less than two millions seven hundred thou-sand pounds in silver money.