OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
257
and reserved for any unforeseen emergency of chap.the state . 0
History has never perhaps suffered a greater Tributesor more irreparable injury, than in the loss of “L'ces, 1 " 0 "the curious register bequeathed by Augustus tothe senate, in which that experienced prince soaccurately balanced the revenues and expencesof the Roman empire. 1 * Deprived of this clearand comprehensive estimate, we are reduced tocollect a few imperfect hints from such of theancients as have accidentally turned aside fromthe splendid to the more useful parts of history.
We are informed that, by the conquests of Pom-pey, the trib utes of Asia were raised from fifty of Asia ,to one hundred and thirty-five millions ofdrachms: or about four millions and a halfsterling . 11 Under the last and most indolent ofthe Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt is said to 0 f Egypt ,have amounted to twelve thousand five hundredtalents; a sum equivalent to more than twomillions and a half of our money, but whichwas afterwards considerably improved by themore exact economy of the Romans, and theincrease of the trade of Ethiopia and India /
Gaul was enriched by rapine, as Egypt was by 0 fGaui,commerce, and the tributes of those two greatprovinces have been compared as nearly equal
0 See a fine description of this accumulated wealth of ages, in Lucan’sPhars. 1. iii, v. 155, &c.
* Tacit, in Annal. i, 11. It seems to have existed in the time ofAppian.
q Plutarch , in Pompeio, p. 642.
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