CHAP. 5.—THE QUANTITY OF GOLD POSSESSED BY THE ANCIENTS.
At Rome, for a long period of time, the quantity of gold was but very small. At all events, after the capture of the City by the Gauls, when peace was about to be purchased, not more than one thousand pounds’ weight of gold could be collected. I am by no means unaware of the fact that in the third696 consulship of Pompeius there was lost from the throne of Jupiter Capitolinus two thousand pounds’ weight of gold, originally placed there by Camillus; a circumstance which has led most persons to suppose, that two thousand pounds’ weight was the quantity then collected. But in reality, this excess of one thousand pounds was contributed from the spoil taken from the Gauls, amplified as it was by the gold of which they had stripped the temples, in that part of the City which they had captured.
The story of Torquatus,697 too, is a proof that the Gauls were in the habit of wearing ornaments of gold when engaged in combat;698 from which it would appear that the sum taken from the Gauls themselves, and the amount of which they had pillaged the temples, were only equal to the amount of gold collected for the ransom, and no more; and this is what was really meant by the response given by the augurs, that Jupiter Capitolinus had rendered again the ransom twofold.699 As we were just now speaking on the subject of rings, it may be as well to add, by way of passing remark, that upon the officer700 in charge of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus being arrested, he broke the stone of his ring between his teeth,701 and expired upon the spot, thus putting an end to all possibility of discovering the perpetrator of the theft.
It appears, therefore, that in the year of the City 364, when Rome was captured by the Gauls, there was but two thousand pounds’ weight of gold, at the very most; and this, too, at a period when, according to the returns of the census, there were already one hundred and fifty-two thousand five hundred and seventy-three free citizens in it. In this same city, too, three hundred and seven years later, the gold which C. Marius the younger702 conveyed to Præsneste from the Temple of the Capitol when in flames, and all the other shrines, amounted to thirteen thousand pounds’ weight, such being the sum that figured in the inscriptions at the triumph of Sylla; on which occasion it was displayed in the procession, as well as six thousand pounds’ weight of silver. The same Sylla had, the day before, displayed in his triumph fifteen thousand pounds’ weight of gold, and one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds’ weight of silver, the fruit of all his other victories.