We have a more precise estimate of the expense and produce only in the case of the vine yard, for which Columella gives the following calculation of the cost per -jugerum-: Price of the ground 1000 sesterces.

He calculates the produce as at any rate 60 -amphorae-, worth at least 900 sesterces (9 pounds), which would thus represent a return of 17 per cent.

Varro (iii. 2) reckons as a good ordinary gross return for a larger estate 150 sesterces per -jugerum-.

The legal ratio of gold to silver was: 1 pound of gold = 4000 sesterces, or 1: 11.91.

Among other things he restored Deiotarus to all his dominions, having been bribed to do so by a hundred millions of sesterces by the king's agents, but Deiotarus himself, as soon as he heard of Caesar's death, seized all his dominions by force.

For I have received more than twenty millions of sesterces in inheritances.

Where are the seven hundred millions of sesterces which were entered in the account-books which are in the temple of Ops?

A bond for ten millions of sesterces was entered into in the women's apartment, (where many things have been sold, and are still being sold,) by his ambassadors, well-meaning men, but timid and inexperienced in business, without my advice or that of the rest of the hereditary friends of the monarch.

Remember that time when Curio, the father, lay weeping in his bed; his son throwing himself at my feet with tears recommended to me you; he entreated me to defend you against his own father, if he demanded six millions of sesterces of you; for that he had been bail for you to that amount.

"If you have no ass foal to have brought up by a mare and you wish a breeding jackass, you should buy the largest and handsomest you can find; the best breed, as the ancients said, was that of Arcadia, but nowadays we who know maintain that the breed of Reate is best: where breeding jacks have brought thirty and even forty thousand sesterces ($1,800-$2,000).

The freedman who keeps his books which Varro has seen, assured me when he was doing the honours in the absence of his master, that Seius derives an income of more than fifty thousand sesterces ($2,500) per annum from his villa.

" "Well," I continued, "in that villa there is an aviary from which I know that there were taken in one season five thousand thrushes, which, at three deniers apiece, means that that department of the establishment brought in a revenue of sixty thousand sesterces that year, or twice the yield of the entire two hundred jugera of your farm at Reate.

" To supplement the examples of such profits: L. Albutius, a learned man and, as you know, the author of certain satires in the manner of Lucilius, has said that the returns from feeding live stock on his Alban farm are always less than his income from his villa, for the farm yields less than ten thousand sesterces and the villa more than twenty.

He even maintains that if he should establish a villa near the sea in such a place as he might choose he could derive from it an income of more than a hundred thousand sesterces.

Did not M. Cato recently sell forty thousand sesterces worth of fishes from the fish ponds of Lucullus after he had accepted the administration of his estate?"

"I prefer," replied Axius, "that you should begin with the sequelpostprincipia, as they say in the campsthat is, with the present day rather than with the past, because the profits from pea-cocks are greater than those from hens, I will not dissemble that I wish to hear first of ornithones because the thrushes which are kept in them make the very name sound like money: indeed, the 60,000 sesterces of Fircelina have consumed me with avarice.

"So," said Appius to Axius, "if you enclose five thousand thrushes in such an aviary as Merula has described and there happens to be a banquet or a triumph, you will gain forthwith that sixty thousand sesterces which you so keenly covet and be able to lend the money out at good interest."

" "Within my memory," said Merula, "the practice of keeping commercial flocks of pea-cocks has largely developed and it has so developed that M. Aufidius Lurco is said to derive an income of sixty thousand sesterces per annum from them.

But perhaps those who have pigeon houses on their roofs do not seem to you to be justified in calling them [Greek: peristereonas] even though some of them represent an investment of more than one hundred thousand sesterces.

[Greek: meliphullon], others [Greek: mellissophullon] and still others melittaena: and by this means they were wont to derive, as they estimated, an average income of not less than ten thousand sesterces per annum from honey; but they did this by being willing to wait until they could sell at their own time and price rather than by forcing the market.

"Hirrus was wont to derive an income of twelve thousand sesterces from the buildings surrounding his fish ponds, all of which he spent for food for his fishes: and no wonder, for I remember that on one occasion he lent two thousand murenae to Caesar by weight (stipulating for their return in kind), so that his villa (which was not otherwise extraordinary) sold for four million sesterces on account of the stock of fish.

"Hirrus was wont to derive an income of twelve thousand sesterces from the buildings surrounding his fish ponds, all of which he spent for food for his fishes: and no wonder, for I remember that on one occasion he lent two thousand murenae to Caesar by weight (stipulating for their return in kind), so that his villa (which was not otherwise extraordinary) sold for four million sesterces on account of the stock of fish.

The ordinary unit used by the Romans in reckoning considerable sums of money was 1,000 sesterces, which may accordingly be translated as the equivalent of (say) $50.

Columella says (VIII, 8): "That excellent author, M. Varro, tells us that in his more austere time it was not unusual for a pair of pigeons to sell for a thousand sesterces, a price at which the present day should blush, if we may believe the report that men have been found to pay for a pair as much as four thousand nummi." ($200.)]

At a fête given by Nero at Baiae the sum of four millions of sesterces or about 20,000l. was incurred for roses.