and refreshing the guests, who dined off gold plate, ferved up on tables overlaid with filver, and reclined on fofas fuftained by legs of ivory, filver, and fometimes even gold. They were alfo uncommonly fplendid in the article. of lamps, which were often fabricated of the most precious materials, and in which they burned the most coftly and fragrant oils. The immense wealth that flowed by fo many various channels into Rome was not all confumed in that city: great quantities were carried away into remote provinces by the numerous and fucceffive governors, and other men of confular and prætorian dignity, who finally fettled there, with their families, in voluntary or compelled exile. A very confiderable portion, too, was, in the infancy. of the republic, tranfmitted to support and pay the numerous armies conftantly stationed in Gaul, Germany, Britain, and other countries, where gold had not before abounded ftill, however, by far the greater part was fwallowed up in the deep vortex of Rome itfelf; and it is on record, that Tiberius left in the public treafury vicies fepties millies, £21,796,875 35. 4d.* The emperor Cali *Plutarch, in Vita Tiberii. M 3 gula, gula, his fucceffor, delighted in rolling himself about, in all the infatiable luft and pride of avarice, in immenfe quantities of gold coin, spread abroad on the fpacious floor of his palace. Yet was this infane cupidity presently fucceeded by as wild extravagance, in throwing down money by handfuls, from a high tower, among the scrambling populace, and this continued for many days together, as well as at entertainments; wherein every article, not only the dishes, but the viands alfo, though bearing the form of meats, were of folid gold; the fictitious meats and golden dishes being afterwards diftributed among the guests. Nor was it only for human beings that he provided this fpecies of golden banquet; his favourite horse, whom he denominated Incitatus, muft alfo fhare the fumptuous repaft. The stable of that animal was formed of fine marble; his manger was of ivory; he wore a collar of rich pearls round his neck, and his caparifons were of Tyrian purple. Thus fplendidly accommodated, it feems but confiftent that this prince of a horfe fhould be regaled with Suetonius in Caligula, cap. 29. equal equal magnificence; he, therefore, was fed with gilded oats, and drank the most costly wines out of golden chalices. In these and fimilar abfurdities, this frantic tyrant, this alternate mifer and prodigal, in the two laft years only of his fhort reign, is reported to have fquandered away eighteen millions of the public money. However prodigious were the fums expended by the emperors of Rome, they were foon reinftated in the treasury by their abfolute power and boundless rapacity; and the reign of Claudius exhibits an inftance of three perfons, his freed men and chief minifters, Narciffus, Pallas, and Califtus, who are faid to have amaffed more wealth than Cræfus and all the kings of Perfia and of the empire, and to have been, in their delegated government, equally rapacious and profufe; keeping their weak and timid fovereign in the chains of dependence and poverty. But whatever fums avarice might have hoarded, or extortion obtained, were diffipated by that monster in human shape, Nero, in the gratification of his unbounded lufts, and in the erection of that ftupendous structure, called his Golden Palace, from the vaft profufion of that metal M 4 with with which it was adorned; the roof, the walls, the galleries, the faloons, all glittering with gold, ivory, and precious ftones. We may form fome judgment of the immense fum confumed in the building this palace from what we read in Suetonius, viz. that Nero not having finished it, the first order which Otho, when he became emperor, figned was for quingenties, H. S. or fifty millions of fefterces, to complete it; which, reduced to pounds sterling, amount to £403,645 16s. 8d.* The enormous fums fpent by the imperial glutton Vitellius on his fumptuous banquets, repeated four times a day, have been already fpecified, and apparently justify the strong affertion of Jofephus, that, had he lived much longer, the revenues of the whole Roman empire would scarcely have been fufficient to furnish his luxurious table. After exhibiting to the reader this faithful picture of the great wealth and prodigality of the Roman people under the early Cæfars, the conquerors of ravaged Afia, there is no occafion for our extending the view farther, or enumerating all the unbounded extrava * Suetonius in Otho, cap. vii. gance gance of their fucceffors. During the am bitious contests that gradually weakened, then divided, and finally fubverted, that empire, the precarious state of all property, but particularly that fpecies of it which confifted in gold and filver, coined or in bullion, every where fought for with avidity by the different ufurpers, to pay the armies which they respectively brought into the field, occafioned an immenfe quantity of treasure to be buried all over Italy under-ground in vaults and caverns, in gardens, in fields, and under the floors and walls of their houses. The jealous poffeffor, forcibly hurried away to the field of battle, expired on that field, and the important fecret, in what obfcure spot it was concealed, perished with him. Nor was it only in Italy that they were thus buried; the diftant provinces felt, through all their limits, the convulfion of the capital; and the inhabitants, haraffed by ephemeral tyrants, committed their treasures to the too faithful bofom of the concealing earth. These have occafionally been dug up, through every fucceeding century, in Gaul, Germany, and Spain, fometimes in very large quantities; and have well rewarded the toil of the for tunate |