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His ventures all prospered, his profits from risky speculations poured in, his normal income from his heritage increased; and, of all this opulence, every surplus denarius was paid out for gems and curios. Yet he never was so much a faddist as to lose a day from the games of the circus and the amphitheater.

In Africa and Sardinia the Carthaginian gold and silver money may have remained in circulation even after the fall of the Carthaginian state; but no coinage of precious metals took place there after either the Carthaginian or the Roman standard, and certainly very soon after the Romans took possession, the -denarius- introduced from Italy acquired the predominance in the transactions of the two countries.

The Romans began to have no longer a soldier or a denarius to be employed against the public foe no longer a thought for the destinies of the nations.

Whether the acceptance of Roman silver money was not even at an earlier period obligatory throughout the empire, is uncertain; at any rate uncoined gold essentially supplied the place of imperial money throughout the Roman territory, the more so as the Romans had prohibited the coining of gold in all the provinces and client- states, and the -denarius- had, in addition to Italy, de jure or de facto naturalized itself in Cisalpine Gaul, in Sicily, in Spain and various other places, especially in the west. but the imperial coinage begins with Caesar.

But when they received it, they murmured against the master of the family: saying, These last have wrought only a single hour, and thou hast put them on an equality with us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answering, said to one of them, Friend, I do thee no injustice; did I not agree with thee for a denarius?

"My good sirs," interrupted Agias, "I am already like to be very late at my dear friend Cimber's dinner party" he mentioned the name of the owner of a very large villa not far down the road; "I have with me only Midas, my mute valet. If you detain me any longer I shall complain " And here a denarius slipped into the hands of the officer with the lantern.

Early next morning Janaki gave another golden denarius to Halil. "Fetch me writing materials!" said he, "for I want to write a letter to someone, and then with God's help I will quit your house and pursue my way further." Halil departed, went a-bargaining in the bazaar, and returned with what he had been sent for. He calculated his outlay to a penny in the presence of his guest.

This was no more an official adulteration of the coinage than our manufacture of paper-money, for they practised the thing quite openly; Marcus Drusus proposed in 663, with the view of gaining the means for his largesses of grain, the sending forth of one plated -denarius- for every seven silver ones issuing fresh from the mint; nevertheless this measure not only offered a dangerous handle to private forgery, but designedly left the public uncertain whether it was receiving silver or token money, and to what total amount the latter was in circulation.

Knowing what he knew of Teutonic intrigue and influence in India, Ceylon, Afghanistan, Aden, Persia, Egypt, East Africa, the Straits Settlements, and China, he was reminded of the men and women of Pompeii who ate, drank, and were merry, danced and sang, pursued pleasure and the nimble denarius, while Vesuvius rumbled. Constantly the comparison entered his mind.

It is true that financial speculations may have exercised a collateral influence in this respect. as to the silver money, the exclusive rule of the Roman -denarius- in all the west, for which the foundation had previously been laid, was finally established by Caesar, when he definitively closed the only Occidental mint that still competed in silver currency with the Roman, that of Massilia.