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poured liquid gold into the gaping mouth of the slain Crassus, saying: "Thou hast thirsted for gold, therefore drink gold."

But why need I cite here these many examples from history?^[1] It is almost our daily experience to learn that, for the sake of obtaining gold and silver, doors are burst open, walls are pierced, wretched travellers are struck down by rapacious and cruel men born to theft, sacrilege, invasion, and robbery. We see thieves seized and strung up before us, sacrilegious persons burnt alive, the limbs of robbers broken on the wheel, wars waged for the same reason, which are not only destructive to those against whom they are waged, but to those also who carry them on. Nay, but they say that the precious metals foster all manner of vice, such as the seduction of women, adultery, and unchastity, in short, crimes of violence against the person. Therefore the Poets, when they represent Jove transformed into a golden shower and falling into the lap of Danae, merely mean that he had found for himself a safe road by the use of gold, by which he might enter the tower for the purpose of violating the maiden. Moreover, the fidelity of many men is overthrown by the love of gold and silver, judicial sentences are bought, and innumerable crimes are perpetrated. For truly, as Propertius says:

"This is indeed the Golden Age. The greatest rewards come from gold; by gold love is won; by gold is faith destroyed; by gold is justice bought; the law follows the track of gold, while modesty will soon follow it when law is gone."

Diphilus says:

"I consider that nothing is more powerful than gold. By it all things are torn asunder; all things are accomplished." Therefore, all the noblest and best despise these riches, deservedly and with justice, and esteem them as nothing. And this is said by the old man in Plautus:

"I hate gold. It has often impelled many people to many wrong acts."

In this country too, the poets inveigh with stinging reproaches against money coined from gold and silver. And especially did Juvenal:

"Since the majesty of wealth is the most sacred thing among us; although, O pernicious money, thou dost not yet inhabit a temple, nor have we erected altars to money."

And in another place:

"Demoralising money first introduced foreign customs, and voluptuous wealth weakened our race with disgraceful luxury."^[2]

And very many vehemently praise the barter system which men used before money was devised, and which even now obtains among certain simple peoples.

And next they raise a great outcry against other metals, as iron, than

1. An inspection of the historical incidents mentioned here and further on, indicates that Agricola relied for such information on Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Livy, Valerius Maximus, Pliny, and often enough on Homer, Horace, and Virgil.
2. Juvenal. Satires i., l. 112, and vi., l. 298.