Lastly, in money, measures, and weights the substantial equalization of the Latin and Hellenic systems had long been in progress.  It was very ancient so far as concerned the definitions of weight and the measures of capacity and of length indispensable for trade and commerce,(109) and in the monetary system little more recent than the introduction of the silver coinage.(110) But these older equations were not sufficient, because in the Hellenic world itself the most varied metrical and monetary systems subsisted side by side; it was necessary, and formed part doubtless of Caesar’s plan, now to introduce everywhere in the new united empire, so far as this had not been done already, Roman money, Roman measures, and Roman weights in such a manner that they alone should be reckoned by in official intercourse, and that the non-Roman systems should be restricted to local currency or placed in a—­once for all regulated—­ratio to the Roman.(111) The action of Caesar, however, can only be pointed out in two of the most important of these departments, the monetary system and the calendar.

Gold Coin as Imperial Currency

The Roman monetary system was based on the two precious metals circulating side by side and in a fixed relation to each other, gold being given and taken according to weight,(112) silver in the form of coin; but practically in consequence of the extensive transmarine intercourse the gold far preponderated over the silver.  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.(113) but the imperial coinage begins with Caesar.  Exactly like Alexander, he marked the foundation of the new monarchy embracing the civilized world by the fact that the only metal forming an universal medium obtained the first place in the coinage.  The greatness of the scale on which the new Caesarian gold piece (20 shillings 7 pence according to the present value of the metal) was immediately coined, is shown by the fact that in a single treasure buried seven years after Caesar’s death 80,000 of these pieces were found together.  It is true that financial speculations may have exercised a collateral influence in this respect.(114) 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.  The coining of silver or copper small money was still permitted to a number of Occidental communities; three-quarter