relatively as signifying that the capital invested in the rearing of flocks and herds on mountain pastures and other suitable pasture-land yielded, as compared with capital invested in cultivating Suitable corn land, a higher interest.  Perhaps the circumstance has been also taken into account in the calculation, that the want of energy and intelligence in the landlord operates far less injuriously in the case of pasture-land than in the highly-developed culture of the vine and olive.  On an arable estate, according to Cato, the returns of the soil stood as follows in a descending series:—­1, vineyard; 2, vegetable garden; 3, osier copse, which yielded a large return in consequence of the culture of the vine; 4, olive plantation; 5, meadow yielding hay; 6, corn fields; 7, copse; 8, wood for felling; 9, oak forest for forage to the cattle; all of which nine elements enter into the scheme of husbandry for Cato’s model estates.

The higher net return of the culture of the vine as compared with that of corn is attested also by the fact, that under the award pronounced in the arbitration between the city of Genua and the villages tributary to it in 637 the city received a sixth of wine, and a twentieth of grain, as quitrent.

15.  III.  XII.  Spirit of the System

16.  III.  XI.  As to the Management of the Finances

17.  The industrial importance of the Roman cloth-making is evident from the remarkable part which is played by the fullers in Roman comedy.  The profitable nature of the fullers’ pits is attested by Cato (ap.  Plutarch, Cat 21).

18.  III.  III.  Organization of the Provinces

19.  III.  III.  Property

20.  III.  VII.  The State of Culture in Spain

21.  III.  I. Comparison between Carthage and Rome

22.  III.  Vi.  Pressure of the War

23.  There were in the treasury 17,410 Roman pounds of gold, 22,070 pounds of uncoined, and 18,230 pounds of coined, silver.  The legal ratio of gold to silver was:  1 pound of gold = 4000 sesterces, or 1:  11.91.

24.  On this was based the actionable character of contracts of buying, hiring, and partnership, and, in general, the whole system of non-formal actionable contracts.

25.  The chief passage as to this point is the fragment of Cato in Gellius, xiv. 2.  In the case of the -obligatio litteris- also, i. e. a claim based solely on the entry of a debt in the account-book of the creditor, this legal regard paid to the personal credibility of the party, even where his testimony in his own cause is concerned, affords the key of explanation; and hence it happened that in later times, when this mercantile repute had vanished from Roman life, the -obligatio litteris-, while not exactly abolished, fell of itself into desuetude.

26.  In the remarkable model contract given by Cato (141) for the letting of the olive harvest, there is the following paragraph:—­