irst induced this
destructive drain upon the metallic treasures of the empire. "The
objects," says Gibbon, "of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling;
silk--a pound of which was esteemed worth a pound of gold--precious
stones, and a variety of aromatics, were the chief articles. The labour
and risks of the voyage were rewarded with almost incredible profit; but
it was made on Roman subjects, and at the expense of the public. As the
nations of Arabia and India were contented with the produce and
manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans,
was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a
complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of
female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer
of an inquisitive but censorious temper, (Pliny,) at L800,000 sterling.
Such was the style of discontent brooding over the dark prospect of
approaching poverty."[61] Eight hundred thousand pounds a-year,
equivalent to about two millions of our money, must have been a severe
drain upon the supply of the precious metals in the Roman empire; and
we, who have seen in 1839 the Bank of England reel, and the United
States bank fall, under the effect of an exportation of six or seven
millions of sovereigns to buy foreign grain in a single year, can
appreciate the effect of such a constant drain upon a state, the
metallic resources of which were much less considerable than those of
England at this time.

The immense importation also of African and Egyptian grain, which
continued from the time of Tiberius down to the very close of the
empire, must have occasioned a great additional abstraction of the
precious metals from the Roman world. It has already been shown that a
very small proportion of the grain imported from these distant provinces
was remitted in the shape of tribute. By far the greater part, probably
nineteen-twentieths of the whole supply, was imported by private
merchants for sale, as it could be got from them cheaper than it could
be raised at home. This imported corn, of course, required to be paid
for in something. But the inhabitants of the countries from which it
came--Spain, Sicily, Africa, and Egypt--for the most part slaves,
blessed with a fine climate, requiring little covering, and nearly
destitute of artificial wants, did not require, and could not consume,
any con