e of Majorian, in the fifth century, it had come to weigh only 68
grains.[68] This is a clear indication, that 68 grains of gold were now
equal in value to what 118 grains had been three centuries before; for
Majorian, by a special decree, ordered all _aurei_ of whatever reign,
the Gallic _solidus_ alone excepted, to pass, not according to weight
but standard.[69] That is the most decisive proof to what a grievous
extent the currency had, from the operation of the causes which have
been mentioned, come to be contracted; for as gold constitutes, from its
superior value, at least nine-tenths of the circulating medium of every
civilized state, so great a rise in its value could only have been
occasioned by a very great contraction of the whole currency. We know in
what state the metallic currency of Great Britain was when the _light_
guinea was selling for twenty-five shillings.

In the latter days of the empire, when the invasions of the barbarians
began, and its provinces were liable to be pierced through and overrun
by columns of their predatory hordes, the universal and well-founded
terror produced a general _hoarding_ of the precious metals, which
entirely withdrew them from circulation, until they were forced from the
trembling inhabitants by threats of massacre or conflagration. The
effect of this, in contracting the currency, and causing the little that
remained to disappear altogether from the circulation, of course was
prodigious. It lowered to almost nothing the money-price of every
species of industry, and proportionally augmented the weight of public
and private debts--the subject of such loud and constant complaints from
ancient historians. Nor was this evil confined to the latest periods of
the empire of the West--the years which immediately preceded its fall.
From the time of Commodus, who succeeded Marcus Antoninus, the
incursions of the barbarians into the northern provinces of the empire
had been severely felt; and from the time of the separation of the
empires of the East and West, they were almost perpetual, and sometimes
extended far into its interior provinces. The effect of these alarms and
dangers, in producing a universal disposition to hoard, and consequently
rendering money every where scarce, prices cheap, and debts and taxes
oppressive, was very great, and may be regarded as one of the chief
causes of the excessive and crushing weight which the direct burdens of
the state acquired in the later