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Their real price, the quantity of labour and subsistence which

was given away for them, was about one-third more than their

nominal price is apt to express to us in the present times. Seius

gave for the nightingale the command of a quantity of labour and

subsistence, equal to what £ 66:13: 4d. would purchase in the

present times; and Asinius Celer gave for a surmullet the command

of a quantity equal to what £ 88:17: 9d. would purchase. What

occasioned the extravagance of those high prices was, not so much

the abundance of silver, as the abundance of labour and

subsistence, of which those Romans had the disposal, beyond what

was necessary for their own use. The quantity of silver, of which

they had the disposal, was a good deal less than what the command

of the same quantity of labour and subsistence would have

procured to them in the present times.