I Have already intimated in the former volume that the Veientine war cannot have been the occasion on which the practice of giving the troops pay was first introduced; that the serarians must undoubtedly have always continued to pay pensions to the infantry, as single women and minors did to the knights; that the change consisted in this, that every legionary now became entitled to pay, whereas previously the number of pensions had been limited by that of the persons liable to be charged with them; and hence that the deficiency was supplied out of the ærarium, from the produce of the tithe, and, when this failed, by a tribute levied even from those plebeians who were themselves bound to serve. Not only however is it utterly inconceivable that the paternal legislation which introduced the census, should have allowed that, while the wealthiest knights were to receive pay, the infantry was to serve without any kind of wages: I can also bring forward unequivocal indications that both services were originally paid according to the same system.

Polybius, it is well known, states the daily pay of a legionary to have been two obols: which,—since he takes a drachm as equivalent to a denary, and since the latter, in paying the soldiers, even after the introduction of a small currency, was not reckoned, as in all other transactions, at 16 ases, but at 10—are equal to uses, and in 30 days amount to 100.