interpreted as referring to silver litrae give the proportion between the metals as 16:1. The same answer can dispose of the first two arguments. The state of affairs both at Rome in B.C. 207, and at Syracuse under Dionysius, was quite exceptional. Rome was in a state of bankruptcy, her subjects largely in revolt, the Lex Oppia (215 B.C.) prevented women from wearing more than half an ounce of gold ornaments22. It is therefore irrational to treat as normal the relation found to exist between the metals at such a crisis.
Similarly at Syracuse the relations between the metals were completely upset by the wild conduct of Dionysius, who forced his subjects to take coins of tin at the same rate as though they were silver. Moreover any evidence to be drawn with reference to the ratio between silver and gold at Syracuse in the time of Dionysius is completely nullified by the fact that in the reign of Agathocles (B.C. 307) gold was to silver as 12:123. It is evident therefore that if in 207 B.C. gold was to silver all over Italy as 16:1, there must have been a great appreciation of gold. Are we not then justified in regarding the ratio of 16:1 as exceptional, and that of 12:1 as the more regular? That great fluctuations in the relations of the metals did take place in Italy, we