To the possible objection that the Darror and Nogal valleys, in the southern part of the Somali peninsula, are fertile and might produce better foliage than the northern coast, it may be said that the fertility stops far short of the east coast, which is absolutely desert; whereas the reliefs show a rich and fertile plain bordering the ea.
56. A great quantity of coin.—The drain of specie from Rome to the East has already been referred to under § 49, and is bitterly condemned by Pliny. "The subject," he says (VI, 26), "is one well worthy of our notice, seeing that in no year does India drain us of less than 550,000,000 sesterces ($22,000,000) giving back her own wares, which are sold among us at fully 100 times their first cost."
A generation before the Periplus, in 22 A. D., this was made the subject of a letter from the emperor Tiberius to the Roman Senate:
"If a reform is in truth intended, where must it begin? and how am I to restore the simplicity of ancient times? . . . How shall we reform the taste for dress? . . . How are we to deal with the peculiar articles of feminine vanity, and in particular with that rage for jewels and precious trinkets, which drains the empire of its wealth, and sends, in exchange for baubles, the money of the Commonwealth to foreign nations, and even to the enemies of Rome?" (Tacitus, Annals, iii, 53.)
This extravagant importation of luxuries from the East without adequate production of commodities to offer in exchange, was the main cause of the successive depreciation and degredation of the Roman currency, leading finally to its total repudiation. The monetary standard of Rome was established by accumulations of precious metal resulting from its wars. The sack of the rich city of Tarentum in 272 B. C., enabled Rome to change her coinage from copper to silver. After the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 B. C., gold coinage came into general use, and through the wars of Caesar gold became so plentiful that in 47 B. C. its ration to silver was as 1 to 8.9, lower than ever before or since. Under Augustus the ratio was about 1 to 9.3, the aureus being woth 25 silver denarii. Under Claudius the sea-route to India was opened, after which came the reign of Nero, marked by every form of wastefulness and extravagance, during which the silver denarius fell from 1-84 to 1-96 pound of silver, an alloy of 20 per cent copper being added to it. Under Trajan the alloy reached 30 per cent, and under Septimius Severus 50 per cent. Finally, under Elagabalus, 218 A. D., the denarius had become wholly copper and was repudiated. Even the golden aureus was tampered with. Exported in large quantities to become the basis of exchange in India, the supply at home was exhausted. Under
