The crude simplicity of this city of farmers, money lenders, and soldiers, was reflected in the appearance of its inhabitants. Patrician matrons spun wool and hemp at the doors of their houses, clad only in tunics of coarse weave, and wearing bronze ornaments on their breasts and in their ears. The first coinage of silver had taken place subsequent to the war with the Samnites; the clumsy and heavy copper as was the current money, and the rich Grecian objects of virtu brought by the legions after the war with Sicily almost received adoration in the homes of the patricians, but were viewed askance by many as amulets which might corrupt the old sturdy Roman customs. Senators who owned extensive territories and hundreds of slaves, paraded their togas covered with patches in civic pride through the Forum. In all Rome there existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and in whose honor banquets had to be given. Actæon, accustomed to philosophic arguments in the Athenian Agora, to dialogues on poetry or on the mysteries of the soul wherever two unoccupied Greeks chanced to meet, strolled through the Forum listening to the conversations carried on in that rude and inflexible Latin which wounded an Athenian's ears. In one group they were discussing the health of the flocks and the price of wool; in another they were closing the sale of an ox in the presence of five adult citizens who served as witnesses. The purchaser placed the bronze, the value of the purchase, in a balance, and touching the ox with his hand he said in solemn accent, as if reciting an oration: "This is mine, according to the law of the Quirites. I have paid for it with this metal duly weighed." Farther on, a legionary with hungry face was adjusting a loan with an old man, offering as security his helmet and his greaves, and pronouncing the formulas of the law in such a case: "_Dari spondes?_" (Do you promise to give?) the soldier asked. "_Spondeo_" (I promise), replied the lender. The bargain was closed with these sober words, the alteration of a single syllable in which was sufficient to annul the operation, for the Romans professed a superstitious respect for the letter and formula of their laws. In another group they were discussing the points which a slave must have in order to be useful to his master and to be maintained by him; and throughout the entire Forum this grave people, austere, and without ideals, talked only of possessions, and of the manner of increasing them.