The various ranks, too, and distinctions in the state had no other origin than the pursuits of agriculture. The rural tribes held the foremost rank, and were composed of those who possessed lands; while those of the city, a place to which it was looked upon as ignominious to be transferred, had the discredit thrown upon them of being an indolent race. Hence it was that these last were only four in number, and received their names from the several parts of the City which they respectively inhabited; being the Suburran, the Palatine, Colline, and Exquiline tribes. Every ninth day[25] the rural tribes used to visit the city for the purpose of marketing, and it was for this reason that it was made illegal to hold the comitia upon the Nundinæ; the object being that the country people might not be called away thereby from the transaction of their business. In those days repose and sleep were enjoyed upon straw. Even to glory itself, in compliment to corn, the name was given of “adorea.”[26] For my own part, I greatly admire[27] the modes of expression employed in our ancient language: thus, for instance, we read in the Commentaries of the Priesthood to the following effect:—“For deriving an augury from the sacrifice of a bitch,[28] a day should be set apart before the ear of corn appears from out of the sheath,[29] and then again before it enters the sheath.” CHAP. 4.—HOW OFTEN AND ON WHAT OCCASIONS CORN HAS SOLD AT A REMARKABLY LOW PRICE. The consequence was, that when the Roman manners were such as these, the corn that Italy produced was sufficient for its wants, and it had to be indebted to no province for its food; and not only this, but the price of provisions was incredibly cheap. Manius Marcius, the ædile[30] of the people, was the first who gave corn to the people at the price of one as for the modius. L. Minutius Augurinus,[31] the same who detected, when eleventh tribune of the people, the projects of Spurius Mælius, reduced the price of corn on three market days,[32] to one as per modius; for which reason a statue was erected in honour of him, by public subscription, without the Trigeminian Gate.[33] T. Seius distributed corn to the people, in his ædileship,[34] at one as per modius, in remembrance of which statues were erected in honour of him also in the Capitol and the Palatium: on the day of his funeral he was borne to the pile on the shoulders of the Roman people. In the year,[35] too, in which the Mother of the Gods was brought to Rome, the harvest of that summer, it is said, was more abundant than it had been for ten years before. M. Varro informs us, that in the year[36] in which L. Metellus exhibited so many elephants in his triumphal procession, a modius of spelt was sold for one as, which was the standard price also of a congius of wine, thirty pounds’ weight of dried figs, ten pounds of olive oil, and twelve pounds of flesh meat. Nor did this cheapness originate in the wide-spread domains of