We are now in a position to test the truth of Mr Soutzo’s hypothesis. It will be conceded that at the beginning of the fifth century B.C., the cow must have had about the same value both in Italy and Sicily. The cow in Italy was worth 100 Roman pounds of copper, in Sicily about 1650 grains of silver. If Soutzo is right in saying that silver was to copper as 120:1 on multiplying 1650 by 120 we ought to get a result in copper corresponding to 100 Roman pounds: 1650 × 120 = 198000. Taking the Roman pound before it was raised at about 5000 grs. the Sicilian cow was worth 39 pounds of copper (198000 ÷ 5000 = 39). It is absurd to suppose that even at any time the Italian cow could have been worth 2½ times the Sicilian. Let us now apply the same test to Mommsen’s doctrine, and multiply 1650 grs. of silver by 300. (I take this as being more likely than 288 to have been the relation between copper and silver in the fifth century B.C.). 1650 × 300 = 495000 ÷ 5000 = 99 pounds of copper. The result is too striking to admit of our coming to any other conclusion than that Mommsen is right. Next let us examine his doctrine that in ancient Italy gold was to silver as 16:1. Mr Soutzo[190] supports this view by three arguments: (1) that when Rome in the course of the Second Punic War issued gold coins for the first time, gold was to silver as 16:1; (2) Mr Head[191] has shown that at Syracuse under the despot Dionysius (405-345 B.C.) gold was to silver as 15:1; (3) that certain symbols on the gold coins of Etruria when 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 ornaments[192]. It is therefore irrational to treat as normal the relation found to exist between the metals at such a crisis.