In the administration of finance, which in spite of occasional interference on the part of the comitia remained with the senate, is included the regulation of coinage. The comitia passed few acts relating to the subject. The earliest known to history is the misnamed lex minus solvendi of C. Flaminius, consul in 217, which introduced the uncial standard for the as, making for ordinary use sixteen asses of an ounce weight equivalent to ten old—in other words, to the denarius.[2039] In the payment of soldiers, however, the denarius was still reckoned at ten asses.[2040] Probably the same law regulated the issue of plated silver denarii[2041] and of gold coins.[2042] The debtor’s gain was offset by the actual decrease in the weight of the _as_ to a little more than an ounce before the enactment of the law.[2043] This measure was followed the next year by the plebiscite of M. Minucius, which created the triumviri mensarii, a banking commission for relieving the great lack of money (216).[2044] The board managed some of the financial business of the state,[2045] and undoubtedly did what it could to strengthen private credit, which at this time was at a low ebb.[2046] The next step taken by the comitia was the enactment of a plebiscite within a field properly belonging to the censors under senatorial supervision—the building and repair of public works.[2047] In 212 the act of an unknown tribune, carried through the comitia with the consent of the senate, created three temporary administrative boards—quinqueviri for repairing the defences of the city, triumviri to seek for property belonging to the temples and to register gifts, and another board of three for repairing the temples of Fortune, Mater Matuta, and Hope. These officials were to be elected by the tribes under the chairmanship of the urban praetor.[2048] Nearly related is the plebiscite of 210, which in pursuance of a senatus consultum directed the censors to farm the vectigalia of the Campanian territory.[2049] Evidently in the trying time of the war with Hannibal the senate found it advisable to conciliate the citizens by voluntarily bringing a few administrative measures of the kind before it. All this legislation was due more or less directly to the influence of Flaminius. A succession of sumptuary laws may be likewise traced to his second consulship, 217. The Twelve Tables contained a number of laws relating to funerals, designed to preserve good order and to prevent extravagant expense.[2050] After their ratification the authority of the magistrates and especially of the censors sufficed for the maintenance of good conduct, till in the period of the Punic wars the character of the people began to suffer deterioration, whereupon the assemblies undertook to enact new laws for the enforcement of morality. One of the earliest was the lex alearia, which prohibited the game of dice. Its mention by Plautus makes it prior to 204.[2051] The name of the author is not given;