These accusations put into the mouths of the personages themselves, must not be taken to be exaggerated statements without foundation: they are the confessions of the historians, which sometimes perhaps they lacked courage to make in another form. The sudden and violent calling in of large sums which Seneca had forced upon the British chiefs in expectation of enormous interest, was another cause of the war: διά τε οὖν τοῦτο, καὶ ὅτι ὁ Σενέκας χιλίας σφίσι μυριάδας ἄκουσιν ἐπὶ χρησταῖς ἐλπίσι τόκων δανείσας, ἔπειτ’ ἀθρόας τε ἅμα αὐτὰς καὶ βιαίως εἰσέπρασσεν. The Roman mortgages in Britain were enormous, yet easily explained. The procurator made an extravagant demand: the native state could not pay it; but the procurator had a Roman friend who would advance it upon good security, etc. Similar things have taken place in _Zemindaries_ of later date than the British. For the references above see Joan. Xiphil. Epitome Dionis, _Nero_ vi. Footnote 768: This not only appears from the digests, but from numerous merely incidental notices in the authors of the time. The population were crowded into cities, and the country was deserted. This was not the result of a healthy manufacturing or commercial movement, but of a state of universal distraction and insecurity. Had the cultivation of the land ceased through a prudent calculation of political economy, we should not have heard of compulsory tillage. Footnote 769: Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 23 _seq._ -----