They also kept commentaries or ephemerides, wherein every action or word was wrote down; at least Augustus practised this with his daughters and nieces.--_Sueton._ In Nero's time, 30,000 buried in one autumn, while there was a plague. Machiavel makes it a question, whether absolute power is best founded on the nobility or the people. In my opinion, a subject who usurps upon a free state, cannot trust the nobles, and must caress the people. This was the case with the Roman emperors. But an established monarchy is better founded on the nobles. When the Lex Licinia was promulgated, the senate voted that it should be binding from that moment, as if it had been voted by the people. In 1721, the English and Dutch drew more money from Spain than France did.--_Dict. de Com._ There is computed to be 3000 tun of gold in the bank of Amsterdam, at 100,000 florins a tun.--_Id._ A ship of 50 or 60 tun has commonly seven hands, and increases a man every 10 tun.--_Id._ The French commerce sunk much about the middle of the seventeenth century, by reason of their infidelity in their goods.--_Id._ There seems to have been a very bad police in Rome; for Cicero says, that if Milo had waylaid Clodius, he would have waited for him in the neighbourhood, where his death might have been attributed to robbers, by reason of the commonness of the accident; and yet Clodius had above sixty servants with him, all armed. Thirty-eight holidays in the year in France.--_Vauban._ One hundred and eighty working days at a medium.--_Id._ The people commonly live poorest in countries which have the richest natural soil. 600 slaves, working in the silver mines of Athens, yielded a mina a-day to their master Xenophon. He computes that 10,000 slaves would produce a revenue of 100 talents a-year. The holidays in Athens made two months in the year.--_Salmasius._ The public in Athens paid 20 per cent. for money.--_Xenophon._ Many of the chief officers of the army were named by the people in old Rome.--_Liv._ lib. ix. and lib. vii. The Roman senate were obliged by law to give their authority to the Comitia Centuriata before the suffrages were called.--_Id._ lib. viii. cap. 12. The Pontifices of old Rome suppressed the records of their religion on purpose, as well as those of new Rome.--_Id._ lib. ix. Every part of the office of the senate could be brought before the people; even the distribution of provinces. An evident part of the executive.--_Id._ lib. x. cap. 24. £60,000 sterling amassed beforehand for building the Capitol.--_Id._ lib. i. Plays, a part of religious service for a pestilence.--_Id._ lib. vii. The senators were forbid trade among the Romans.--_Id._ lib. viii. cap. 63. In the Roman government, there was a great restraint on liberty, since a man could not leave his colony, or live where he pleased.--_Id._ lib. xxxix. cap. 3. External superstition punished by the Romans.--_Id._ lib. xxxix. cap. 16.