ABSTRACT
FOR a very lengthy period of time, indeed throughout the three centuries which followed the foundation of their city, the Romans did not use money as we understand the term. They practised barter: that is to say they exchanged goods for goods directly—wood for bronze or salt for pottery—as is the custom of primitive peoples, whose trade is restricted to a minimum. When this system proved inconvenient and inadequate, the head of cattle (pecus) became a measure of value or rather the actual instrument of exchange. This first development will be readily understood if we remember that the activities of Rome were in the first place entirely agricultural and pastoral. Oxen and sheep were so truly the essential element of wealth that the Latin word for wealth was pecunia. At the great fairs of Soracte and Fragellae, the farmers of the Lower Tiber exchanged cattle for implements of husbandry. Fines were at that time expressed in terms of oxen or sheep and, even after various other forms of progress had been achieved and money with its value stamped upon it had passed into current use, this practice tended to subsist. It was even confirmed in 454 and 452 by the laws known as Aternia Tarpeia and Menenia Sestia, which set up a ratio of one ox to ten sheep.
