Note 271 — Chapter IV · PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS.

767,695 pounds of silver and 10,918 pounds of gold, without reckoning what was furnished by certain partial impositions, sometimes very heavy, such as those of Marcolica, one million of sestertii (230,000 francs [£9,200]), and of Certima, 2,400,000 sestertii (550,000 francs [£22,000]). (See Books XXVIII. to XLVI. of Titus Livius.) Such were the resources of Spain, even in the smallest localities, that in 602, C. Marcellus imposed on a little town of the Celtiberians (Ocilis) a contribution of thirty talents of silver (about 174,600 francs [£6,984]); and this contribution was regarded by the neighbouring cities as most moderate. (Appian, Wars of Spain, VI. xlviii. 158, ed. Schweighæuser.) Posidonius, cited by Strabo (III. iv., p. 135), relates that M. Marcellus extorted from the Celtiberians a tribute of six hundred talents (about 3,492,600 francs [£139,704]).