Note 107 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Ad Att., vi., 1: "Tricesimo quoque die talenta Attica xxxiii., et hoc ex tributis." On every thirteenth day he gets thirty three talents from the taxes, the talent being about £243. Of the poverty of Ariobarzanes we have heard much, and of the number of slaves which reached Rome from his country. It was thus, probably, that the king paid Pompey his interest.
Mancipiis locuples eget æris Cappadonum rex.—Hor. Epis., lib. i., vi.
Persius tells us how the Roman slave-dealer was wont to slap the fat Cappadocian on the thigh to show how sound he was as he was selling him, Sat. vi., 77. "Cappadocis eques catastis" is a phrase used by Martial, lib. x., 76, to describe from how low an origin a Roman knight might descend, telling us also that there were platforms erected for the express purpose of selling slaves from Cappadocia. Juvenal speaks also of "Equites Cappadoces" in the same strain, Sat. vii., 15. The descendant even of a slave from Cappadocia might rise to be a knight. From all this we may learn what was the source of the £8000 a month which Pompey condescended to take, and which Cicero describes as being "ex tributis."