interest, for a fixed term, to such as could give security for the double
of what was borrowed. The estate necessary to qualify a senator, instead
of eight hundred thousand sesterces, the former standard, he ordered, for
the future, to be twelve hundred thousand; and to those who had not so
much, he made good the deficiency. He often made donations to the
people, but generally of different sums; sometimes four hundred,
sometimes three hundred, or two hundred and fifty sesterces upon which
occasions, he extended his bounty even to young boys, who before were not
used to receive anything, until they arrived at eleven years of age. In
a scarcity of corn, he would frequently let them have it at a very low
price, or none at all; and doubled the number of the money tickets.

XLII. But to show that he was a prince who regarded more the good of his
people than their applause, he reprimanded them very severely, upon their
complaining of the scarcity and dearness of wine. "My son-in-law,
Agrippa," he said, "has sufficiently provided for quenching your thirst,
by the great plenty of water with which he has supplied the town." Upon
their demanding a gift which he had promised them, he said, "I am a man
of my word." But upon their importuning him for one which he had not
promised, he issued a proclamation upbraiding them for their scandalous
impudence; at the same time telling them, "I shall now give you nothing,
whatever I may have intended to do." With the same strict firmness,
when, upon a promise he had made of a donative, he found many slaves had
been emancipated and enrolled amongst the citizens, he declared that no
one should receive anything who was not included in the promise, and he
gave the rest less than he had promised them, in order that the amount he
had set apart might hold out. On one occasion, in a season of great
scarcity, which it was difficult to remedy, he ordered out of the city
the troops of slaves brought for sale, the gladiators (105) belonging to
the masters of defence, and all foreigners, excepting physicians and the