Three Books on Gold

that they should pay tributes in silver, not in gold, so that not only is the longevity of the metal not the cause, since both coined copper and coined silver have also been held to be more long-lived among external nations. Thus the Transalpine Gauls expressed coined money by the common name of silver, which was less esteemed by the prince of philosophers, Plato, for he brought a law to the city he was establishing, that it should not use precious coins, but such that they would be despised by other peoples, so that it might not go mad in gathering gold and silver. And from this, perhaps, it was sung by the lyric poet that gold is both useless and the material of the greatest evil.

THAT RADIANCE IS NOT THE CAUSE WHY GOLD SURPASSES OTHER THINGS IN PRICE, EITHER BECAUSE IT ALLURES THE EYES, OR BECAUSE IT IS NEITHER WORN AWAY NOR DILATED. CHAPTER VI.

BUT, they will say, the sweet color of gold delights the eyes. Pliny denied this, and preferred silver to it in radiance, which is more like the day and military standards, since it shines more familiarly from a distance. Nor does he believe that gold was preferred to other metals by the likeness of the stars, since in gems and other things that color is not the principal one, [and] it was so far from [being the case] that he preferred the color of dawn, from which to some