Book 24
18
As the censors were now abstaining, owing to the emptiness of the treasury, from making any contracts for repairs to the sacred edifices or for supplying chariot horses or similar objects, they were frequently approached by those who had been in the habit of tendering for these contracts, and urged to conduct all their business and let out the contracts just as if there was money in the treasury. No one, they said, would ask for money from the exchequer till the war was over. Then came the owners of the slaves whom Tiberius Sempronius had manumitted at Beneventum. They stated that they had had notice from the financial commissioners that they were to receive the value of their slaves, but they would not accept it till the war was at an end. While the plebeians were thus showing their readiness to meet the difficulties of an empty exchequer, the moneys of minors and wards and then of widows began to be deposited, those who brought the money believing that their deposits would not be safer or more scrupulously protected anywhere than when they were under the guarantee of the State. Whatever was bought or provided for the minors and widows was paid for by a bill of exchange on the quaestor. This generous spirit on the part of individual citizens spread from the City to the camp, so that not a single horse soldier, not a single centurion would accept pay; whoever did accept it received the opprobrious epithet of "mercenary."
