Although it is probable that the aerarium kept detailed yearly accounts and that the Senate was responsible for drawing up at any rate an outline budget at the beginning of each year (see p. 617), the evidence from which to reconstruct either budget or accounts is not now available. All that can be done is to establish the approximate pattern of yearly income and expenditure, on the basis of scattered pieces of information about the revenues of the provinces, etc., and about major expenses, notably on the army.

Evidence may be drawn from two sources to check the picture built up in this way. There is in the first place occasional testimony concerning the contents of the aerarium or, more often, the absence of contents at a particular mcment; this testimony may be compared with the results achieved by adding up income and expenditure for the relevant periods of years. In the second place there is the coinage of the Roman Republic. Nothing suggests that this was ever issued for any other purpose than to provide the means for state expenditure. If this view is correct, it is reasonable to expect some correlation to exist between the amount of coinage and the volume of expenditure for a given year; the nature of the correlation will depend on whether payments were regularly made in new coin or not. The balance of probability is that down to Sulla they were made in new coin (see pp. 617-18) - the nature of the correlation which emerges provides the final confirmation.

A tolerably accurate picture of income and expenditure under the Republic is welcome; the aerarium, particularly in the late Republic, was at the centre of political controversy, with nobiles, Equites and populares all accused at one time or another of diverting the revenues of the Republic from their proper destination. Whoever it was who was responsible, the picture which can be built up of income and expenditure indicates clearly enough that someone was (see p. 695). Despite Cicero's plea for consideration towards the population of the Empire (de re p. iv, 7; cf. ii, 26), it is clear that much political argument in the late Republic was over the question of who should exploit the Empire, not over whether it should be exploited.

The production of an issue of coinage under the Roman Republic involved two separate stages, which must be carefully distinguished. It was necessary both to decide what denominations were to be issued and to fix the total amount of coinage to be issued at anyone time together with its distribution over the various denominations. Clear evidence exists that a law was necessary or at least customary for the initial adoption of a particular denomination or weight standard. When a large number of denominations were available it was presumably a matter of administrative discretion which ones were actually used and in what proportions. The total amount of coinage issued was normally under Senatorial contro1. These rules, with all others, broke down in the period of Civil War from 49 onwards.

THE PEOPLE

Two laws governing the denominational structure of the Republican coinage are clearly attested, the Lex Clodia and the Lex Papiria (Pliny, NH xxxiii, 46 - is qui nunc victoriatus appellatur, lege Clodia percussus est, the coin which is now called the victoriatus was (first) struck under the terms of the Lex Clodia, and mox lege Papiria semunciarii asses facti, soon the as was made semuncial under the terms of the Lex Papiria). The first of these, the Lex Clodia, effectively legalised the current practice with regard to the victoriatus, according to which this old coin weighing threequarters of a denarius was treated as half of a denarius (see p. 628), and at the same time perhaps authorised the issue of a new coin, of the weight of a quinarius and with more or less the types of the old victoriatus. The law was presumably, though not necessarily, passed shortly before the new quinarius was first struck in 101. It was doubtless tribunician, but its author is not identifiable.

Although there were considerable periods in the first century B.C. when the new quinarius was not issued, Pliny implies that the Lex Clodia continued to be regarded as the source of authority for the issue of the quinarius to the end of the Republic and beyond.

The prime purpose of the Lex Papiria of 91 (for the date see p. 77, for the reasons behind it see p. 596) seems to have been to authorise the production of bronze, including the as, on a weight standard of half an ounce instead of an ounce.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EARLY PALACE PERIOD (c. 2000–1700 b.c.)

The first palaces in Crete were built soon after the turn of the millennium. Could there be a more obvious mark than this for the beginning of an epoch? With them Minoan civilization rose from its prehistoric beginnings and attained the rank of an advanced civilization. But did it really even now enter the realm of history? Names, personalities and direct written sources are lacking. On the other hand the historical setting of this civilization cannot be disputed. It finds expression in its involvement in contemporary and subsequent events of Mediterranean history. Monuments consequently play a greater part than actions and people in providing a picture of this period, and the archaeological interpretation of these monuments is of cardinal importance. The Greeks later associated this period with the figure of Minos in their mythology. Any attempt to separate the historical and the mythical features of Minos is hopeless, but his name has rightly been given to this civilization which we can discern in the strange light of early history.

The palaces stood for about 600 years. After their destruction in about 1400 b.c. they were not rebuilt. The Palace Period can be split into an earlier and a later stage in terms of stratification and architectural developments. The present chapter is concerned only with the earlier stage of the Palace Period.