If a large amount of money of good quality and weight imparts great power to the State, the ancients were perfectly right in providing against its scarcity; just as if they would avoid a dangerous illness which would tend to deprive them of all their strength, by directing that every kind of coins, even those issued by sovereigns, should be accepted as legal. But I do not know for what reason their successors were unwilling to let this wise rule stand; and, just as if they had envied the prosperity of their subjects, forbade the use of all coins bearing effigies of former emperors, and only permitted their own to be available in business transactions. They did not seem to consider what confusion might result, or what losses would be sustained in commercial affairs from the enforcement of this rule, especially among the poorer classes, who are more in need of assistance and protection than others. It is certain that if traders of small resources, and those who only live by manual labor, as well as all peasants, could no longer purchase the necessaries of life with the old money which they had made use of up to that time, they must have been reduced to great distress. Therefore, abolishing this modern regulation, and adopting the ancient one in its entirety, We hereby decree in accordance with the rule of the old priests, which is not only beneficial, but convenient for all, that every kind of coins (provided neither the form nor the material of the same has been changed and they are of proper weight), whether they bear the effigy of an ancient or a recent sovereign, shall be "equally good and current in business transactions, and the penalty of such as do not acquiesce in this law shall be that they shall be scourged, shaved, and, in addition, be fined three pounds of gold.