Diodorus (lib.
v.

26) gives a curious picture of the Italian traders bartering, with the savages of Gaul, a cask of wine for a slave .-- M.

--It appears from the newly discovered treatise of Cicero de Republica, that there was a law of the republic prohibiting the culture of the vine and olive beyond the Alps, in order to keep up the value of those in Italy.

Nos justissimi homines, qui transalpinas gentes oleam et vitem serere non sinimus, quo pluris sint nostra oliveta nostraeque vineae.Lib.iii.

9.
The restrictive law of Domitian was veiled under the decent pretext of encouraging the cultivation of grain.Suet.Dom.vii.It was repealed by Probus Vopis Strobus, 18 .-- M.] [Footnote 97: In the beginning of the fourth century, the orator Eumenius (Panegyr.Veter.viii.6, edit.