Caesar paid Curio's debts--sixty millions of sesterces.[47] That's why Curio is a Caesarian now.

Oh! money is the cause of all these vile political changes! Trouble is coming! Sulla's old throat cuttings will be nothing to it! But don't marry Lentulus's niece!" [47] I.e.

$2,400,000; a sesterce was about 4 cents.
"Well," said Drusus, when the business was done, and he turned to go, "I want Cornelia, not her dowry." "Strange fellow," muttered Flaccus, while Drusus started off in his litter.

"I always consider the dowry the principal part of a marriage." II Drusus regained his litter, and ordered his bearers to take him to the house of the Vestals,--back of the Temple of Vesta,--where he wished to see his aunt Fabia and Livia, his little half-sister.

The Temple itself--a small, round structure, with columns, a conical roof which was fringed about with dragons and surmounted by a statue--still showed signs of the fire, which, in 210 B.C., would have destroyed it but for thirteen slaves, who won their liberty by checking the blaze.
Tradition had it that here the holy Numa had built the hut which contained the hearth-fire of Rome,--the divine spark which now shed its radiance over the nations.