Milliards

There are milliards of stars in the universe.

After the capture of Syracuse by the Romans, silver, the foundation of the treasure they had seized, fell suddenly in price, so that seventeen pounds of silver were valued at one of gold. A little later the relative price was as 12 to 1, when Caesar, having plundered the two milliards contained in the public chest, so reduced the value of gold, which then predominated, that the proportion fell to 9 to 1.