These famous words are generally taken to refer to the weighing of the dead Carthaginian's ashes, and I have no quarrel with that. However, I should like to bring i into the debate the commonly used Roman steelyard balance, the statera. This J bronze balance has an eccentric fulcrum. The scale pan is suspended from the shorter arm and the counterweight hangs from a loop which is free to move along a r graduated scale on the longer arm of the fulcrum.