>The word "capital" is Latin for a head of cattle.
>A single ox was a "pecus," which also has interesting
>etymological implications.
Sorry to get picky on you Barkley, but "capital" is a derivative of the Latin "caput", meaning "head". There are other variations of caput (capitalis, capital), but they all have something to do with "head", not strictly to do with "cattle". Since a lot of ancient wealth, pre-minting of coins (esp. on a large scale), depended on/was agriculture it's not surprising that the term for a "head" of cattle came to be used in "money" taxes ("follis capitalis" was a term used for a "head tax"), then eventually came to be used in the modern word we are all familiar with.
BTW: A Latin word for wealth is "pecunia"
Todd