“5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silk tunics, 5,000 dyed leather hides, and 3,000 pounds of pepper” How much would that be worth?

Based on this source…

WARNING: A HISTORIAN IS DOING MATH.

A pound of gold makes up 72 aurei, so the 5,000 pounds of gold makes 360,000 aurei. Which is worth $58.8 million in today’s dollars. 

The 30,000 pounds of silver….well, the value of the denarius was extremely volatile over time, and the denarius wasn’t used after Diocletian, so let’s use Aurelian’s 84 denarii to the pound of silver. 2.5 million denarii works out to $16.38 million in todays’ dollars.

The silk tunics and the leather hides? No idea.

The pepper? According to Pliny the Elder, “Long pepper[’s][….] price is fifteen denarii per pound, while that of white pepper is seven, and of black, four.“ (Although this was several hundred years earlier than the sack of Rome.) Let’s say the quality of the pepper was around 9 denarii per pound (averaging out the three varieties), which gives us 27,000 denarii or $172,734 in today’s money.