reatises
descending from Roman antiquity on the subject, partly by its very
nature which was far more complex and varied than that of the Roman
husbandry. So far as can be ascertained, its principles were, still
less perhaps than those of husbandry, the peculiar property of the
Romans; on the contrary, they were the common heritage of all ancient
civilization, under which, as under that of modern times, the
operations on a great scale naturally were everywhere much alike.
In money matters especially the mercantile system appears to have been
established in the first instance by the Greeks, and to have been
simply adopted by the Romans. Yet the precision with which it was
carried out and the magnitude of the scale on which its operations
were conducted were so peculiarly Roman, that the spirit of the Roman
economy and its grandeur whether for good or evil are pre-eminently
conspicuous in its monetary transactions.

Moneylending

The starting-point of the Roman moneyed economy was of course
money-lending; and no branch of commercial industry was more
zealously prosecuted by the Romans than the trade of the professional
money-lender (-fenerator-) and of the money-dealer or banker (-argent
arius-). The transference of the charge of the larger monetary
transactions from the individual capitalists to the mediating banker,
who receives and makes payments for his customers, invests and borrows
money, and conducts their money dealings at home and abroad--which is
the mark of a developed monetary economy--was already completely
carried out in the time of Cato. The bankers, however, were not only
the cashiers of the rich in Rome, but everywhere insinuated themselves
into minor branches of business and settled in ever-increasing numbers
in the provinces and dependent states. Already throughout the whole
range of the empire the business of making advances to those who
wanted money began to be, so to speak, monopolized by the Romans.

Speculation of Contractors

Closely connected with this was the immeasurable field of enterprise.
The system of transacting business through mediate agency pervaded the
whole dealings of Rome. The state took the lead by letting all its
more complicated revenues and all contracts for furnishing supplies
and executing buildings to capitalists, or associations of
capitalists, for a fixed sum to be given or received. But private
persons also uniformly contracted for whatever admitted of being do