ry, in the
absence of evidence, to give their verdict in the first instance for
the man of unstained character when opposed to one who was less
reputable, and only in the event of both parties being of equal repute
to give it in favour of the defendant.(25) The conventional
respectability of the Romans was especially apparent in the more and
more strict enforcement of the rule, that no respectable man should
allow himself to be paid for the performance of personal services.
Accordingly, magistrates, officers, jurymen, guardians, and generally
all respectable men entrusted with public functions, received no other
recompense for the services which they rendered than, at most,
compensation for their outlays; and not only so, but the services
which acquaintances (-amici-) rendered to each other--such as giving
security, representation in lawsuits, custody (-depositum-), lending
the use of objects not intended to be let on hire (-commodatum-), the
managing and attending to business in general (-procuratio-)--were
treated according to the same principle, so that it was unseemly to
receive any compensation for them and an action was not allowable even
where a compensation had been promised. How entirely the man was
merged in the merchant, appears most distinctly perhaps in the
substitution of a money-payment and an action at law for the duel
--even for the political duel--in the Roman life of this period.
The usual form of settling questions of personal honour was this: a
wager was laid between the offender and the party offended as to the
truth or falsehood of the offensive assertion, and under the shape of
an action for the stake the question of fact was submitted in due form
of law to a jury; the acceptance of such a wager when offered by the
offended or offending party was, just like the acceptance of a
challenge to a duel at the present day, left open in law, but was
often in point of honour not to be avoided.

Associations

One of the most important consequences of this mercantile spirit,
which displayed itself with an intensity hardly conceivable by those
not engaged in business, was the extraordinary impulse given to the
formation of associations. In Rome this was especially fostered by
the system already often mentioned whereby the government had its
business transacted through middlemen: for from the extent of the
transactions it was natural, and it was doubtless often required by
the state for the sake of grea