ter security, that capitalists should
undertake such leases and contracts not as individuals, but in
partnership. All great dealings were organized on the model of these
state-contracts. Indications are even found of the occurrence among
the Romans of that feature so characteristic of the system of
association--a coalition of rival companies in order jointly to
establish monopolist prices.(26) In transmarine transactions more
especially and such as were otherwise attended with considerable risk,
the system of partnership was so extensively adopted, that it
practically took the place of insurances, which were unknown to
antiquity. Nothing was more common than the nautical loan, as it was
called--the modern "bottomry"--by which the risk and gain of
transmarine traffic were proportionally distributed among the owners
of the vessel and cargo and all the capitalists advancing money for
the voyage. It was, however, a general rule of Roman economy that one
should rather take small shares in many speculations than speculate
independently; Cato advised the capitalist not to fit out a single
ship with his money, but in concert with forty-nine other capitalists
to send out fifty ships and to take an interest in each to the extent
of a fiftieth part. The greater complication thus introduced into
business was overcome by the Roman merchant through his punctual
laboriousness and his system of management by slaves and freedmen
--which, regarded from the point of view of the pure capitalist, was
far preferable to our counting-house system. Thus these mercantile
companies, with their hundred ramifications, largely influenced the
economy of every Roman of note. There was, according to the testimony
of Polybius, hardly a man of means in Rome who had not been concerned
as an avowed or silent partner in leasing the public revenues; and
much more must each have invested on an average a considerable portion
of his capital in mercantile associations generally.

All this laid the foundation for that endurance of Roman wealth,
which was perhaps still more remarkable than its magnitude. The
phenomenon, unique perhaps of its kind, to which we have already
called attention(27)--that the standing of the great clans remained
almost the same throughout several centuries--finds its explanation
in the somewhat narrow but solid principles on which they managed
their mercantile property.

Moneyed Aristocracy

In consequence of the one-sided p