of
the kind which will be described immediately, or upon some public
building, or otherwise. In consequence he often incurred heavy debts.
Meanwhile the smaller traders and agriculturists, who were in
competition with slave-labour and other false economic conditions, to
say nothing of bad seasons, were frequently in the hands of the
usurers. Though efforts were repeatedly made to check exorbitant rates
of interest, they were apparently quite as ineffectual as with us. An
almost standard charge was at the rate of one-twelfth of the loan, or
8-1/3 per cent, but another common rate was that of one per cent per
month. Rates both higher and lower are known to us from particular
cases. Naturally the question depended on the security, when it did
not depend upon the greed of the one side and the ignorance of the
other. Much, however, of what the books call money-lending was only
what we should consider legitimate banking. Be this as it may, the
knights made large fortunes from the practice. They were also the
tax-farmers, who operated in the case of those imposts which were
still left indirect. The practice was to make an estimate of the
amount of such a tax derivable from a province, to purchase it from
the government at as large a margin of profit as possible, and so
relieve the state of the trouble and cost of collecting it. For this
purpose "companies" were formed, with what we should call a "legal
manager" at Rome. The managers would bid at auction for the tax, pay
the purchase-money into the treasury, and proceed to get in the tax
through local managers and agents in the provinces concerned. It has
already been explained that the more important taxation of the empire
was at this date direct--a community in Gaul, Spain, Asia Minor, or
Syria knowing what its assessment was, taking its own measures, and
using its own native or local collectors. The knights at Rome might
still advance sums to such communities, but they were not in this case
tax-farmers. It is unfortunate that the word "publicans"--bracketed
with "sinners"--is used in the New Testament translation for the local
collectors like St. Matthew. Not only does the word convey either no
notion or a wholly incongruous one to the ordinary reader, but it is
apt to mislead those who know its origin. Because the financial
companies at Rome, in purchasing the taxes, were taking up a public
contract, they were called _publicani_. But it is not these men who
were themselves