Banking and Business in the Roman World

The first synthetic view of banking and financial life in ancient Rome.

Jean Andreau (Author), Janet Lloyd (Translated by)

9780521380317, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 October 1999

200 pages
23.7 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.43 kg

'… a nice new interpretation of tesserae nummulariae, Roman interest rates, the rarity of state intervention in financial matters, and lack of public borrowing … will inject new life into anglophone teaching and study of the Roman economy.' Journal of Roman Studies

In the first century BC lending and borrowing by the senators was the talk of Rome and even provoked political crises. During this same period, the state tax-farmers were handling enormous sums and exploiting the provinces of the Empire. Until now no book has presented a synthetic view of Roman banking and financial life as a whole, from the time of the appearance of the first bankers' shops in the Forum between 318 and 310 BC down to the end of the Principate in AD 284. Professor Andreau writes of the business deals of the elite and the professional bankers and also of the interventions of the state. To what extent did the spirit of profit and enterprise predominate over the traditional values of the city of Rome? And what economic role did these financiers play? How should we compare that role to that of their counterparts in later periods.

1. Introduction
2. The financial activities of the elites
3. Banks and bankers
4. Other categories of financiers
5. Dependants
6. The tablets of Murecine
7. The tesserae nummulariae
8. The interest rate
9. Rome's responses to financiers and financial crises
10. The financial activities of the city of Rome and of the empire
11. The problem of quantities and quantitative developments
12. Financial life in Roman society and its economy.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], General & world history [HBG]