22.21. 21. Of Lending by Contract, and the State of Usury among the Romans.
Besides the loans made for the advantage of commerce, there is still a
kind of lending by a civil contract, whence results interest or usury.
As the people of Rome increased every day in power, the magistrates
sought to insinuate themselves in their favour by enacting such laws as
were most agreeable to them. They retrenched capitals; they first
lowered, and at length prohibited, interest; they took away the power of
confining the debtor's body; in fine, the abolition of debts was
contended for whenever a tribune was disposed to render himself popular.
These continual changes, whether made by the laws or by the
plebiscita, naturalised usury at Rome; for the creditors, seeing the
people their debtor, their legislator, and their judge, had no longer
any confidence in their agreements: the people, like a debtor who has
lost his credit, could only tempt them to lend by allowing an exorbitant
interest, especially as the laws applied a remedy to the evil only from
time to time, while the complaints of the people were continual, and
constantly intimidated the creditors. This was the cause that all honest
means of borrowing and lending were abolished at Rome, and that the most
monstrous usury established itself in that city, notwithstanding the
strict prohibition and severity of the law.
[34]
This evil was a
consequence of the severity of the laws against usury. Laws excessively
good are the source of excessive evil. The borrower found himself under
the necessity of paying for the interest of the money, and for the
danger the creditor underwent of suffering the penalty of the law.
Footnotes
[34]
Tacitus, "Annals," lib. vi, 16.
