¹ This paper originated as an address given at the conference of the Greek and Roman Societies in Cambridge in August, 1965; it is here presented in a somewhat expanded form. I have been saved from errors and superficialities by the comments and criticisms of various persons, notably Mr. P. A. Brunt, Mrs. B. Mitchell and Mr. T. P. Wiseman, to whom I express my thanks.

² M. Gelzer, Die Nobilität der römischen Republik14 ff., 90 ff. (= Kl. Schr. 1, 32 and 110).

³ In its day the house of M. Aemilius Lepidus (cos. 78) was the first in Rome; a generation later it was not in the first hundred (Plin., HN 36, 109). In general, see T. Frank, Economic Survey of Ancient Rome 1, 393 ff.; the archaeological evidence is striking confirmation, see A. Boëthius, The Golden House of Nero 94 ff.

⁴ Pol. 31, 28, 5; Livy 25, 2, 8 (cf. Pol. 10, 5, 6); Cic., 1 Verr. 23. For Faustus Sulla, see Dio 37, 51,4 and Cic., Att. 9, 11,4. For funerary games, Livy 41, 28, 11; Suet., DJ 26, 2. Cf. L. R. Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar 30 f.

⁵ On ambitus see Mommsen, Röm. Strafrecht 865 ff.; Taylor (above, n. 4) 67 ff.

⁶ First evident in the two leges Baebiae of 181 B.C., this was almost regular in the Ciceronian age: the Metelli, Cic., 1 Verr. 25, 29; for Verres, Verr. 40; for Caesar in 61, Plut., Caes. 11; for Clodius, Cic., in Clod. et Cur., with the scholiast's comments, Stangl 86–8; for Gabinius, Cic., Sest. 18. Cf. Jaczynowska, M., Historia 1962, 489 f.Google Scholar

⁷ Pol. 6, 58; 15, 4, 10 etc. On the same theme, Gell., NA 20, 1, 39–42. Cf. F. Schulz, Principles of Roman Law 223 ff.

⁸ Cic., Quinct. 30; Tab. Her. 116; Gaius 4, 102; Lenel, Ed. Perp. 79, 413 ff. Cf. Greenidge, Legal Procedure in Cicero's Time 278 ff.; E. Weiss, P-W Suppl. VI, 56 f.; Buckland, Textbook of Roman Law 643 ff.; Jolowicz, Historical Introduction 223 ff.; L. Wenger, 1st. di proc. civ. romana 220 ff. (= German edn. 215 ff). The fullest treatment remains that of S. Solazzi, Concorso dei creditori 1, 36 ff.

⁹ For the legal use of existimatio (Dig. 50, 13, 5, 1–3), see Cicero, Quinct. 50, 98; Tull. 3; Cluent. 124; Rosc. Com. 16, 39; and often elsewhere.

¹⁰ Licinius Macer probably stands behind the similar accounts of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (so Walsh, Livy 122 f.; Bayet, Tite Live (Budédn.) 1, XXXi f.), or Tubero using Macer (so Klotz). Valerius Antias has been conjectured by R. M. Ogilvie (Commentary on Livy 295), in which case he was simply transmitting earlier popular views, e.g. of the Claudii. The large literature on the subject of nexum concerns rather its legal formulation than its effects; see Jolowicz, Hist. Introd. 166 ff. and 557 for earlier views, and recently Kaser, Röm. Privatr. 148 f.; Lübtow, , Z.S.S. 1950, 112 ff.Google Scholar; and Ogilvie (cited above) for current views. That debtors should be killed or enslaved and sold abroad (as in Greek law; cp. Mommsen, Ges. Schr. 3, 4) is abundantly paralleled in other early systems, see Brassloff, , Hermes 1922, 472 ff.Google Scholar; and the suggestions of Finley, M. I. in Rev. hist. de droit franĉais et étranger 1965, 159 ff.Google Scholar

¹¹ Traditionally, nexum and a creditor's right to bind a debtor were made obsolete by the Lex Poetelia (Liv. 8, 28; Cic., rep. 2, 59; Varro, Ling. lat. 7, 105; Lübtow, cp., Z.S.S. 1950, 155 f.Google Scholar); nor is killing or enslavement known in historical times. But praetors and other magistrates continued to have powers to grant a creditor addictio (Sall., Cat. 33; Lex Rubria 22, 47 etc.; Quint., Inst. Or. 5, 10, 60), and we hear of such bondsmen several times (cp. Brunt, , JRS 1958, 168Google Scholar). But it is hard to know how great was the incidence of legal debt-bondage. Agreements might be made voluntarily, see below, n. 13; also manus iniectio was retained as a penalty in some other laws (Gaius 4, 22–3) to express a degree of ‘social indignation’ (so A. M. Prichard, Synteleia 1, 260 ff.). Complaints about the crudelitas of praetors (as opposed to that only of money-lenders) are apt to come from crisis years like 63 B.C., when Cicero's attitude was an important factor.

¹² Although in Athens bondage was limited to public debts, in Hellenistic times personal execution (imprisonment or loss of citizenship) became increasingly usual, even when a man had property: e.g. Pol. 38, 11, 10; Plato, leg. 857a; Matth. 18, 25; and the debt law of 85 B.C. from Ephesus, cp. Oliver in AJP 1939, 468. In general, see Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht, 445; E. Weiss, Griechisches Privatrecht 1, 495 ff.; Nörr, , Z.S.S. 1961, 135 ff.Google Scholar In praetorian justice such lengths were impossible; and rhetors' statements like ‘addictus numquam sperat libertatem’ (Calp. Flacc, or. 14) are legally untrue—a man could procure a vindex, or pay up, or work off his debt (the rhetorical evidence is confused and probably influenced by Livy and the annalists; see Lübtow quoted above, n. 11). In Egypt and the East, debt-bonds often included clauses for automatic bondage as a private act, and became the regular παραμονή contracts familiar in the papyri; see Taubenschlag, Law of Graeco—Roman Egypt 529 ff.; H. Wolff, Forschungen z. röm. Recht 102 ff. In the formulary system addictio could happen only after thirty days' grace and the actio iudicati, on a magistrate's order. The procedure was undoubtedly more lenient, see Prichard (quoted above, n. 11) and M. Kaser, Das altröm. Ius 235.

¹³ For such private agreements in the east, cp. above n. 12; among the Germans, Tac., Germ. 24 (‘voluntariam servitutem’); and the articles of Brassloff and Finley cited above. Voluntary bondage may well have survived in Italy of an extra-legal kind, compare the ‘ius paciscendi’ (Gell., NA 20, 1, 46). Certainly a debtor could be subjected to extra-legal pressures. (1) Flagitatio (rhythmical shouting outside a man's door) survived, and has been detected by Usener, Kl. Schr. 4, 358 ff., cp. Weiss, E., Z.S.S. 1926, 180Google Scholar and Fraenkel, E., JRS 1961, 49 ff.Google Scholar (similar occurrences are not unknown in small town life in Italy today). (2) Posted or painted notices (‘proscriptio’) were used to declare that a man was in debt, cp. Cic., Sest. 18 and schol. This proscriptio as a private act is surely what Gaius 3, 220 mentions as a ground for iniuria; the condition ‘sciens eum nihil sibi debere’ cannot mean the normal magisterial proscriptio. See the important remarks of E. Weiss, Mél. de Visscher ( = RIDA 1949) 2, 501 ff.

¹⁴ Mitteis, Reichsrecht u. Volksrecht 451 ff. is fundamental, and the many discussions of the Constitutio Antoniniana that touch on it, e.g. Wenger, L., RIDA 1949, 547Google Scholar; Taubenschlag, , Z.S.S. 1952, esp. 115 f.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Plut., Caes. 5, 4; Dio 37, 8, 2.

¹⁶ Plut., Caes. 7, 1–4; Suet., DJ 13.

¹⁷ Cic., Cat. 2, 18; Sull. 56; Sail., Cat. 35, 3. Similarly in the years after the Social War many aristocrats must have been in debt, see Frank, T., AJP 1933, 54 ff.Google Scholar; but I should agree with Bulst, C. M. (Historia 1964, 330 ff.Google Scholar) that the legislation of those years must have benefited both Sullans and Marians alike.

¹⁸ Cic., de off. 2, 56 and 64.

¹⁹ Fam. 5, 6, 2: ‘itaque nunc me scito tantum habere aeris alieni, ut cupiam coniurare, si quisquam recipiat; sed partim odio inducti me excludunt et aperte vindicem coniurationis oderunt, partim non credunt et a me insidias metuunt nec putant ei nummos deesse posse qui ex obsidione feneratores exemerit.’ Cicero often spoke of the Catilinarian conspiracy as aimed at defrauding bankers and moneylenders; so Att. 2, 1, 11 (‘vindex aeris alieni’) and Q. fr. I, 1, 6. For the role of tabulae novae in 63 B.C., see especially Yavetz, , Historia 1963, 485 ff.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cic., Att. 4, 15, 7; 17, 2; Q.fr. 3, 2, 3; Fam. 7, 16, 3; Suet., DJ 73.

²¹ For Paullus, Suet., DJ 29, 1; Plut., Caes. 29, 3; App., B.C. 2, 102. For Curio, see now Lacey, W. K., Historia 1961, 318 ff.Google Scholar

²² Cic., Fam. 7, 13, 1 (‘inaurari’); 16, 3 (‘Balbus mihi confirmavit te divitem futurum’); Q.fr. 2, 13, 3. Of Caesar's creations the richest were the trio Balbus, Labienus, and Mamurra (Att. 7, 7, 6). Sallust perhaps spoke feelingly of Caesar as ‘beneficiis et munificentia magnus’ (Cat. 54, 2).

²³ Vell. Pat. 2, 49, 3 ‘Lentulus vero salva re publica salvus esse non posset’; cp. Cic., Att. 6, 8, 2; 8, I5A, 2. For Cicero, evidence in P-W VII A, 977; and for Cicero's gratitude, Q.fr. 2, 12, 1; 3, 1, 18; Fam. 1, 9, 21. Cicero was asked to help Oppius in building Caesar's forum, Att. 4, 16, 8. For Milo's debts, Plin., HN 36, 104; for Caelius, Att. 6, 1, 2 and Fam. 8, 12, 1; for Faustus Sulla, see above n. 4.

²⁴ Shackleton-Bailey, D. R., CQ 1960, 253 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brunt, P. A., ‘The Equites in the Late Republic’ in Proceedings of the Second Congress of Economic History (1962), 121 ff.Google Scholar

²⁵ Crassus, Plut., Crass. 2; Pompey, Cic., Att. 6,1,3; Brutus' loan to the town of Salamis in Cyprus is notorious; otherwise evidence passim. See Gelzer, Kl. Schr. I, 110; Jaczynowska, , Hist. 1962, 486.Google Scholar

²⁶ Despite such passages as Cato, de agr. praef. 1 and Cic., de off. 1, 151, many senators of Cicero's day drew gains from non-agricultural sources. For some interesting examples in brick and pottery-making, see Wiseman, T. P., Mnemosyne 1963, 275 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for senators as moneylenders and bankers, see the names among the tesserae nummulariae, Degrassi, ILLRP 987 ff. Little in this respect separated the senator from the wealthy non-senator.

²⁷ Caes., BC I, 39, 3; Dio 42, 50, 2–3 (οὐχ ὄτι παρὰ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν ἀλλὰ καὶ παρὰ τῶν πόλεων).

²⁸ Strabo 649 C.

²⁹ Fam. 5, 20, 9; Att. 11, 1; 2, 3; and 13, 3. The story of this sum has been unravelled by O. E. Schmidt, Brief Wechsel 185 ff. Compare Cicero's anxiety to repay Caesar his loan of 800,000 HS (Cic., Att. 5, 1, 2; 4, 3; 5, 2 etc.); but he still owed Caesar money in December 50 (Att. 7, 3, 11).

³⁰ Att., 12, 21, 2; 25, 1; 40–4; 47; and 13, 27–33. For the whole sorry tale, Schmidt 289 ff.

³¹ Att. 12, 29 ‘sintne igitur auctores futuri’. Cp. 13, 2a, 1. These two seemed to know about the loan, or why should Cicero think of them as sponsors ? Atticus is asked to grovel to Faberius (Att. 13, 30, 1). Since the latter had gone to Spain with Caesar, the loan must fall in 46 or earlier.

³² Att. 13, 3, 1; 32, 1; 33, 1–2 (a last-minute attempt by Faberius to avoid payment ?).

³³ Buckland, Textbook of Roman Law 570; e.g. Cic., Att. 10, 15, 1.

³⁴ The sources are listed in Frank, Econ. Survey 1, 310 f.

³⁵ Caes., BC 3, 1, 2. Cp. Cic., Att. 7, 18, 4 (Feb. 49): ‘Quintus frater laborat ut tibi quod debet ab Egnatio solvat; nec Egnatio voluntas deest nec parum locuples est, sed cum tale tempus sit ut Q. Titinius … viaticum se neget habere idemque debitoribus suis denuntiarit ut eodem faenore uterentur, atque hoc idem etiam L. Ligus fecisse dicatur, nec hoc tempore aut domi nummos Quintus habeat aut exigere ab Egnatio aut versuram usquam facere possit, miratur te non habuisse rationem huius publicae difficultatis.’ Att. 9, 9, 4 (March 49): ‘sed nunc omnia ista iacere puto propter nummorum caritatem.’ Att. 10, 11, 2 (May 49): ‘sed si mini Q. Axius in hac mea fuga HS non reddit quae dedi eius filio mutua et utitur excusatione temporis, si Lepta, si ceteri … Vides enim profecto angustias.’ Att. 10, 15, 4 (May 49): ‘de Quinto fratre scito eum non mediocriter laborare de versura, sed adhuc nihil a L. Egnatio expressit.’ Cp. Fam. 2, 16, 5 and perhaps Att. 11, 11, 2.

³⁶ In February 49 Cicero drew his viaticum from the mint (‘nemo enim solvit’), perhaps by selling plate (Att. 8, 7, 3); in July 47 Cicero had to sell off silver plate and furniture (Att. 11, 25, 3), perhaps again to the mint, as Frank suggests, Econ. Survey 1, 349.

³⁷ Suet., DJ 54, 2; App., BC 3, 11; Dio 48, 36, 5.

³⁸ Caes., BC I, 33, 3. Dio 41, 17, 1–2; Plut., Caes. 35; App., BC 2, 164. Cic., Att. 7, 21, 2; 10, 4, 8, etc.

³⁹ For sources, T. Frank, Econ. Survey 1, 79 ff.; for monetary policies, see recently Crawford, M. H., JRS 1964, 29 ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ There was a money famine in 63 B.C., and Cicero tried to stop the export of gold from Puteoli, Vat. 11 f., Flacc. 67. In 82 B.C. the senate even drew on sacred treasures to make coin, Val. Max. 7, 6, 4.

⁴¹ Caes., B.C. 3, 1 and 20; Dio 41, 37–8; lesser sources, App., BC 2, 198; Plut., Caes. 37, 1.

⁴² For the earlier measure of the tribunes, see Dio 41, 37, 2 who also stresses the shortage of money,

⁴³ Caes., BC 3, 20–2; Dio 42, 22–3. Caelius' last letter (Fam. 8, 17) was written from Rome in January or February; his death falls probably in March, see Schmidt, Briefwechsel 196.

⁴⁴ For Dio's habits, cp. now Millar, F. G. B., journ. Eg. Arch. 1962, 124 f.Google Scholar; it is suspicious that the enlargements of the boards of the XVviri sacris faciundis and VIIviri epulonum recorded in this chapter (42, 51, 4) are repeated by Dio two years later (43, 51,9); cp. Drumann-Groebe 3, 510.

⁴⁵ Inscriptiones Italiae XIII, 1: Fasti p. 182. The record was set up before A.D. 2 (see the comments of Degrassi ad loc.) and thus has the value of a nearcontemporary source. The same editor suggests that Caelius' bill was simply later revived by Caesar; but the only common element was the provision about rents.

⁴⁶ Suet., DJ 42, 2: ‘deducto summae aeris alieni si quid usurae nomine numeratum aut perscriptum fuisset.’ The language is technical and so probably original; for the sense of perscribere cp. C000000ic., Att. 4, 17, 2; 9, 12, 3; de orat. I, 250; and Mommsen, Ges. Schr. 3, 244 f.

⁴⁷ Dio 42, 29, 1; cp. 32, 2. Cic., Att. 11, 23, 3 and Livy, per. 113 mention novae tabulae. The main agitation falls probably in April or May, Schmidt, Briefwechsel 222 f.

⁴⁸ See below, p. 138. Cp. Furneaux' note ad loc.; Frank, , AJP 1935, 336 f.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See above n. 35. In September 46 Cicero was still urging Caesar to restore credit (‘revocanda fides’, Marc. 23), and has in mind Caesar's praefectura morum. In the following year repayments were again difficult; Faberius was going to repay in gold (Tyrrell and Purser, Correspondence 606 n.), and compare Att. 12, 21, 4; 22, 3; 28, 3 and 51, 3 (from March to June). For the evidence of the De Officiis, see below. In August 44 there was again (or still) a ‘mirifica δυσχρηστία propter metus armorum’ (Att. 16, 7, 6).

⁵⁰ Röm. Str. 2, 725, n. 1; cp. M. Gelzer, Caesar 203 (‘lex data’). But see especially Ed. Meyer, Cäsars Monarchie 367, n. 1.

⁵¹ Gaius 3, 168. It was debated whether datio in solutum gave release in full or only iure exceptionis (Buckland, Textbook 564; more fully, S. Solazzi, Estinzione dell'obbligazione 161 ff.).

⁵² Fam. 9, 16, 7 (July 46). Similar badinage in the next letter to Paetus, 18, 4. Cp. Att. 12, 21, 4 (March 45) ‘danda aestimatio’. Att. 12, 28, 3 ‘ut nunc solvitur’ should mean the handing over of the slaves in part-payment by aestimatio. Fam. 13, 8, 2 (Oct. 45) ‘A. M. Laberio C. Albinius praedia in aestimationem accepit.’

⁵³ Caes., BC 3, 1, 2 and above n. 9.

⁵⁴ The main discussions are: Wlassak, P-W 111, 1995 f.; Krüger, H., Z.S.S. 1916, 295 ff.Google Scholar; von Woess, E., Z.S.S. 1922, 485 ff.Google Scholar; L. Guenoun, La cessio bonorum; Solazzi, S., Il concorso dei creditori 4 (1943), 130Google Scholar (and see further below); B. Biondi, Acta divi Augusti 152 ff. The most recent writings known to me are those of Biondi, B. (‘Cessio bonorum’ in the Novissimo Digesto Italiano 3 (1959)Google Scholar) and G. Longo (‘Esecuzione forzata’ ibid., 6 (1960)).

⁵⁵ ‘Infames ne fiunt’ (Cod. Just. 2, 11 (12), 11); ‘ne iudicati in carcerem detrahantur’ (Cod. Just. 7, 71, 1); no actions for other debts unless, causa cognita, the man had acquired substantial wealth in the meantime, and then only ‘in quantum facere potest’ (Dig. 42, 3, 6, 7; and 3, 4; Cod. Just. 7, 72, 3).

⁵⁶ ‘beneficium’ Cod. Just. 7, 71, 1 and 4; ‘flebile adiutorium’ ibid., 7; ‘miserabilis’ and ‘auxilium’ ibid., 8; ‘misericordiae causa’ Dig. 42, 3, 6; etc.

⁵⁷ Art. cit. (above, n. 54); broadly accepted also by F. Schulz, Classical Roman Law 26 and 402 f.; and Brunt, P. A., JRS 1958, 168.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Against Woess o.c., it is clear from P. Ryl. II, 75 and P. Vind. Boswinkel 4 that the requesting of cessio by written application was regular quite early; and his conjecture that cessio bonorum may have originally involved infamia until it was removed in the third century by Cod. Just. 2, 11 (12), 11 must be rejected in view of our relatively many sources on infamia, which show no trace of it. To my mind he has gone too far in saying that personal execution was ‘zu aller Zeit die normale Vollstreckungsart.’

⁵⁹ P. Ryl. II, 75; possible earlier hints in BGU 1109 (5 B.C.), Segrè, cp. A., Aegyptus 1928, 30 f.Google Scholar; and for the edict of Ti. Iulius Alexander, cp. below.

⁶⁰ On this defined class, Rémondon, R., Ann. Serv. des ant. de l'Égypte, 1951, 224 ff.Google Scholar; Westermann, , Journ. Eg. Arch. 1954, 107Google Scholar; for economic hardship as a ground for cessio, P. Vind. Boswinkel 4.

⁶¹ So rightly Solazzi, S., SDHI 1956, 333 ff.Google Scholar, that earlier acts of fraus would invalidate a request for cessio (ἄκοιρον εἶναι). Better than Solazzi's earlier view (Concorso 4, 146) that fraus in the course of a cessio could lead to a later restitutio in integrum; or that of Mitteis (Z.S.S. 1916, 319 f.) who takes ἄκοιρον εἶναι to refer to the earlier acts of the cedens to defraud his creditor.

⁶² By a defensor civitatis, P. Lips. 244 = Chrest. 71 (A.D. 462); perhaps also P. Ryl. 117 (A.D. 269) if Solazzi is right, Scritti di dir. rom. 3, 39 f., but cp. Arangio-Ruiz in FIRA 3, no. 181. The use of cessio to avoid liturgies could be granted by strategi, P. Oxyr. 1405, 1417. Woess (art. cit., above n. 54) thought that this was not allowed; but there is nothing in Gaius 3, 78 or Cod. Just. 7, 71, 4 to exclude it, and there are other grounds for thinking that local magistrates could order missio in bona.

⁶³ So Wilcken, Arch.f. Pap. 2, 184; Westermann and Schiller, Apokrimata 24 f., 32.

⁶⁴ P. Lips. 244, 10 f.: Chrest. 402, 18 (A.D. 250) τοῦ νενομισμένου τρίτου, cp. P. Oxyr. 1405. It is not impossible that the Lex Julia indicated certain proportions, though Dig. 42, 3, 6 suggests rather that it was left to the praetor's discretion and later regularized by imperial enactments.

⁶⁵ As in P. Oxyr. 902 (A.D. 465) and P. Lips. 244 (A.D. 462).

⁶⁶ The view of Woess, art. cit. (above n. 54), 503 f. In view of imperial bans such as Cod. Just. 7, 71, 4 and C. Theod. 9, 11, 1, private imprisonment must have been illegal. Such imperial bans are often addressed to the eastern provinces.

⁶⁷ Cp. Just., Nov. 135 pr.: ἐκ τοῦ συμβεβηκότος καὶ οὐ ὁᾳθυμία. Fiscal debtors are no longer allowed cessio (cp. Cod. Theod. 10, 16, 2); Gratian also revokes the rules mentioned in the rescript of Severus and Caracalla of A.D. 200 (Bruns, Fontes n. 91; for the readings, see Wilcken, Arch. f. Pap. 6, 421) that ‘those who have ceded their property shall not be liable for debts, public or private, nor for any other payment of money’. Mitteis and others took the rescript to refer to the special use of cessio to avoid liturgies; but cp. contra Weiss, Pfandrechtliche Untersuchungen 82, n. 5.

⁶⁸ He does not therefore mean current law, as was thought by Kübler, B., B. Ph. Woch. 1921, 196.Google Scholar No other scholar, to my knowledge, has doubted the allusion.

⁶⁹ P-W 111, 1995 f. and most later scholars. Mommsen suspected the authorship of Caesar in Hist. Rome ², 5, 400 f., but neither here nor in Ges. Schr. 3, 8 argued the matter. Carcopino (Hist. rom. 992) wrongly detected an allusion in Tab. Her. 113 ff. G. Costa (Cicerone Giureconsulto 2, 48) suggested a date of 59 B.C. but without argument.

⁷⁰ Lenel, Ed. Perp. 414, 503. For the changes it effected in the edict, Krüger, H., Z.S.S. 1916, 279.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Above n. 69. Cp. Mitteis, Grundzüge 44, n. 3; E. Woess, art. cit. (above n. 54) and many others.

⁷² Weiss, E., Griechisches Privatrecht 1, 520Google Scholar; Taubenschlag, Law of Graeco-Roman Egypt 530, n. 30; cp. now Chalon, G., L'édit de Ti. Iulius Alexander (Bibl. Helv. Rom. 1964) 110 ff.Google Scholar

⁷³ Barely mentioned, Phil. I, 18 and 24; cp. Gelzer, Kl. Schr. 2, 286 ff.

⁷⁴ Cic., Cat. 2, 18 (and above n. 17). Ps.-Sall., ep. ad Caes. I, 5, 4 f. in the same context inanely proposes the abolition of all borrowing of money; one imagines that Caesar would have been the first to object.

⁷⁵ Above, n. 43, for the sources for his last adventures. Caelius' stand may well have appealed to old Pompeiani, cp. Cic., Fam. 8, 17, 2.

⁷⁶ How (Select Letters ad loc.) and Furneaux (on Tac., Ann. 6, 16—‘perhaps’) suggest the measures of 49 B.C., but they were temporary only and there was no lex. Others (Tyrrell-Purser, Correspondencen. on 785; Combès, , Rev. ét. lat. 1958, 181 f.Google Scholar) suggest the ‘lex de modo credendi et possidendi’ of some years later; but it is hard to see how Pompeians would avoid infamia because of it. On cessio bonorum as a beneficium, see above n. 56.

⁷⁷ Cicero claims to have followed Panaetius but not closely (de off. 2, 60) and in general his debt to him is not in dispute (cp. Pohlenz, Antikes Führertum 115 ff.); it is even possible that the contrast of Aratus and the Gracchi goes back to him, see Nicolet, C., Rev. ét. lat. 1965, 155.Google Scholar But Cicero's own contribution should not be underrated, as the allusions to recent events show.

⁷⁸ Compare the letters to Paetus, above n. 52. the comparison with Sulla, Fam. 13, 8, 2.

⁷⁹ The words ‘pecunias condonandas’ have seemed to many (e.g. Drumann-Groebe 3, 422; Wlassak P-W 111, 1996) to be inapplicable to Caesar, who firmly withstood demands for tabulae novae (BC 3, 1, 2; Suet., DJ 42; App., BC 2, 198 etc.). But men like Paetus lost something in the new aestimationes; and Cicero is also thinking back to 63 B.C.

⁸⁰ Normally you repaid in the form in which you borrowed, Buckland, Textbook 564 f. To receive devalued land instead would be a second best. The moneylenders did not after all welcome Caesar's compromise.

⁸¹ Cp. Plut., Agis 6–8; debt-remission found some favour in the upper classes as well.

⁸² For the facts of Aratus' settlement, Niese, Geschichte 2, 246 f. Whether Panaetius treated it is unknown.

⁸³ For the demands for tabulae novae in that year, Dio 37, 32. Cicero hereby confirmed the favour of the equites, ‘quod … nostri consulatus beneficio se incolumis fortunas habere arbitrantur’ (Q. fr. I, 1, 6), cp. above n. 19 and n. 40.

⁸⁴ ‘A harsh judgement concerning Caesar’, as H. A. Holden observes, De Officiis, note ad loc.

⁸⁵ De off. I, 23; and on the whole subject, F. Schulz, Principles of Roman Law 223 ff. The severity of earlier laws was believed to uphold fides, see Gell,. NA 20, 1, 39 ff.

⁸⁶ Livy's account of the tresviri mensarii of 216 B.C. (23, 21, 6; 24, 18) has been convincingly vindicated by C. Nicolet, Annales (économies, sociétés, civilisations) 1963, 417 ff. from Hellenistic parallels; cp. the quattuorviri mensarii at Temnos (Cic., Flacc. 44). Similar ideas have been retrojected by annalistic writers to earlier times in Livy 7, 21, 4; D. Hal. 5, 69. In the speech of Maecenas (Dio 52, 28) there is a proposal for a state-fund for low-interest loans. Further evidence in Rostovtzeff, SEHHW 11, 1276 (on banking); SEHRE ² 179 ff. (on coin-shortages) and 182, n. 49 (for credit support by state banks).

⁸⁷ Cp. Dio 42, 50. For the abundant issues of Caesar's dictatorship, Frank, Econ. Survey 1, 348 ff. He raised the monetales to four and revived the law against hoarding above 60,000 HS. The further provision that two-thirds of a man's wealth must be in Italian land (inferred from Tac., Ann. 6, 16–7; see Furneaux ad loc.) must have been intended by Caesar to increase the circulation of money. This was also Tiberius' problem in A.D. 33, and perhaps that of Trajan later (Plin., ep. 6, 19).

⁸⁸ Dio 41, 38, 1; the precedent is unknown.

⁸⁹ Mr. P. A. Brunt objects to this that bankruptcy is not debt. But neither in Cicero's words, nor in the law of the time, was there a clear technical distinction; the difference rather was between forms of execution. Whether it resulted from a iudicium or not, the praetor's order of missio in bona was given without inquiry into a man's means (as in Cic., Quinct. 60; other evidence, Solazzi, Concorso 1, 137 ff.). If a debtor's assets were greater than his debts, the profit went to the bonorum emptor; and bankers seem to have looked on the latter position as a useful speculation. See, for instance, Platon, G., Nouv. rev. hist. de droit 1909, 154 ff.Google Scholar; G. Rotondi, Scritti giuridici 3, 1 ff.; Solazzi, Concorso 2, 120 ff.

⁹⁰ Solazzi has reasonably doubted whether cessio bonorum was limited to cases of proven hardship (L'estinzione dell' obbligazione 206) but the few hints are hard to interpret. The creditor gained an advantage in much speedier settlement.

⁹¹ The so-called beneficium competentiae is a different matter, but was similar in effects (Schulz, Classical Roman Law 460). A later senatus consultum created distractio bonorum for senators and other ‘clarae personae’, ‘ut honestius ex bonis eius quantum potest creditoribus solveretur’ (Dig. 27, 10, 5). This has a typically imperial ring; it is most likely post-Augustan, and certainly before Neratius (Solazzi, Concorso 2, 220 f.).

⁹² Hist. Rome ², 5, 401.