Purser — Cicero's Correspondeiice during his Proconsulate. 403 



Roman capitalists was becoming a danger to the state. The Eomans 

 had very strong ideas about business dealings and the obligation of 

 enforcing contracts ; and a distinguished Roman capitalist who in- 

 formed Cicero of this decree gave it as his opinion that a monetary- 

 crisis would ensue from such interference with the freedom of 

 contract and such indulgence to debtors, and he referred to the 

 damage done when Caesar, some years before, extended the time 

 of payment of debts. On this theory of Mommsen's we see the 

 meaning of Scaptius's statement that the Salaminians owed close on 

 200 talents. Nor does the argument really break down because 

 Stemkopf has shown (p. 21) that Mommsen's interpretation of 2^er- 

 petuumfenus cannot be sustained. Sternkopf shows conclusively that it 

 would be a contradiction in terms that interest which was renewed' 

 (renovatum) every month was an ' unchanging ' {perpetuum) interest. If 

 it be urged that, in Att. vi. 2, 7, perpetuis is opposed, not to renovatis, 

 but to quotannis, and means the standing rate was 4 per cent, per 

 month compound interest, we may remark generally that such a rate 

 of interest could not subsist universally in any settled state of society : 

 and more especially that, in the decree of the Senate alluded to above, 

 it is perfectly plain that a mitigation was granted in favour of debtors, 

 and that the mitigation consisted in just this, that whereas the 

 maximum rate had previously been 12 per cent, per annum compound 

 interest {centesimis quofannis renovatis) now it was fixed at 12 per 

 cent, per annum simple interest (^centesimis perpetuo fenore). Finally 

 Sternkopf shows that in his Staatsrecht, in. 1237, note 1, Mommsen 

 himself holds this rational view that 2yerpetmim fenus is simple interest. 

 However, this does not appear to me to invalidate the view of 

 Mommsen that Brutus had lent the money at what was virtually 4 

 per cent, per month compound interest. If the Salaminians, like 

 Ariobarzanes (Att. vi. 1, 3), could not pay up at least the interest in 

 whole or part at the end of each month, it is incredible that such a 

 strict business man as Brutus would not have charged interest for the 



^ The Romans described compound interest as fenus renovatum quotannis, or 

 singulis mensibus, or whatever the time happened to be. Thus their language 

 would say that 5 per cent, compound interest at the end of the first year was really 

 a revision, or renewal, of the original rate of interest, whereby it became 5^ per 

 cent, on the original sum for the second year ; and so on. If the meaning of 

 * capital,' ' principal,' which fenus appears to have in a few passages was a common 

 one, it would be simpler to suppose that fenus quotannis renovatum meant that, in 

 compound interest, the principal was altered each year. But fenus, in the sense of 

 ' capital ' or ' principal,' would appear to have a restricted usage. 



