404 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



interest "svhich he "^as compelled to lie out of each month. Unless 

 there "^as some penalty for default in the monthly payments, there 

 would be no reason why the Salaminians should not keep theii* money 

 until execution was put m against them, and invest it otherwise. It 

 is true that Cicero does not anywhere state that the qiiaternae were 

 cum anatoci&mo menstruo ; but if the interest was due per month, it 

 was hardly necessary to state that the arrears at the end of each settling 

 day would be added to the capital for the succeeding term. That 

 no addition of interest should be made until the end of each year, and 

 that the legal rate should be 1 per cent, per month was the rule which 

 Cicero published as the one he would enforce ; accordingly he always 

 adds cum anatocismo anniversario, cum renovatione quotantiis or the like, 

 the emphatic word being a7imversario or quotannis, and the implied 

 antithesis being menstnio or in sinyulos metises, which, as interest was 

 paid per month, was naturally assumed. 



Eut all the same I do not think the original sum lent can be 

 ascertained. It is most unlikely that the Salaminians paid wo interest 

 at all during the six years. They may have soon fallen into arrears ; 

 but that they paid no interest at all from the very first is not in 

 accordance with the probabilities of even extortionate loans. Once 

 you allow a sporadic or partial payment of interest, the amount of 

 which is not given, an additional indeterminate quantity is thereby 

 introduced into the question which precludes the fixing of the original 

 loan with any accuracy. 



But I think that there is considerable probability that the 

 original loan, plus the arrears of interest, was the sum which the 

 Salaminians gave their note-of-hand for at the last renewal ; and 

 that the sum was 84 talents or thereabouts. Cicero speaks of the 

 ' last note-of-hand,' which would seem to point to others having 

 gone before. It will not be an unreasonable supposition to assume 

 that, at the end of each year of the loan, Scaptius and the Salaminians 

 signed a new note-of-hand, in which the principal and arrears were 

 lumped into one capital sum. The last note-of-hand was probably 

 signed in February 52 B.C., and it guaranteed the payment of 4 per 

 cent, per month compound interest. February was the month for 

 the reception of provincial embassies by the Senate ; and it was 

 probably at that time of the year 56 B.C., that the Salaminian 

 envoys were in Eome, and contracted the original loan. In 

 February, 51 b.c, we may suppose there was no 'renewal'; 

 the Salaminians would appear to have refused to renew such a 

 ruinous contract, and as a result, Scaptius got military forces 



