Chapter 12 - ‘Egentes Sumptuosi Nobiles’

Summary

The moral framework constructed around financial conduct mirrored that prescribed for political activities, all operating within a simple binary framework of boni and improbi/egentes/cupidi. The terms may have been used in a wide variety of contexts, but they expressed a single normative code which encompassed the public as well as the private sphere. In economic affairs it stressed financial probity, the preservation of the patrimony and, above all, the avoidance of debt. Although credit has always been an essential part of economic systems throughout history, the Romans never distinguished between economically rational debt for the purpose of investment and debt incurred purely for personal spending.¹ And signs are that, irrespective of the moral condemnation it incurred, debt became a growing problem in the late republic. Cicero could, for example, claim that during his consulship the issue of debt had never been more pressing.² While he may exaggerate its magnitude in order to emphasise his own principled stand against debt reform, the statement is still surprising on a number of levels. Not only was debt condemned as dangerous and immoral, but Rome had on the whole never been more prosperous or secure than it was during this period. The question is therefore who were affected by debt and why they found themselves in such financial difficulty at a time when we would least expect it.