Finance professionals in ancient Rome: The faeneratores at the end of the Republic and early Empire

Abstract

Studies about finance and economy professionals in ancient Rome are still very elementary due to the lack of sources about the topic and also the decreasing number of studies on economic and social labor history. The Roman elite, producer of most sources available nowadays, had much contempt for technical activities, whatever they were. Financial activities, like the one exercised by professional money lenders, the so-called faeneratores, were among the most despised. Contemporary historians have thoroughly researched banks and bankers, but the finance world professionals called faeneratores have not yet received the deserved attention because for a long time many historians considered them not a professional category but practitioners of a sporadic activity that could be carried out by anyone. In that sense, this article intends to discuss some perspectives from economic and social history on money lenders, the faeneratores, how they were regarded by the Roman elite, their level of expertise and the economic impact their activity had inside the urbs. To do so, the article analyzes the documentation from the Late Roman Republic to the Early Empire and the historiography about these finance professionals in Antiquity.

Keywords: bankers, loan sharks (moneylenders), faenerator, interest loans, ancient economy.