Excerpt from Livy, Books V, Vi, and VII, Vol. 1: With Introduction and Notes; Introduction and Text
It is impossible with the scanty materials which we possess to judge accurately of the justice or injustice of the proposals with reference to usury. So far as we can see, the laws of Rome gave an enormous power to the money-lenders - a law of the XII Tables even allowed the creditors to divide among themselves the body of an insolvent debtor; and though a law so atrocious must have virtually defeated itself, its very presence among the statutes of the Romans shows that it was an enact ment made by the rich for themselves, and that the debtor was practically at the mercy of a relentless creditor. Even in more enlightened times when statesmen have attempted to legislate for a financial crisis, the remedies proposed usually betray a strange amount of inability on the part of those who wish to cope with a difficulty which they either do not understand or which they are compelled to meet in such a manner as will satisfy the clamour of ignorance and interested prejudice. The grievance of debt had in earlier days brought about the first secession of the plebs; and even if the measures brought forward by Licinius failed to remove the causes which underlay the financial troubles Of Rome, they at least alleviated the dis tress for a considerable time, while they simultaneously served as a lever to raise the plebs to political equality with the patri eiaus, and to remove the most long-standing source of conflict and dissension between the orders.
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