Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/129

 LOANS ON INTEREST. 112 the rate of interest, no such restriction having ever been im- posed, and the rate being expressly declared free by a law ascribed to Solon himself. 1 The same may probably be said of the com- munities of Greece generally, at least there is no information to make us suppose the contrary. But the feeling against lend- ing money at interest remained in the bosoms of the philosophical men long after it had ceased to form a part of the practical mo- rality of the citizens, and long after it had ceased to be justi- fied by the appearances of the case as at first it really had been. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, 9 and Plutarch, treat the practice as a branch of that commercial and money-getting spirit which they are anxious to discourage ; and one consequence of this was, that they were less disposed to contend strenuously for the inviolability of existing money-contracts. The conservative feeling on this point was stronger among the mass than among the philosophers. Plato even complains of it as inconveniently preponderant, 3 and as arresting the legislator in all comprehensive projects of reform. For the most part, indeed, schemes of cancelling debts and redi viding lands were never thought of except by men of desperate and selfish ambition, who made them stepping-stones to despotic power. Such men were denounced alike by the practical sense of the community and by the speculative thinkers ; but when we turn to the case of the Spartan king Agis the Third, who pro- posed a complete extinction of debts and an equal redivision of 1 Lysias cont. Theomnest. A. c. 5, p. 360. 2 Cicero, De Officiis, i, 42. 3 Plato, Legg. iii, p. 684. ilif exixetpovvTi 6ij VO^.O&KTT) Kivelv TUV TOIOVTUV TI TTttf u.~ai-a, /Icj'wv, pr] KIVELV TU ei/a'vj/ra, Kal iTrapfirai y?/f re uvadaafiovf elariyovfievov Kal xpetiv inroKo~uf, (JOT' elf uTroptav Kadiaroadat mivra uvSpa, etc : compare also v, pp. 736-737, where similar feelings are intimated not less emphatically. Cicero lays down very good principles about the mischief of destroying faith in contracts; but his admonitions to this effect seem to be accompanied with an impracticable condition : the lawgiver is to take care that debts shall not be contracted to an extent hurtful to the state : " Quamobrcm ne sit ass alienum, quod reipublicse noceat, providendum est (quod multis rationlbia caveri potcst) : non. si fuerit, ut locupletcs suum perdant, debitorcs lucrentur alienum," etc. What the multce rationes were, which Cicero had in hii mind, I do not know : compare his opinion about fceneratores, Olfic. i, 42 ii, 25. VOL. iii. 8oe.