Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/440

 REVIEWS Les Manieurs d'Argent Jome. Par A. D]LOVME. Paris: Thorin. Two classes of persons at Rome had the handling of money in a large way under the Republic the bankers and the contractors nd to these two classes M. Deloume's stately volume is practically confined. Mere occasional speculators or money-lenders hardly come under his ken, and he limits himself to the period of the Republic because the power of money was best organized and most irresistible in that period. Unfortunately the material for the study of this power, and of the men who wielded it, is far from abundant. Scattered texts in literary works; legal remarks by jurists much later in date than the days of the great contractors; some inscriptions of no great importance; these things do not furnish a complete picture. The constructive imamnation must therefore be called into play. We must reanimate the past by a breath from the present. Business men of to-day, familiar with banking or with joint-stock companies, can gather from a hint of Cicero or 'Polybius far more than a mere scholar can make out, and no century before the nineteenth could so well com- prehend the energy of speculation. The contractors (publicani) are by far the more important of the the two bodies before us. The Roman Republic reserved to itself all great enterprises, but turned them over to contractors gathered into societates. These joint-stock companies, regularly organized with shares (partes, partcul), shareholders (socii, participes), directors (magistr O, and chairmen (mancgpes), undertook building, drainage, mines, corn-supply, military supplies, and the collection of custom-house duties and taxes of many kinds. The members were chiefly Romans, but foreigners were not excluded. Their manifold business naturally spread over the whole Roman world; their private post was excellently arranged; and their shares weht up or down in the city according to the news which came in or which. the directors thought fit to publish. Enormous wealth was collected by these companies into compara- tively few hands. M. Deloume insists, taking perhaps too literally a