interest was payable every month, and was one per cent. ; hence it was called usura centesima, because in a hundred months it doubled the capital ; so, in reckoning the twelve months, twelve per cent, was paid. This law was afterwards abolished, and interest laid under a total interdict ; it was subsequently revived, however, by the Tribunes of the People, in the 369th year of Rome. Ten years after, interest was reduced to half that sum; but in the 411th year of Rome, all interest was prohibited by decree : " Nam prima duodedm tabulis sancitum, ne quis emciario fceruyre amplius exerceret, cwm antea ex lihidme locujpiletivm, agiiarelur : deiii rogatione tribimicid ad se memcias redacta : postremo vetita tisura."^ Usury now walked abroad in its worst form ; and, according to Tacitus, these law'S forbidding it were continually eluded: "Totius rejpressce," says he, "miras per artes rursum oriehantur."^ And from this period, when usury lorded among them, Rome dates the beginning of her decay .^ Trade was embarrassed, became disreputable, and fell into the hands of the most vicious of the community, and prepared the way for the subsequent calamitous events which then followed in quick succession.
Afterwards, however, in the time of Justinian, interest again came to be legally recognized, and was fixed at the third of one per cent, monthly, which amounted to four per cent, per annum, though higher interest was allowed to be taken of merchants, be- cause there the risk was greater. Among the Romans, usury was treated, during most periods of their history, as an aggravated species of theft, and was punished with the utmost severity. The punishment of theft was only a for- feiture of double the value of the thing stolen; whereas in usury, the criminal was punished by condemnation, and forfeiture of four times the value of the usury taken : "Majores nostri sic habuerunt, et ita legibiis posuerunt, furem dupli condemnari foerter- ' Tac. Annal, lib. 6, c. 4. ^ Tac. Annul, lib. 6. ' Br. Thomas Wilson — Bis. on Usury.
THE LATIN FATHERS. 29 atorem quadrupli"^ And the law in this respect, seems to have been grounded on reasons of state;