Found this on Nat Geo, old business & commerce docs found with inscriptions of Denarii owed and other everyday things for average people instead of emperors. A fun read. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...m-Bloomberg-archaeology-Boudicca-archaeology/ Hopefully some other news sites report on this find with new photos and other writings.
Great article Mat, I really enjoyed it. If I had to choose another career I would not mind doing that for a living.
Enjoyable article, thanks for sharing. I note with dismay that I don't own enough denarii to pay off Tibullus's debt. I need more coins!
"I, Tibullus, the freedman of Venustus have written and say that I owe Gratus, the freedman of Spurius, 105 denarii from the price of merchandise which has been sold and delivered …" For the modern legal perspective, that is what we would call today "account stated" and would be a fairly straight forward case to prove should it go to court in light of the evidence. I hope this was not the ancient equivalent of a dead beat debtor. I hear the Romans didn't believe in bankruptcy and I imagine their methods of recovering were probably barbaric by today's standards (ie. selling yourself as a gladiator to pay your debts).
Thank you for sharing this! Mary Beard in her book SPQR speculated that there was possibly some form of sophisticated 'paper transactions' that underpinned the Roman financial economy. In other words, the Romans didn't cart around 'truck loads' of denarii to pay for houses and other large purchases. These 'IOU' tablets go a long way to show she may be correct.
Yup, been watching her for several years. Have to download the stuff though. I also watch Bettany Hughes & Suzannah Lipscomb specials as well.
