Page 24 - Pompeii n. 12 - The world of money at Pompeii

English version

During the 1875 excavations in the home of the "banker" Lucius Caecilius
Iucundus. Entrance., the discovery of a series of wax tablets provided
extraordinary documentation on the use of credit for some types of economic
transactions and activities.
Wax tablets were a common writing tool in the ancient world: the text was
engraved on a rectangular tablet coated with wax with a pointed instrument
(the stilus). Depending on the length of the document, several tablets could
be tied up and used together. The devastating effects of the Vesuvius
eruption charred the tablets, allowing them to be read, albeit with
considerable difficulties of decipherment.
153 documents were recovered showing receipts (apochae) issued to
Iucundus in front of witnesses for the sums paid by him to buyers in auctions
or private citizens for small transactions. The receipts show the name of the
seller and in one case the buyer, sometimes the object of the sale, the names
of witnesses and the amount paid by the "banker". These are mostly modest
sums, sometimes a few hundred sesterces (the highest of all is 38,000
sesterces), confirming that the citizens benefitting from this service belonged
to the middle class, medium-sized merchants or landowners.

The use of Capital

CIL IV 3340, X

_ _ _ _
hs n. XXXV

MMMLXXCIIII

quae pecunia in sti

pulatam L. Caecili

Iucundi venit

ob auctione(m) M.
Lucre

ti Leri [mer]cede
quinquagesima

minu[s]

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