Page 49 - Pompeii n. 12 - The world of money at Pompeii

English version

Comment

The inscription is written by a woman who fell into financial difficulties,
forcing her to pawn a pair of earrings to a usurer, Faustilla, to guarantee a
loan.
From the evaluation of the possession which was two denarii, or 32
asses, Faustilla kept one as for herself at a premium, corresponding to one
thirtieth of the rounded-up sum and gave 31 asses to the creditor.
The monthly interest rates for the pledge are therefore 3.3%, competitive
with respect to 3.75%, the equivalent to 45% of that annually granted by
Faustilla and the others (see CIL IV 4528).
It should be noted that, as another inscription located in the same room
informs us (CIL IV 8204), a few days earlier, on the fourth of July, a cloak
and a hood had gone down the same route of Faustilla, a woman well known
in Pompeii for loaning and usury but under different names and disguises.
Each time and place Faustilla, speculating on the demands and needs of
others, managed to gain high rates of interest and thus evidently performed
the same role in Pompeii in the 1st century AD as performed by the modern
"Mounts of Piety” or institutional pawnbrokers.

NAPLES, NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM. Earrings found in a small chest together
with a coin hoard in the House of Menandro. Inv. 145483; Inv. 145484. ©SBAN.

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