In the previous section we described the birth of money in ancient Greece. Today we will move to the Roman Empire, where banking was thriving. How does blockchain relate to all this? You'll understand in a moment. Roman bankers appeared on the stage of history quite early, as early as the 3rd century BC. Importantly, bankers were not despised by the Romans (as was the case in Greece). Despite this, it was dealt with by ecclesiastics, or members of the - as we would say today - middle class. The elite were even forbidden this type of activity, which by the way must have pleased the former, because it reduced concreteness. As a consequence, the equites even began to surpass the elite in wealth. The latter did not like very much the more influential social strata and to what they reacted by creating laws that limited the possibilities of the "acquisitive". Doesn't this sound suspiciously familiar to you? But let's move on, to a description of the Roman financial system and banking. The financial market is born Roman bankers conducted their business in the Forum, near the temple of Castor and Pollux. It was there that all purchase and sale transactions or currency exchanges were made (it was such an ancient BitBay). As a matter of fact, going there was in a very good tone among business people. An entrepreneur who appeared on the Forum showed that he didn't have to hide from anyone, so he was solvent, and nobody pursued him for debts. We can also say that being in this place was for the ancient Romans like having a Facebook account today... Everyone can see where you are, you don't have to hide from people you owe money to. In short: you are credible. (We write this with a grain of salt, of course.) Bankers on the Forum - as we have already mentioned - made various transactions, such as giving loans or exchanging currency. And here we come to blockchain technology. As we have written in previous parts of this series, the history of recording and storing data is very long. The ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks and Romans have already thought about how to do it in the best possible way. Each banker had to keep two types of account books. In one, the adversarium, or ledger, all possible operations were recorded in chronological order. Then they were transferred to the general ledger. In the latter each client had his own account with a division into debit and credit sides (just as today everyone in a bank has his own account). The Romans also used double-entry bookkeeping in a sense, that is, they guaranteed the customer a confirmation of the transaction. Although today it seems obvious to us and most of you either don't walk away from a cash register without an account when making a more expensive purchase or, on the contrary, ignore such a triviality as a piece of paper that confirms the purchase of a couple of rolls for 5 zloty, back then it must have been something really big and important. Bankers also had to present their ledgers in court when requested by the authorities. The entry in the ledger was considered evidence in a case, which is also a very important element in the development of civilization. Probably in some time we will be delighted by the openness to technological innovations of more countries, which recognize records on the blockchain network as evidence in cases. A key element, however, was still the customer's signature. Roman bankers also respected digital money to some degree. What do we mean? After all, it was not uncommon for them to make settlements between clients by changing ledger entries, with no real participation or transfer of cash. There was also no banking monopoly in Rome. The banking of the state was mainly related to the collection of taxes. Roman law and finance Roman law also regulated financial markets. It distinguished between two types of loans. Nexum was a very strict loan that allowed even selling the debtor if he did not pay back the debt. Over time, mutum loans - a type of informal credit - were introduced. Soon loans were also introduced that prohibited selling people for debt. The debtor could no longer be imprisoned, tortured or killed, which must be considered an unquestionable civilizing development. Interestingly, it was still possible to sell children for debts. This was only forbidden by Theodosius the Great in the 4th century AD. Bankers outside Rome But how did the financial system work outside the capital of the empire? Historians believe, quite logically, that it was much worse there. Some light on the matter, however, is shed by the House of Cecilius Yucundus of Pompeii. Cecilius was the local banker and he preserved for posterity as many as 153 documents, which can give us an idea of how the financial system worked in that city. This banker had his own blockchain - these 153 documents were stored in a wooden box, which our hero hid on the upper floor of his house. The main text was scratched in wax, which covered a wooden plate with dimensions of 10 by 12 cm (many of these plates were connected with string to form a kind of book). Wax would no longer be seen today
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