Credit Instruments not a Modern Invention-Early Forms of Banking in Assyria, Greece, and Rome-The Baked Clay Tablets of Babylonia-Survival of Banking Methods at Constantinople— Origin of the Word "Bank "-Beginnings of the Bank of Venice -The Tax Farmers and Financiers of the Middle Ages-The Prohibition of Loans at Interest and the Functions of the Jews.

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HE mechanism of credit dates back to the civilizations of antiquity. It was much more fully developed in Assyria and Babylon than in early Greece and Rome, and after its development in the latter countries during their periods of military and commercial ascendancy suffered a new eclipse during the interruption of communications in the Dark Ages. It was left, however, for the sixteenth century of our era to develop the bank note in something like its modern form, and for the nineteenth century to spread its use over the civilized world.

Assyria, as early as the seventh and even the ninth century before Christ, possessed a system of commercial instruments, which included promissory notes, bills of exchange, and transfer checks, not unlike the modern bank check. this system was in operation before the use of coined money, these documents usually stipulated for the payment of a

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given weight of silver or copper.' They were inscribed, not on paper, but on small clay tablets about the size of a piece of toilet soap. After the contract had been written in the soft earth, it was baked so as to render it unalterable and indestructible. Such a form of document naturally could not be subjected to endorsement or acceptance, like modern commercial paper; but this defect was supplied by the presence of witnesses, usually having a religious or legal authority. The original was placed for safety in either the temple or the record chamber of the city, enclosed in a clay envelope or case, while copies went to one or both the contracting parties. Many of these documents, preserved in the British Museum, are records of deeds and the partition of real estate, but some involve loans of silver at interest, and these become numerous in the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabopolassar (625-604 B. C.).'

While the Athenians and Romans were in some respects less advanced in the mechanism of credit than the Eastern peoples, their surviving records are more complete. The first of the Greek bankers referred to in history is Philostephanos, who had the honor of receiving into his custody at Corinth a deposit of seventy talents from the hands of Themistokles. The bankers of Athens were among the most powerful in Greece, and the son of the banker Pasion was able to boast that he could borrow where he would, at Lampsakos, at Phasos, at Tenedos, or elsewhere, because he was the son of Pasion. The first Athenian bankers, however, were not citizens, but freedmen of Corinthian and Ionian bankers who had shown skill and acquired wealth at Athens as the agents of their employers. Wealth did not throw down social barriers for them until evidence of their patriotism was afforded by loans at low rates to the state

1 Vide forms of these contracts in Lenormant, La Monnaie dans l'Antiquité, I., 114-117.

Lenormant, I., 118.

3 British Museum: Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities, 1900174-176.