Note 192 — Chapter XI · SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION.

In every law to limit the rate of interest, it is of course implied that the law not only ought to fix, but can fix, the maximum rate at which money is to be lent. The tribunes at Rome followed out this proposition with perfect consistency: they passed successive laws for the reduction of the rate of interest, until at length they made it illegal to take any interest at all: “Gemecium, tribunum plebis, tulisse ad populum, ne fœnerari liceret.” (Liv. vii, 42.) History shows that the law, though passed, was not carried into execution.