Note 914 — Chapter XIII · THE FORM-WORLD OF ECONOMIC LIFE (A) MONEY

Thus it is only since 1770 that the banks have become centres of an economic power which made its first intervention with politics at the Congress of Vienna. Till then the banker had in the main concerned himself with bill business. The Chinese, and even the Egyptian, banks had a different significance, and the Classical banks, even in the Rome of Cæsar’s day, may best be described as cash-tills. They collected the yield of taxes in cash, and lent cash against replacement; thus the temples, with their stock of precious metal in the form of votive offerings, became “banks.” The temple of Delos, through several centuries, lent at ten per cent.