We can find no trace of any legal prohibition of usury in ancient Greece.  Although Solon’s laws contained many provisions for the relief of poor debtors, they did not forbid the taking of interest, nor did they limit the rate of interest that might be taken.[1] In Rome the Twelve Tables fixed a maximum rate of interest, which was probably ten or twelve per cent, per annum, but which cannot be determined with certainty owing to the doubtful signification of the expression ‘unciarum foenus.’  The legal rate of interest was gradually reduced until the year 347 B.C., when five per cent, was fixed as a maximum.  In 342 B.C. interest was forbidden altogether by the Genucian Law; but this law, though never repealed, was in practice quite inoperative owing to the facility with which it could be evaded; and consequently the oppression of borrowers was prevented by the enactment, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the general recognition, of a maximum rate of interest of twelve per cent. per annum.  This maximum rate—­the Centesima—­remained in operation until the time of Justinian.[2] Justinian, who was under the influence of Christian teaching, and who might therefore be expected to have regarded usury with unfavourable eyes, fixed the following maximum rates of interest—­maritime loans twelve per cent.; loans to ordinary persons, not in business, six per cent.; loans to high personages (illustres) and agriculturists, four per cent.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Cleary, The Church and Usury, p. 21.]

[Footnote 2:  Hunter, Roman Law, pp. 652-53; Cleary, op. cit., pp. 22-6; Roscher, Political Economy, s. 90.]

[Footnote 3:  Code 4, 32, 26, 1.]

While the taking of interest was thus approved or tolerated by Greek and Roman law, it was at the same time reprobated by the philosophers of both countries.  Plato objects to usury because it tends to set one class, the poor or the borrowers, against another, the rich or the lenders; and goes so far as to make it wrong for the borrower to repay either the principal or interest of his debt.  He further considers that the profession of the usurer is to be despised, as it is an illiberal and debasing way of making money.[1] While Plato therefore disapproves in no ambiguous words of usury, he does not develop the philosophical bases of his objection, but is content to condemn it rather for its probable ill effects than on account of its inherent injustice.

[Footnote 1:  Laws, v. ch. 11-13.]

Aristotle condemns usury because it is the most extreme and dangerous form of chrematistic acquisition, or the art of making money for its own sake.  As we have seen above, in discussing the legitimacy of commerce, buying cheap and selling dear was one form of chrematistic acquisition, which could only be justified by the presence of certain motives; and usury, according to the philosopher, was a still more striking example