[Footnote 164: Primo xii. Tabulis sancitum est ne quis
unciario foenore amplius exerceret, (Tacit. Annal. vi. 16.)
Pour peu (says Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxii. 22)
qu'on soit verse dans l'histoire de Rome, on verra qu'une
pareille loi ne devoit pas etre l'ouvrage des decemvirs.
Was Tacitus ignorant - or stupid? But the wiser and more
virtuous patricians might sacrifice their avarice to their
ambition, and might attempt to check the odious practice by
such interest as no lender would accept, and such penalties
as no debtor would incur.
Note: The real nature of the foenus unciarium has been
proved; it amounted in a year of twelve months to ten per
cent. See, in the Magazine for Civil Law, by M. Hugo, vol.
v. p. 180, 184, an article of M. Schrader, following up the
conjectures of Niebuhr, Hist. Rom. tom. ii. p. 431. - W.
Compare a very clear account of this question in the
appendix to Mr. Travers Twiss's Epitome of Niebuhr, vol. ii.
p. 257. - M.]