Catiline came to stay divine vengeance; therefore his conspiracy failed.
The encroachment of large proprietors upon small proprietors, by the aid of usury, farm-rent, and profits of all sorts, was common throughout the empire.

The most honest citizens invested their money at high rates of interest.

[53] Cato, Cicero, Brutus, all the stoics so noted for their frugality, _viri frugi_,--Seneca, the teacher of virtue,--levied enormous taxes in the provinces, under the name of usury; and it is something remarkable, that the last defenders of the republic, the proud Pompeys, were all usurious aristocrats, and oppressors of the poor.
But the battle of Pharsalus, having killed men only, without touching institutions, the encroachments of the large domains became every day more active.

Ever since the birth of Christianity, the Fathers have opposed this invasion with all their might.

Their writings are filled with burning curses upon this crime of usury, of which Christians are not always innocent.
St.Cyprian complains of certain bishops of his time, who, absorbed in disgraceful stock-jobbing operations, abandoned their churches, and went about the provinces appropriating lands by artifice and fraud, while lending money and piling up interests upon interests.