We have to take them here as the representatives of capital and the chief uses to which it was put in the age of Cicero; for, as a matter of fact, they were then doing by far the greatest part of the money-making of the Empire.

They were not indeed always doing it for themselves; they often represented men of senatorial rank, and acted as their agents in the investment of money and in securing the returns due.

For the senator was not allowed, by the strict letter of the law, to engage in business which would take him out of Italy;[98] his services were needed at home, and if indeed he had performed his proper work with industry and energy he never could have found time to travel on his own business.

At the time of which we are speaking there were ways in which he could escape from his duties,--ways only too often used; but many senators did undoubtedly employ members of the equestrian order to transact their business abroad, so that it is not untrue to say that the equites had in their hands almost the whole of the monetary business of the Empire.
The property qualification may seem to us small enough, but it is of course no real index to the amount of capital which a wealthy eques might possess.

Nothing is more astonishing in the history of the last century of the republic than the vast sums of money in the hands of individuals, and the enormous sums lent and borrowed in private by the men whose names are familiar to us as statesmen.