It is told of Caesar that as a very young man he owed a sum equivalent to about L280,000; of Crassus that he had 200 million sesterces invested in land alone.[99] Cicero, though from time to time in difficulties, always found it possible to borrow the large sums which he spent on houses, libraries, etc.

These are men of the ordo senatorius; of the equites proper, the men who dealt rather in lending than borrowing, we have not such explicit accounts, because they were not in the same degree before the public.

But of Atticus, the type of the best and highest section of the ordo equester, and of the amount and the sources of his wealth, we happen to know a good deal from the little biography of him written by his contemporary and friend Cornelius Nepos, taken together with Cicero's numerous letters to him.

His father had left him the moderate fortune of L16,000.

With this he bought land, not in Italy but in Epirus, where it was probably to be had cheap.