Loans on Interest

Although interest could not be recovered on the contract of mutuum for money loaned, it is not to be supposed that the Romans were in the habit of lending money without interest. In the case of a loan of money interest was provided for by a second contract in addition to the principal contract of mutuum, the agreement to pay interest being made by the verbal contract of stipulation.

The lender would ask the borrower "Will you pay me such and such monthly interest?" and the borrower would answer in the affirmative, and thus become liable to pay the agreed interest, not on the real contract of mutuum, but on the verbal contract of stipulation.

Stipulation was always required in the case pf loans of money, but in later times an informal agreement for the payment of interest was enforced in the case of a loan of fungibles other than money.

The Romans always had a hatred for usury and usurers, and the amount of interest that could be charged was carefully regulated. The Twelve Tables fixed the legal rate at 1/12 of the principal per annum (or some authorities say 12 per centum. Muirhead, 91 note), and a lender who exacted more than the legal rate was liable in fourfold damages.

The rate was afterwards reduced to 1/24 of the principal, and by the lex Genucia (B. C. 340) interest was prohibited altogether. Notwithstanding this legislation, the recognized maximum rate of interest from the close of the Republic was 1% a month or 12% per annum.

Justinian finally fixed a scale of interest rates varying from 4% per annum to agriculturists and high personages to 12% on maritime loans. To ordinary persons not in business the rate was 6%, and to merchants and other business men 8%.

A contract for the payment of excessive interest was void only as to the excess. Interest was computed by the month, but was not necessarily paid monthly. Compound interest (interest upon interest) was not allowed. Arrears of interest could be recovered only to the amount of the principal debt.

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Effects of Marriage with Manus

By the strict marriage the wife passed into the marital power of her husband {in manum viri). The manus or marital power may be regarded as a particular form of the patria potestas. An uxor in manu was a member of her husband's household. Although called a materfamilias, this term did not have a meaning corresponding to the term paterfamilias. The wife was not the head of the family. She stood legally in the position of a daughter {in loco filiafamilias) of her husband. If she had children she was regarded as a sister of her own children. The relation of husband and wife, both as regards the wife's person and her property, was governed by the same rules of law as governed the relation of father and child. The law of husband and wife may, therefore, be considered as merely a particular branch of the law of parent and child. The husband had, in general, the same power over the person of his wife in manu as the father had over his child. Anciently, it may be suppo...
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Slavery by Birth

The children of a female slave became the slaves of her master. The status of the father as free or slave was immaterial. The general rule governing the determination of the status of a child, whether as free or slave, or as citizen or alien, was as follows : Children born in lawful wedlock had the status of the father at the moment of conception, children born out of wedlock had the status of the mother at the moment of birth. Hence if the father of a child of a lawful marriage was free at the moment of conception, the child was free although the father should subsequently lose his freedom. As to children born out of wedlock, the general rule, as above stated, was that it was the status of the mother at the moment of birth that determined the status of the child. If the mother was free at the moment of conception but a slave at the moment of birth, the child was a slave, and conversely. This was the earlier law, but the rule was modified in the interest of liber...
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Mandate (Mandatum)

Mandate (mandatum) was a contract by which one person mandatarius agreed to do something gratuitously at the request of another mandator , who, on his part, agreed to save him harmless from all loss in so doing. The mandator was said to give the mandatory a mandate, or commission to do the act in question. The term mandatum is sometimes translated "agency", but this translation is misleading. The mandatory is not properly described as an agent. Mandate was the only gratuitous consensual contract; the others, sale, hiring, and partnership, all being founded upon a consideration. Like the others, it was a bona fidei negotium , and bound the parties to do all that was required by good faith. It was of the essence of the contract of mandate that the mandatory should act gratuitously. But while this was true in a strict legal sense, it was allowed to agree upon a sum to be paid as a honorium , or salary, which might be recovered only by a special action and not b...
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