Sublime

Jews were therefore street peddlers and merchants, as well as moneylenders, a profession they were permitted largely because it allowed the Christian ruling class to keep this ungodly activity at arm’s length.

Whilst the kings were ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce.

At the other end of the scale history reports that “the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.”34 So the bankers, watching the trends in agriculture, industry, and trade, inviting and directing the flow of capital, putting our money doubly and trebly to work, controlling loans

Yet Duveen told his doubting friends, “Not only will Mellon buy from me but he will buy only from me.” For several years he tracked his prey, learning the man’s habits, tastes, phobias. To do this, he secretly put several of Mellon’s staff on his own payroll, worming valuable information out of them. By the time he moved into action, he knew Mellon

Julius Caesar, the last dictator of the Roman Republic, created the aureus coin, which contained around 8 grams of gold and was widely accepted across Europe and the Mediterranean, increasing the scope of trade and specialization in the Old World.

Clodius’ subsequent reputation for outright villainy has been almost entirely formed by Cicero’s enmity. He has gone down in history as the mad patrician who not only arranged to be adopted into a plebeian family in order to stand for the tribunate but also put two fingers up to the whole process by choosing an adoptive father younger than himself.