Ancient World Research Cluster Lunchtime Talk: "A recently discovered graffito from around 300 BCE and the start of banking in Republican Rome"

Philip Kay will be speaking on the origins of banking in Republican Rome. The first-century BCE authors Livy and Varro point to the presence in Rome at the end of the fourth century BCE of argentariae. By the first century BCE, this word had become the standard Latin term for ‘banks’. But modern scholars have been divided over whether these references are indeed to banks, or to some other kind of institution. Therefore, the recent discovery in Rome of a graffito which apparently dates from around 300 BCE and contains the word argentarius (the first-century BCE term for ‘banker’) may have implications for our understanding of the emergence of a Roman banking system.