A financial and economic crisis occurred in 33 CE in the Roman Empire, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. After a shift in government policy and a series of confiscations reduced the Roman money supply, the crisis was triggered by the invocation of an old law which resulted in the early recalls of loans given, a credit crunch, and a crash of real estate prices. The crisis was eventually resolved with a liquidity injection in form of interest-free loans.
According to Tacitus's Annals , Julius Caesar had passed a law in 49 BCE which regulated usury, requiring lenders to possess a certain quantity of farmland in Italy. The law had been passed as a wartime measure to prevent capital flight from Italy, but it had been largely ignored. [1] : 336 During the early reign of Augustus, the Roman government significantly expanded the money supply through cash handouts, extensive public works projects, and acquisition of Italian agricultural land for veterans to settle (these being partly funded by Egypt's treasury). As a result, interest rates fell significantly, from around 12 to 4 percent per annum. [2] [3]
However, later in his reign, public investment declined, and his successor Tiberius exacerbated the reduction through his frugal spending. [2] The Roman government ran a significant budget surplus throughout Tiberius's reign and accumulated large fiscal reserves. [4] Despite the stagnating money supply, gold and silver coins flowed out from the Roman Empire to pay for imports of luxury goods, especially from India. [5] Following the arrest and execution of Sejanus in 31 CE, his followers were prosecuted and their assets seized for the benefit of the Roman state. [6] Additionally, several major business houses had become bankrupt due to external events and a bank run had occurred when a banking house failed with other banks refusing to bail it out. [7] These events resulted in a general decline in prices of real estate and agricultural land, prompting the Roman government to intervene. [6]
In 33 CE, Roman courts began to enforce Caesar's law and prosecute a number of citizens who were in violation. When the matter was brought to the Roman Senate and to Emperor Tiberius, it was decided that an eighteen month grace period would be granted for lenders to adjust their holdings to follow the legal requirement. Tacitus wrote, likely in exaggeration, that all senators were in violation of the law. This order resulted in a rapid contraction of the money supply due to a large number of loans being called early by the lenders. In an attempt to alleviate the crisis, moneylenders were ordered to purchase an increased proportion of Italian agricultural land in a recreation of Caesar's law, but this only exacerbated the crisis as the sudden demand for cash resulted in more loans being called and fire sales of real estate to meet those loans. A number of banks in Rome and across the empire began to fail, with the ensuing credit crunch significantly driving up interest rates. With prices rapidly declining, those holding cash also opted to delay purchases in hopes of securing even lower prices. [3] [6] [7] [8] Economic historians M.K. Thornton and R.L. Thornton theorised that, due to the relatively long gap between the cessation of significant public spending and the crisis, many slaveowners expended their cash reserves in maintaining the underemployed slaves' basic needs, further worsening the crisis. [9]
The crisis was resolved following a government intervention, with Tiberius appointing a commission of five senators who could provide interest-free loans to landowners in financial distress for a period of three years. A sum of 100 million sesterces was allocated for this program and the loans were secured with agricultural land twice the loan's amount. [10] [7] Tiberius's successor, Caligula, resumed the extensive state expenditures through public works projects after he took power in 37 CE. [9]
The financial crisis was recorded by several Roman authors, including Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio. [11] Their accounts of the crisis were relatively brief, [3] with Tacitus's account being the most detailed of the three. [12] Thornton and Thornton pointed out how most Roman-era writers were uninterested in economics yet their accounts of the crisis were quite sophisticated, and concluded that the crisis must have had a significant impression at the time. [13] Modern scholarship of the crisis is based on the accounts of the Roman authors, with Tenney Frank's 1935 article in the American Journal of Philology being the generally accepted modern summary. [11] Frank's 1935 article on the crisis was written in the midst of the Great Depression, when Keynesian economics was a new concept and the general consensus blamed a monetary contraction for the malaise. [14] Later modern scholars developed further theories on the causes of the crisis; historian Michael Crawford, for example, focused more on currency outflows due to trade deficits instead of reduced state expenditures under Tiberius. [13]
The crisis has been compared to the 2007–2008 financial crisis, authors drawing parallels on the real estate aspect of the crisis and the subsequent government intervention. [3] [6] [15] Historian Colin P. Elliott pointed out that interest in the 33 AD crisis increased in the aftermath of multiple modern crises, including the Great Depression, the 1973 oil crisis, the 1987 Black Monday, and the 2007–2008 financial crisis. [16]
(Vipsania) Agrippina the Elder was a prominent member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Augustus' daughter, Julia the Elder. Her brothers Lucius and Gaius Caesar were the adoptive sons of Augustus, and were his heirs until their deaths in AD 2 and 4, respectively. Following their deaths, her second cousin Germanicus was made the adoptive son of Tiberius, Augustus' stepson, as part of the succession scheme in the adoptions of AD 4. As a result of the adoption, Agrippina was wed to Germanicus in order to bring him closer to the Julian family.
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy.
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known by his nickname Caligula, was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in AD 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Agrippina the Elder, members of the first ruling family of the Roman Empire. He was born two years before Tiberius was made emperor. Gaius accompanied his father, mother and siblings on campaign in Germania, at little more than four or five years old. He had been named after Gaius Julius Caesar, but his father's soldiers affectionately nicknamed him "Caligula".
Germanicus Julius Caesar was an ancient Roman general and politician most famously known for his campaigns against Arminius in Germania. The son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia the Younger, Germanicus was born into an influential branch of the patrician gens Claudia. The agnomen Germanicus was added to his full name in 9 BC when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honor of his victories in Germania. In AD 4 he was adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius, himself the stepson and heir of Germanicus' great-uncle Augustus; ten years later, Tiberius succeeded Augustus as Roman emperor. As a result of his adoption, Germanicus became an official member of the gens Julia, another prominent family, to which he was related on his mother's side. His connection to the Julii Caesares was further consolidated through a marriage between him and Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of Augustus. He was also the father of Caligula, the maternal grandfather of Nero, and the older brother of Claudius.
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his wife, Livia Drusilla. In 38 BC, Tiberius's mother divorced his father and married Augustus. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus's two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus's successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat, and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier.
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Lucius Aelius Sejanus, commonly known as Sejanus, was a Roman soldier, friend, and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian Guard, the imperial bodyguard, of which he was commander from AD 14 until his execution for treason in AD 31.
The gens Julia was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the consulship was Gaius Julius Iulus in 489 BC. The gens is perhaps best known, however, for Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator and grand uncle of the emperor Augustus, through whom the name was passed to the so-called Julio-Claudian dynasty of the first century AD. The nomen Julius became very common in imperial times, as the descendants of persons enrolled as citizens under the early emperors began to make their mark in history.
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Drusus Caesar was the grandson by adoption and heir of the Roman emperor Tiberius, alongside his brother Nero. Born into the prominent Julio-Claudian dynasty, Drusus was the son of Tiberius' general and heir, Germanicus.
The Treveri were a Germanic or Celtic tribe of the Belgae group who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle in modern day Germany from around 150 BCE, if not earlier, until their displacement by the Franks. Their domain lay within the southern fringes of the Silva Arduenna, a part of the vast Silva Carbonaria, in what are now Luxembourg, southeastern Belgium and western Germany; its centre was the city of Trier, to which the Treveri give their name. Celtic in language, according to Tacitus they claimed Germanic descent. They contained both Gallic and Germanic influences.
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