By Daniel Gallagher

A world-renowned classicist is alleged to have telephoned his university's human-resources department, desperate to know whether his retirement account was a 401(k) or a 403(b). It was the latter. "Thank God!" the don exclaimed. " '401' is a terribly inauspicious number! King Alaric crossed the Alps that year!"

True or not, this episode likely speaks volumes to the average classics professor's knowledge of finance. Indeed, ancient economics hasn't been an area of serious scholarship until recently; not long ago graduate students studying their Loeb Ciceros had little to go on but outdated footnotes indicating the 1930 conversion rate of denarii to pounds sterling. That wasn't too much of a problem, though, since all you needed to know to pass comprehensive exams was that Martial was dirt poor, Crassus filthy rich and Julius Caesar either dirt poor or filthy rich depending on the year.

Today there are plenty of erudite books on economics in the ancient world -- the "Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World" (2007), for example, is a superb resource. What we lacked was a straightforward presentation of primary texts accompanied by limited commentary for the nonspecialist. In "How to Make Money: An Ancient Guide to Wealth Management," Luca Grillo, a professor of classics at the University of Notre Dame, has consulted "Pliny & Co." to create one.

Fans of Wendell Berry and Victor Davis Hanson will be glad to know the book begins where it should, with farming. As the word pecunia suggests -- "cattle" lead to "money" -- agriculture "remained the ideal and the measure of individual success" even after Rome achieved economic superiority in the Mediterranean. Mr. Grillo includes advice from Cato the Elder on how to buy and prepare land, and from the elder Pliny on how to optimize production.

Over time, commerce and banking became lucrative opportunities for social advancement in the ancient world. Roman coins unearthed in China, Ghana, Nigeria and Scandinavia show just how far traders were willing to travel to obtain luxury items such as pepper, peacocks and frankincense. Banks sprang up in temples and forums all over the empire to supply capital for these burgeoning businesses. Though Cato inveighed against moneylending, he himself was not immune, even in a "most shameful way, that is, on maritime loans," as Plutarch later tells us. Such loans on sea cargo were risky; as Mr. Grillo explains, shipowners "bore the entire risk of damage or loss of the ship," but if "cargo was lost for unforeseeable causes, such as a shipwreck or piracy," the loss fell to the lender.

Taxation issues are eternal -- Mr. Grillo distinguishes between the various types of Roman taxes and examines the "power of the publicani," those professional tax collectors associated in the Gospels with prostitutes and sinners. The author includes a fascinating letter from Cicero to his brother Quintus, governor of the Roman province of Asia, advising him to use his "quasi-divine wisdom" to identify how best to handle complaints from the provincials about the abuses of the publicani while also ensuring that Rome received sufficient revenues.

"I'm not that proud of my philanthropy," the investor Charlie Munger said in a 2020 interview. "I regard it as an absolute minimum duty for somebody who's reasonably successful to be reasonably generous." The Romans could hardly have agreed more; Mr. Grillo includes Suetonius' commemoration of Julius Caesar's lavish public entertainments and Martial's verse on the unsurpassed marvel of the Colosseum, built for public use in the very spot where Nero had constructed a luxurious lake for his personal enjoyment. "Rome," wrote Martial, "is being returned to herself, and under [the emperor Titus'] rule . . . what used to delight a single master now delights all people."

Freedom was not among the many ideas Rome bequeathed to America. Human trafficking was rampant. A compendium of Roman law created under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the sixth century defined "prostitute" as a woman who "openly practices prostitution not only when she has put herself for sale in a brothel, but also if she regularly does so in a tavern or if she has no regard for her dignity in any other place." Mr. Grillo explains, "the discriminating factor was the absence of free will, " available neither to free nor enslaved prostitutes.

Any entrepreneurial venture could lead to financial ruin, far from uncommon in the ancient world. Plutarch chronicles the ascent and decline of Marcus Licinius Crassus, whose very name became synonymous with wealth and greed. Crassus, Mr. Grillo explains, rarely passed up an investment opportunity, including his last: an immense military campaign against the Parthians in Syria that cost his son's life and his own.

Mr. Grillo's thoughtful selections and lucid translations are accompanied by the original Greek and Latin texts as well as his informative commentary. Measuring less than 5 inches by 7 inches and weighing little more than your smartphone, his book is but one of several gems in the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series from Princeton University Press -- highly useful to readers looking to brush up their rusty memories or to learn an ancient language for the first time. I never thought I'd be able to combine my career in Latin with my growing interest in finance and investing. Then again, I never thought I'd be interested in the difference between a 401(k) and a 403(b).

--Mr. Gallagher is a lecturer in literature and philosophy at Ralston College.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 03, 2025 15:01 ET (19:01 GMT)

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