The Romans didn’t just worship money; they weaponized credit in ways that feel eerily contemporary. They had banks, bankers, mortgages, and speculative real estate bubbles. And, in 33 CE, they experienced what McWilliams calls “the world’s first credit crisis.”
Emperor Tiberius was enjoying semi-retirement in Capri when news of an alleged coup shattered his peace. A young pretender named Sejanus had rallied senators and aristocrats to overthrow him. Tiberius, shrewd and ruthless, smoked out the conspirators.
Once he identified the traitors, he had Sejanus killed — and took things even further.
“Shaken by the sheer number of senators prepared to betray him, Tiberius moved against them in the place it hurt them most: their pockets,” McWilliams writes. The Senate, it turned out, was running a massive lending racket, borrowing at low rates in Rome and lending across the provinces at usurious rates. Tiberius passed a law forcing senators to keep a percentage of their income in Italian lands, which meant they had to dump their speculative provincial properties immediately. Land prices collapsed. Debts remained. Balance sheets imploded.
“The empire of credit was in the middle of a property boom, the treasury was full, and low interest rates had pushed up land prices,” writes McWilliams. Then it all seized up. Banks called in loans. Romans hoarded gold and silver. Liquidity vanished. The resulting panic spread throughout the system —landowners had to sell prime real estate in Rome and Capri to cover reckless investments in Syria and Egypt. It was 2008, but with togas.