Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian and politician, was born around 56 A.D. In his book Annals, he described some economic dislocation that occurred in Rome around 33 AD. Read these two paragraphs slowly. Anything ring a bell? Sound at all familiar? It’s always, always, always the same when too much debt accumulates. Eventually, the house of cards collapses.
Meanwhile a vast host of accusers fell upon those who had increased their wealth by lending at interest, under a law enacted by Gaius Caesar the Dictator regulating the terms of lending money and holding property within Italy — long disregarded, because public advantage is sacrificed to private profit. For at first debt had grown through usury; then, when wealth had passed into the hands of a few, even those of moderate means slipped into poverty.
From this arose a scarcity of money, all debts being called in at once; and because, with so many condemned and their estates sold, the coined silver was being retained in the imperial treasury or the public exchequer. Moreover, the senate had ordered that each creditor should invest two-thirds of his capital in land throughout Italy. But creditors demanded payment in full, and it was thought dishonorable for debtors to diminish their credit by requesting reduction; thus payments were begun indiscriminately, and because borrowing was impossible, many were driven to ruin.