The work of the Stock Exchange

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. Organized security markets and their economic functions

Collection:: Economics Books

31 The Roman Forum.—Such, too, was the origin of the oreat Forum of Rome, the most famous spot in classical an- tiquity. (Plate 2.) For half a thousand years all European ~ivilization was ruled from this place. But long before there was any Roman state and while the Romans were still a small and struggling provincial people, this forum had been a market place for cattle. Before the dawn of history the Campagnian peasant drove his herds into what was later destined to be the political center of the world, to barter them for the goods of other traders who also congregated there. There being no currency, goods were at first valued according to the number of cattle they sold for—a custom which was responsible for the derivation of the Latin word pecunia (money) from pecus "a herd). But the most remarkable thing about the Roman Forum is that it came again to perform its original function. Cen- turies have passed since the fall of the Roman Empire. The temples, the triumphal arches, the rostra with the war beaks of ‘he captured fleets of Carthage where Cicero and Antony spoke —all these former symbols of the might of Rome have largely disappeared. The Forum today is a forlorn and desolate spot, marked only by shattered masonry and broken columns. The Roman people itself as a racial entity has long since ceased to exist. But until comparatively recent times the Forum again served as a cattle market—the campo wvaccino, as the Italians called it—into which the Campagnian peasants again drove their cattle to sell. Thus this spot between the seven hills of Rome, which started as a cattle market, then became the polit- ical center of the world, and finally reverted again to a cattle market, affords a striking illustration of how deeply rooted and fundamental market places often are to mankind. ORGANIZED SECURITY MARKETS Marketing in Imperial Rome.—The purchase and sale of debts and money were conducted in imperial Rome, and per- haps even earlier in republican Athens. It is interesting to note that even in ancient Rome the financial and commercial

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