Tacitus says, that the uncial rate of interest was introduced by the twelve tables: Livy represents it as establisht in 393 (398) in consequence of a rogation. Now it is clear, that the Licinian law cannot have found the interest limited, for the merciless usurers would without fail have extorted a far higher interest than the law allowed, and then nothing more would have been necessary, than to leave to the debtors the fourfold fine forfeited to the state. However, it does not seem credible, that Tacitus, who was by no means indifferent to the antiquities of Roman history, should not have read the twelve tables; and to say that he quoted them carelessly, violates the reverence due to his memory. The supposition, that an enactment of the twelve tables had fallen into disuse, and that therefore its renewal had become necessary, whereby a commentator worthy of all honour endeavoured to reconcile the two historians, seems inconceivable to me; the time down to the general prevalence of debts before the Licinian law is too short for that: but that law might perhaps have been expressly repealed. Its existence in the twelve tables is supported by the state of things before the Gallic time, when not the slightest complaint is heard of oppressive interest: moreover it is clear, that without an interest fixt by law there could not have been the punishment of the fourfold fine for usurers; and Cato, who unquestionably knew the twelve tables by heart, places this as a part of the legislation of his same ancestors by the side of the twofold fine for theft.