Whilst Cato was almost the only really great man, virtue was then on the wane, and genius becoming more and more rare. The moneyed interest also in those days was already of great importance. Since the acquisition of Sicily, there had been a wide field opened for employment of capital; people went into the provinces to make their fortunes. In Rome, as by canon law, it was forbidden to take interest; yet the prohibition was unavailing, as ways and means were sought out of evading it. As in the middle ages business was done through the Jews, so in Rome it was carried on by means of foreigners and freedmen; and it was still more easily managed in the provinces, where there were none of these checks. And when the property (_publicum_) of the Roman state had grown immensely great, it became the custom to lease it out in single lots, such as the mines of Spain, the tithes of Sicily or Illyricum, or the tunny-fisheries on the Sardinian coast; so that those who farmed them made enormous profits, and many suddenly found themselves rich, as people now do by stock-jobbing. If a war-contribution were laid on a state, there was immediately a _publicanus_ at hand, who advanced the money at twelve per cent. at the very lowest, but often at twenty-four, and even at thirty-six per cent.: the governors of the provinces then helped him to get paid. Thus a reckless circulation of money began, of which there had never been a trace before. The first signs of the class of the _publicani_ are to be met with in Livy as early as in the war with Hannibal, and there are rather more in the decade which follows; these men did not, however, gain their extraordinary influence until nearly a hundred years afterwards, when in the nature and extent of their wealth they form a counterpart to the fortunes of the eighteenth century.