§412. Professions and Trades.--The professions and trades, between which the Romains made no distinction, in the last years of the Republic were practically given over to the _lībertīnī_ (§175) and to foreigners. Of some of these something has been said already. Teachers were poorly paid (§121), and usually looked upon with contempt. Physicians were held in no higher esteem, but seem to have been well paid, if we may judge from those that were attached to the court. Two of these left a joint estate of $1,000,000, and another received from the Emperor Claudius a yearly stipend of $25,000. In knowledge and skill in both surgery and medicine they do not seem to have been much behind the practitioners of two centuries ago. Bankers united money changing with money loaning. The former was very necessary in a city into which came all the coins of the known world; the latter was never looked upon as entirely respectable for a Roman, but there can be no doubt that many a Roman of the highest respectability drew large profits from this business, carried on discreetly in the name of a freedman. The trades were early organized at Rome in guilds, but their only purpose seems to have been to hand down and perfect the technique of the crafts; at least there was no obstacle in the way of workmen not belonging to the guilds, and there were no such things known as patents or special privileges in the way of work. Eight of these guilds are older than history, those of the fullers, cobblers, carpenters, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, potters, dyers, and (oddly enough) the fluteblowers. Numerous others were formed as knowledge of the arts advanced or the division of labor proceeded. Special parts of the city seem to have been appropriated by special classes of workmen, as like businesses are apt to be carried on in the same neighborhood in our cities: Cicero speaks of a street of the Scythemakers.