How to make money with Pliny & co.

Part XXIX of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series

[Based on How to Make Money: An Ancient Guide to Wealth Management, by Pliny & co., translated by Luca Grillo. Full book series here.]

“Someone once asked Cato about the best investment for one’s estate. ‘Raising cattle successfully,’ he replied. ‘And what comes second?’ ‘Raising them well enough.’ ‘And third?’ ‘Raising them poorly.’ ‘And fourth?’ ‘Cultivating land.’ ‘But’ — added the interlocutor — ‘what about moneylending?’ to which Cato replied, ‘And what about murdering someone?’” (Cicero, On Duties, 2.89)

Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE) clearly ranked moneylending pretty low on the scale of morally acceptable occupations. Yet, this same Cato would later engage in the very practice he condemned, exemplifying the complex and often contradictory Roman attitudes toward wealth and its acquisition. These tensions between practical necessity and ethical ideals, between social status and economic reality, I think, continue to resonate in our modern world.

Through How to Make Money, a collection of translations of ancient authors put together by Luca Grillo, we discover a society grappling with questions that still perplex us today: What makes an occupation honorable? How does one balance the pursuit of wealth with moral…