All these, argentarii or nummularii, might be called _foeneratores_, from the interest (_foenus_) which they charged in their transactions.

The profession was a respectable one, for honesty and exactness in accounts were absolutely necessary to success in it.[129] If the reader will turn to Cicero's speech in defence of Caecina (6.

16), he will find these accounts appealed to, though apparently not actually produced in court; but in the _Noctes Atticae_ of Aulus Gellius (xiv.

2) a judge who is describing a civil case which came before him, mentions, among the documents produced, _mensae rationes_, i.e.the accounts kept by the banker.
Your argentarius seems to have been ready to undertake for you almost all that a modern banker will do for his customer.

He would take deposits of money, either for the depositor's use or to bear interest, and would make payments on his behalf on receipt of a written order, answering to our cheque;[130] this was a practice probably introduced from Greece, for in the Eastern Mediterranean the whole business of credit and exchange had long been reduced to a system.