Bankers

So if a banker sue for the price of goods sold by auction, he may be met by the exception that the purchaser is only to be condemned in the action if the thing which he has bought has been delivered, and this is prima facie a just exception.

Item si argentarius pretium rei quae in auctionem uenerit persequatur, obicitur ei exceptio, ut ita demum emptor damnetur, si ei res quam emerit, tradita est;

It is otherwise in the action instituted by a banker for the balance of an account, for the banker is compelled to include a set off in his action and make express recognition of it in his formula, so much so that he must allow for any set off from the first, his Intentio only claiming the balance.

But, suppose we admit “that the state sovereignty does not extend to means either expressed or implied, employed by congress,” and allow that banking may be correctly numbered among the latter;

Are bankers more worthy means to be employed for executing the constitution than judges?

Bankers are said to be useful and convenient to the government.

It is the custom of all bankers, when a private person deposits money and directs that it be paid to a given person, to write down first the name of the person making the deposit and the amount deposited, and then to write on the margin to be paid to so-and-so;

I should be glad, however, to ask you whether you feel anger against bankers who have failed.

for bankers are accustomed to write out memoranda of the sums which they lend, the purposes for which funds are desired, and the payments which a borrower makes, in order that his receipts and his payments may be known to them for their accounts.

And it is not here only, men of Athens, that those engaged in this line of business so act;

And Sosinomus and Timodemus and the other bankers, who, when they had to settle with their creditors, had to give up all their property.

For Pasio, your father, did not acquire his fortune, any more than Phormio did, by good luck or by inheritance from his father, but he gave proof to the bankers, Antisthenes and Archestratus, who were his masters, that he was a good man and an honest, and so won their confidence.