Abstract

This investigation is about the prohibition of anatocism in the roman law system: it tries to explain how and when this prohibition was established and how the debtor could plead himself against the creditor’s legal action to obtain the payment of compound interests. The research has showed that the prohibition of anatocism came into force in the roman law system probably between the Ist century B.C. and the IInd century A.C. and it was completed by a gradual improvement of the debtor’s trial defence, that became effective during the IIIrd century A.C. also against the capitalization of interests, especially throught the inversion of the burden of proof laid down by CI. 4.30.3. Subsequently it has emerged that the prohibition of anatocism concerned first of all the usurae usurarum but also the capitalization of interests, although the debtor’s trial defence was improved later, in consequence of the characteristic of the models used to strike money loans (abstract stipulatio or singrapha) and the connected problem of the proof of the breach of the prohibition. The exegesis of the passages of the severian jurisprudence was useful to understand the reason (῾ratio᾽) of the prohibition: it was probably an autonomous, hard and fast prohibition but always directed to prevent the uncontrollable growth of the debt. Finally it has resulted that the Justinian’s reform of the general discipline of interests had the great merit to make clear and fix the the prohibition of anatocism.

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