Selling and Repaying

This chapter addresses the question of how a borrower actually repaid his debt—not only on the subject of the Muziris papyrus contract, but also, more generally, on the mechanisms of maritime credit in classical antiquity. At first glance, the details provided by the loan contract on the Muziris papyrus recto do not help to answer this question. Yet establishing how the borrower was to repay his debt while his cargo was ‘under the power and seal’ of the lender is critical for understanding the contract as a whole. To reconcile the rights of the lender with the needs of the borrower, U. E. Paoli imagined that the borrower would find a buyer for his items, receive payment, and use that money to free his goods from the financier’s control. It is unlikely, however, that this was usual. What makes it improbable is the fact that it would have required a single sale—which means either a single buyer or several buyers associated in a single purchase—that entirely repaid the loan.

Business · Commerce · Control (management) · Debt · Economics · Loan · Management · Payment · Power (physics) · Power of attorney · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classical Antiquity Studies · Finance