engleski

Insuring the risky business of Roman maritime trade

Along with potential financial losses, the ancient maritime ventures were exposed to numerous marine navigation risks, in legal sources reffered to as sea storm (marina tempestas), shipwreck (naufragium), ship’s demise (si navis periset), pirates (vis, insidiae piratorum) etc. A distinct legal contract that simultaneously financed overseas trade, but also provided a certain security against those hazards was the Greco-Roman institute of maritime loan (fenus nauticum, pecunia traiectitia). This loan of money constituted a capital that was made available to the merchant for a maritime venture and repayable with very high interest rates on condition that the vessel reached its destination safely. Since the interest rate (praemium periculi) in terms of its value and risk adjustment can be compared to premium, and especially because the risk of commercial journey was transferred to the party not directly participating in the maritime venture, maritime loan is attributed a function similar to modern-day marine insurance. Nevertheless, it remains highly disputed in studies whether such risk-transfer mechanism was sufficiently developed at that time and could be regarded as, originally defined by Jhering, “the insurance business of the antiquity” (Assekuranzgeschäft des Altertums). By focusing on the contract of maritime loan, which was adapted as a commercial custom into the existing architecture of Roman legal system and altered to meet the new developments of commerce, this contribution aims to analyse its insurance function. Using the modern insurance concept as a benchmark, the objective of this paper is to examine the coherence between elements of modern insurance (contractual parties, insurable event, premium, risk, covered time period, compensation etc.) and its historical precursor and thus provide a modest contribution to the study of the Roman risk distribution concepts.

fenus nauticum, insurance, maritime trade, risk

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