Le banche fallivano anche a Roma: il crack della banca di Callisto all'epoca di Commodo

[Machine translation] the essay examines the case of the bankruptcy of a bank in ancient Rome, in a framework in which the complexity and importance of the credit phenomenon in the Roman economy are well evidenced by the use of a variety of terms to distinguish the different financial activities. From the narrative of Hippolytus about the crash of the bank administered by the Christian Callisto, slave of the imperial freedman Carpophorus, significant indications can be drawn regarding many profiles: the type of activity carried out, the organizational structure of the bank, the causes of the crisis and its emergence, the conviction of Callisto and the position of the creditors. These are topics that still have to do with bankruptcy law today: insolvency, its causes and its manifestations, the reactions of the legal system to the bankruptcy of a company with widespread relationships, the size of the activity carried out and the bankruptcy initiatives of creditors.