Quote Originally Posted by Warriorbird View Post
Publicani were very close. Rome had a middle class. So did ancient India. Banking certainly enabled expansion though.
Societates Publicanorum...yeah, still not the same thing. In the context of the day I guess it would be remotely similar...I'm sure you realize I'm talking more about the European economies at the time from whence we sprung, not ancient times. It's well documented that certain ancient cultures were more "advanced" in certain ways than their medieval counterparts, but that has little affect on modern times, since we sort of fell backwards before coming forwards again.