Cliometrics from Cicero

I happened to be reading about the scholastic revival of Cicero, in the book Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas Ostler. It's a really interesting book and I'll be reviewing it here later.

Meanwhile, I saw this story come across the tubes:

The good news is that Philip Kay knows how the Romans got themselves into financial bother. The bad news is no one knows how they got themselves out of it.

...

The monetary historian is giving a lecture today in which he will reveal how Cicero, the Roman orator, gave a speech in 66BC in which he alluded to the credit crunch. Cicero was arguing that Pompey the Great should be given military command against Mithridates VI, king of Pontus on the Black sea coast of what is now Turkey. He reminded his audience of events in 88BC, when the same Mithridates invaded the Roman province of Asia, on the western coast of Turkey. Cicero claimed the invasion caused the loss of so much Roman money that credit was destroyed in Rome itself.

The orator told his audience: "Defend the republic from this danger and believe me when I tell you - what you see for yourselves - that this system of monies, which operates at Rome in the Forum, is bound up in, and is linked with, those Asian monies; the loss of one inevitably undermines the other and causes its collapse."

So, don't despair. The glorious days of empire may still be before us!