The Calcutta Law Journal Short Notes of Cases Articles and Other Matters March 1 1908

The fact that we find no trace of the insurance conteact in the lawsof Rome or of any of the other ancient peoples indicates unquestionably that if the contract of insurance as known in modern times was known to the ancients at all its practical use was so little developed as to have made it insignficant. [...] These Roman Collegia fell into disfavour under the emperors but nevertheless continued to exist with restricted functions and influence up to the time of the fall of the Empire and it is probable that their existence was continued in spite of the disorder due to the numerous invasions of Italy until they reappeared in history as the mediaeval guilds. [...] Furthermore bottomry and respondentia bonds and the allowing of general average in case of shipwreck and the jettison of the goods of one or more of the joint adventurers may well be included under the term insurance in its broadest significance and these were unquestionably known and much used among the ancients particularly among the Rhodians. [...] The lender of money in bottomry who could claim the repayment of his loan only if the vessel upon 'whose bottom the loan was made corpleted the contemplated voyage in safety was entitled not merely to the current rate of interest on the money loaned but also to an added sum which would compensate him for the risk he ran of losing his whole principal and which in reality reprsented the p [...] The particularity of these regulations shows clearly that the practice of insurance had already become extensive and of much importance in the commercial life of the Catalonion City some time before the date mentioned but it is hardly probable that it antedated the similar practice in the Italian cities which as we have seen certainly existed consideably more than a century earlier than the