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     The propensity to barter and exchange is an innate human characteristic.  An inclination to divine the future is another deeply ingrained trait.   Together they comprise the act of financial speculation.   "All life is speculation," declared the celebrated nineteenth-century American trader James R. Keene, "the spirit of speculation is born with men."  For the earliest known historical cases of speculation we must turn to ancient Rome during the Republic of the second century B.C.  By this date, the Roman financial system had developed many of the characteristics of modern capitalism:  markets flourished because Roman law allowed the free transfer of property, money was lent out at interest, money changers dealt in foreign currencies, and payments across the Roman territories could be made by bankers' draft.  Capital concentrated in Rome, as it later did in Amsterdam, London, and New York.  The idea of credit had also developed, along with a primitive form of insurance for ships and other forms of property.  The people of Rome exhibited a passion for the accumulation of wealth, matched by an extravagance in its display and consumption.  Gaming was common.

-Edward Chancellor,  Devil Take The Hindmost:  A History Of Financial Speculation