Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity (Based on the Arthashastra of Kautilya), Vol. I c14.s3.18

c14.s3.18

Diodorus the Sicilian, who visited Egypt in the middle of the first century B.C., gives us some information about the early Egyptian law on this point: "For those that lent money by contract in writing, it was not lawful to take usury above what would double the stock, and that payment should be made only out of the debtor's goods, but his body was not to be liable in any wise to imprisonment; and those were counted the debtor's goods which he had either earned by his labour, or had been bestowed upon him by the just proprietors." (Diodorus, vol. i, Bk. I, ch. vi, p. 81 : transl. by C. Booth.)