Stipulatio, intermediazione e brokeraggio

The stipulatio ‘decem dari curari’, mentioned by some Roman jurists (Labeo, Celsus, Ulpian: D. 12.1.42.1 and D. 45.1.67.1) is usually attributed by scholars at the field of the promise of loan. On the contrary, the two texts seem to fall into the category of those numerous testimonies concerning the brokerage: in particular, they show that, thanks to the elasticity of the stipulatio, the Roman jurists were able to create very complex legal models, in order to answer to the need for security of the creditor at the moment of the conclusion of a financial transaction, following a pattern similar to that of the modern insurance. These are functions, demands and needs that arose in everyday life of antiquity, and which show considerable similarities with operations thereafter concluded by the ‘sensali di sicurtà’ and currently by brokers.