The Romans of Ancient Rome had never considered usury a respectable business. Take Caesar's primary creditor, Crassus, for example. Since moneylending was disgraceful, nobles and senators often had their freedmen or slaves run such businesses while providing support from "behind the scenes."
Caesar's bill to distribute fertile land to Rome's landless citizens met fierce opposition from the Senate of the Directory. So he attempted to put the proposal to a vote in the citizens' assembly, but the senators repeatedly delayed the meeting on the grounds that there were "no auspicious omens." Later, they simply declared that there were no favorable days for holding an assembly that year.
Ancient Roman handicrafts had never progressed from small workshops to an "Industrial Revolution," and handicrafts during the Roman Republic were even less advanced than those of the Mediterranean. First, the nobles were more passionate about land. Though they lent money to small craftsmen and merchants, their primary borrowers were still small farmers. Second, they preferred to invest their money in "more practical" places, such as Ancient Rome's public works.
No one in Ancient Rome ever publicly opposed war. On the contrary, war was highly praised and encouraged, because Rome had gained far too much from victory: immense quantities of supplies, confidence, honor, a sense of achievement, and large war reparations.
War reparations were an indispensable clause in Rome's postwar treaties, but Rome's demands were not exorbitant, unlike those in the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.
In short, war reparations were not an economic weapon, but a means of maintaining political inequality between two nations, reminding the other side every year: "You are a loser. You must fulfill your treaty obligations." After the Second Punic War, Carthage once proposed early repayment, settling several decades of future installments in one lump sum, but