Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Mensarii

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

MENSA'RII. Officers appointed by the state upon certain occasions, and in times of general distress, to act as public bankers. They were authorized to advance money on behalf of the state to debtors who could produce sufficient security; to examine into the debts of the poorer classes; to direct issues of specie, and so forth; but are not to be confounded with the argentarii, who were private bankers, negotiating their own and their customers' capital, though, like them, they had their tables or counters (mensae) displayed in public in the colonnades of the forum. Liv. xxiii. 21. Salmas de Mod. Usur. p. 509. Budaeus de Asse, v. p. 509.