lenders used a kalendarium to document the loans that they issued to assist in tabulating interest accrued at the beginning of each month (Kalends). Parties to contracts were supposed to be Roman citizens, but there is evidence of this boundary being broken. Loans to citizens were also originated from public or governmental positions. For example, the Temple of Apollo is believed to have engaged in secured loans with citizens’ homes being used as collateral. Loans were more rarely extended to citizens from the government, as in the case of Tiberius who allowed for three-year, interest-free loans to be issued to senators in order to avert a looming credit crisis. Deferred payment There is sufficient evidence of deferred payments and financing arrangements to be negotiated for large purchases. Deferred payments were used in the auction of wine or oil that was "on the tree" (not yet harvested or produced), requiring payment from the winning bidder long after the auction had ended. Roman peasants who needed money to pay their taxes would use an inverted form of this process by selling the right to a portion of their harvest in the future in exchange for cash in the present. The sulpicii arose as professional bankers in the first century AD, and among other forms of financial intermediation, they offered financing for speculators in grain markets. Public finance For centuries the monetary affairs of the Roman Republic had rested in the hands of the Senate. These elite liked to present themselves as steady and fiscally conservative, but as the 19th-century historian of Rome Wilhelm Ihne remarked: The aerarium (state treasury) was supervised by members of the government rising in power and prestige, the quaestors, praetors, and eventually the prefects. With the dawn of the Roman Empire, a major change took place, as the emperors assumed the reins of financial control. Augustus adopted a system that was, on the surface, fair to the Senate. Just as the world was divided in provinces designated as imperial or senatorial, so was the treasury. All tribute brought in from senatorially controlled provinces was given to the aerarium, while that of the imperial territories went to the treasury of the emperor, the fiscus. Initially, this process of distribution seemed to work, although the legal technicality did not disguise the supremacy of the emperor or his often used right to transfer funds back and forth regularly from the aerarium