Yours Sincerely

According to J.P. Olsen writing Building Disasters, Incompetent Architects, and Construction Fraud in

Ancient Rome. Aside from fire one can cite three major factors for collapsing Roman buildings:

incompetent architects, poor maintenance and incompetent contractors, who may have

fraudulently employed defective materials.

The following may be an apocryphal story, but it is one I quite like.

In ancient Rome, when builders quarried marble, they found they could make more profit by using

the top layers because it was easier to quarry. However, this marble was pitted with holes, which

made it substandard and weaker than the deeper stone. They would fill the holes and cracks with a

kind of mud putty or wax that would make the marble look solid but do nothing for its’ structural

integrity.

Eventually, buildings began collapsing, which killed people and cost wealthy people large sums to

repair both the buildings and their reputations. Some of these structures were government

buildings. So, the emperor and the government passed a law that stipulated each Roman builder had

to list on his invoices the materials he used and his marble sources. At the end of each list, he had to

write the Latin phrase "sine cera" (without wax), which meant that the marble was premium quality,

and then sign his name. If the buildings fell down and materials were subpar, the builder was

executed. Fraud case settled.

Fast forward 2,000 years and we still sign our letters “yours sincerely”.

Thanks to Richard Hurley, Ph.D., J.D., CFE, CPA; and Tim Harvey, CFE, JPShare for pointing it out

in Fraud Magazine.