Chapter 7 — Industry And Commerce

CHAPTER VII—INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

During the fifth century, when Rome’s political power was slipping out of hand, it was hardly to be expected that she could retain her hold upon the commerce and industry developed under Etruscan princes. Indeed, during that time the industrial class probably diminished rather than increased, for the slow-moving revolution that ended in the plebeian victories of 339 does not in any real way resemble the socialistic outbursts of an urban industrial proletariat. The inference is sometimes drawn from the vast space encircled by the Servian wall that the city was very populous and, by implication, that large numbers of its citizens were engaged in productive occupations. The wall, however, took its long course partly because it could thus avail itself of certain convenient escarpments, and partly because various sacred shrines upon the outlying hills laid claim to protection. What uninhabited spaces it thus included, we cannot know. At any rate, it would be very hazardous to estimate its population from the area enclosed by the walls.

Later, in the fourth century, there are political measures of a new color that imply, at least temporarily, the influence of an urban democracy. The famous Appius Claudius,[1] whose sympathies for the urban poor are revealed by his construction of an aqueduct to the workingmen’s quarters and his support of a freedman, Flavius, for a curule chair, seemed to aim at universal individual suffrage in his attempt to remove property qualifications for voting by allowing the city proletariat to register in any ward of the city—a measure that, since voting took place in the city, would have made the industrial class dominant in many of the wards. The proposal was rejected by the next censor, but Claudius’s attempt would seem to prove that at the end of the fourth century there existed a considerable class of men engaged in pursuits other than agriculture.

[1] Reforms of Appius Claudius: Diod. XX, 36; Livy, IX, 46. See also E. Meyer, art. “Plebs,” in Conrad’s Handwörterbuch.

When, however, we look about for the products of this putative industry, they are difficult to find. There are no chance references in Greek authors pointing to the purchase of Roman goods, and there are very few articles found outside Latium that permit the assumption of Roman origin. In pottery, for instance, the native ware[2] that appears in the Esquiline graves of that period is inordinately poor; certainly it could not have found a market abroad. The better ware is generally Campanian and Etruscan. A single exception to the rule, if it is one, is the pair of vases found at Falerii[3] with a Latin inscription. The work is good, but the archaeologist insists that, if it was made at Rome, it was made by no native—a sufficient comment upon the state of Rome’s industry. There exists, to be sure, a very finely engraved silver box, the well-known Ficoronian cista, which bears the explicit testimony: “Novios Plautios made me at Rome.”[4] Apparently artists were working at Rome and, in some instances, creating ware of good quality; but here, as in the case of the vases, the theme and workmanship are un-Roman. Such industries, however, did not spring from Roman needs; they were transplanted and apparently died with the generation that happened to bring them to Rome. Aside from these two instances, we can point to only a few coarse vases of Latin manufacture that somehow entered Etruscan trade; and this occurred at a somewhat later time than the fourth century.[5] After so meager a harvest of evidence, we seem forced to conclude that the industrial class, such as it was, could hardly have supplied a vast market. Probably there were only the men needed to make cloth, shoes, and armor for Rome’s expanding armies; wagons, plows, and hoes for the farms; and pots and pans for the kitchen.

[2] Pinza, Bull. Com. 1912, p. 24.

[3] Helbig, Führer, II, 1799 b.

[4] Novios Plautios med Romai fecid. Helbig suggests that the name is apparently Campanian, and that the locality would probably not have been mentioned had it been the artist’s customary abiding place: Helbig, II, 1752.

[5] Helbig, I, 565; cf. Mélanges d’arch. et d’hist. 1910, p. 99.

Indeed, the fourth century was not one of industrial progress anywhere. Greek cities were only marking time after the disastrous Peloponnesian War, and the new commercial activity that sprang up with Alexander’s release of Asiatic resources was not yet in evidence. Etruria, dulled by the loss of Campania and Latium on the south and of the whole of northern Italy, was no longer providing a rich market for the Greeks, and suffered in addition through the financial weakness of the Greek cities that had at least purchased her ores and metalwork.

The quickening of commerce that followed Alexander’s conquest brought little of permanent value to the central Mediterranean. It was largely a feverish activity stimulated by an inflated circulation that did not last, since the source of the new wealth was not a permanently productive industry. During the century in which the newfound hoards dribbled out of the commercial currents again, the full temple accounts of Delos,[6] which note so meticulously every obol of receipt and expense, mark with melancholy monotony the dulling of life through the cheapening of wages and of the product of labor. As for Rome, it is significant that Claudius’s reform did not succeed and that it was not soon proposed again. At the end of the century and the beginning of the next, the heavy demand for men for the army and the colonies[7] removed all need for a communistic political program at Rome.

[6] Glotz, in Jour. des Savants, 1913, p. 206.

[7] See chapter IV.

In the two succeeding centuries, we do not find evidence of any marked change in the nature of production at Rome. Doubtless the amount of ordinary ware produced at home increased with the growth of the city—ancient transportation was too costly to make commerce in cheap wares profitable—but we do not hear of goods worthy of export. The only difference now was that work previously performed by free labor began in the third century to fall into the hands of slaves, which of course tainted manual work to such an extent that the poor citizen, if he could not secure a plot of land, had perforce to save his self-respect by standing idle at the state crib. The slave who became the new man of industry had no choice but to work in silence, and so the voice that had spoken for the urban industrial class in political gatherings was henceforth silent.

For a long period Roman commerce fared no better than industry. In the West, Marseilles, Carthage, and such Italiote-Greek cities as were not “protected” to death by Greek and Syracusan tyrants held the field of legitimate commerce, while minor cities like Caere and Antium, deprived of strong political authority, fell back upon privateering. Roman trade, lacking the stimulus of aggressive production seeking an outlet and discouraged by the neglect of an agricultural nobility that scorned it and, in treaties with commercial states, even betrayed it for political advantage, made no permanent progress. By the treaty of 348, a Punic trader had free access to the markets of Latium,[8] but a Roman, should he care to compete, was excluded from three-fourths of the Carthaginian domain; and the Senate had, in return for what privileges we do not know, signed away the Roman trader’s right to sail along the Italian coast east of Tarentum. It was at about the time of this treaty that a colony was planted at the mouth of the Tiber.[9] Hitherto, sea craft that succeeded in crossing the bar at the mouth had to pull against the vigorous Tiber current for fifteen miles, but sailing vessels were seldom manned with enough oarsmen for that task. A harbor provided a transfer station at the river mouth, where vessels of deep draft could either unload into storehouses by means of barges, or transfer part of their loads to lighters,[10] take on oarsmen, and proceed to Rome. This first colony was indeed very small, apparently not more than four acres. But it seems to have sufficed for a long time. Not until the days of the Gracchi are there signs of expansion. Then it is likely that the tribune, who was not afraid of paternalistic experiments, installed state granaries here, though he seems not to have deepened the harbor.

[8] Polybius, III, 24.

[9] See chapter III, end.

[10] Dion. Halic. III, 44; Strabo, III, 5. Ships of 3,000 talents—less than 100 tons—could not enter the Tiber in their day, whereas ordinary merchant ships of the Mediterranean were from three to five times that size.

During the Hannibalic War, it was necessary for the state to have goods transported to the armies in Spain, Sardinia, and Sicily.[11] To draw out sufficient Roman shipping for this purpose, the government offered to insure the ships and cargoes, making bargains with three corporations on those terms. The venture was not entirely successful, however, for the companies tricked the state by collecting insurance upon rotten hulks. After the war, Rome continued to need grain transports for the armies operating in Greece and Asia, and we may assume that these engagements helped introduce Roman merchants into the eastern field of commerce. That field, however, was already occupied by clever Greek and Syrian traders who knew the language, the whims, and the needs of eastern customers as no Roman could. Apart from state contracts, therefore, the Roman merchants made little progress.

[11] Livy, XXIII, 48, 49; XXV, 3, 4; Polyb. I, 83, 7.

Nor did the state seem willing to patronize or advance the interests of the Roman merchant except insofar as the immediate needs of the commissary department required. Before the Punic War, a democratic assembly forbade senators[12] to own vessels of seagoing capacity. The reasons for this measure have been widely discussed. Were the people afraid that the senators might waste public funds on harbor improvements? A few years later, a censor was accused of contracting for docks at Tarracina because he owned estates nearby.[13] Or could it be that the commercial corporations were already strong enough to demand and secure monopolistic privileges? Such a hypothesis is supported by no other evidence. Livy’s explanation—that the Romans considered gainful occupations beneath the dignity of a senator—is doubtless the true one, and Caesar’s[14] reenactment of the law in his time did not alter the sentiment. Beneath this sentiment there probably also lay the practical consideration that senators were needed at home in the service of the state: indeed, a senator always required formal permission from his government before he could travel beyond the call of a summons to the curia.

[12] Livy, XXI, 63, explains that it was passed because it was unseemly for senators to engage in gainful occupation. The maximum specified was 300 amphoras, or about 225 bushels of wheat. The Claudian law was strongly supported by the radical democrat Flaminius, which seems to imply that the restriction was not imposed wholly out of respect for old Roman mores.

[13] Livy, XL, 51, 2.

[14] Digest, 50, 5, 3.

When we review the second century, therefore—a period in which Rome’s commercial interests are popularly supposed to have gained such influence in politics as to have caused the destruction of Carthage and Corinth[15]—we find, upon examination of our sources, practically no Roman trade of importance, and certainly no evidence, except in the days of the Gracchi, that the state cared to encourage Roman traders. After Hannibal met defeat, Rome still permitted Carthage to close its seas,[16] a fact that reveals an almost incredible unconcern; and when Carthage finally fell in 146, Rome provided no harbor in Africa for her own province, permitting Utica, a free city, to inherit the trade and even to handle the produce of such Romans as settled in the new province. In the province of Sicily, Rome established no port exemptions or preferences for herself.[17] In the allied city of Ambracia,[18] by the treaty of 189, Rome did indeed ask for customs immunities, but explicitly provided that these should also be extended to all the allies, including in the provision the Greek trading cities of Magna Graecia, which were Rome’s real commercial rivals—if indeed Rome had any commerce at the time. Similarly, though Rome had helped her ally Marseilles[19] subdue the hill tribes of Savoy in 135 and, by her joint signature to the treaty, aided Marseilles in establishing her wine trade in the subdued country, she nevertheless refrained throughout her career from imposing similar provisions in favor of her own commerce, whether in Spain, Africa, Asia, or her own Gallic provinces. Again, upon giving Delos to Athens after the Third Macedonian War, Rome stipulated that it should be a free port for all nations. Rome’s advantage doubtless lay in securing a place where her armies and navies, when engaged in the East, might procure supplies at reasonable prices. But the commercial profits fell to the numerous traders of Greece, Syria, and Egypt, who soon made Delos an important trading center. It is merchants from these places who occupy the most space on the numerous Delian inscriptions of the second century. To be sure, the names of not a few Westerners also occur, but upon examination these prove to belong to south-Italian Greeks and Campanian traders,[20] until some years after the province of Asia was acquired. Very few Roman merchants had any share in the great prosperity of the island before that time. Finally, we may recall that during the Republic commercial interests at Rome were not powerful enough to procure the slight appropriation necessary to make a roadstead at Ostia capable of accommodating seagoing vessels.

[15] Mommsen, Rom. Hist. III, 238; Heitland, The Roman Republic, II, 156; Ferrero, The Greatness and Decline of Rome, I, pp. 20 and 38. I have discussed the matter more fully in Roman Imperialism, chapter XIV. See also chapter XIV below.

[16] Peter, Hist. Rom. Frag. p. 273, fr. 9.

[17] The request of Rhodes for permission to buy grain in Sicily in 169 is sometimes taken to imply a general control of the trade in Sicily: Polyb. 28, 2. However, this request was made when Rome was at war and needed the grain. Cicero, Verr. V, 145 and 157, shows that commerce in Sicily was generally free.

[18] Livy, XXXVIII, 44.

[19] See Roman Imperialism, p. 280. In consequence of this treaty, Italian as well as Massilian wine found a market within the area: Athen. II, 36. But Rome never extended the prohibition to the parts of Gaul that she alone subjected, for in the large Gallic provinces wine was raised everywhere: Strabo, IV, 178, 179; Colum. III, 2, 16; XII, 23; Martial, XIII, 107; Pliny, XIV, 37; C.I.L., XIII, 1954 et al. The passages that mention a prohibition—Cic. De Rep. III, 9, and Hist. Aug. Prob. 18, 8—therefore refer to the small district in lower Savoy that Marseilles annexed in 154 B.C.; see Polyb. XXXIII, 11.

[20] Hatzfeld, Bull. Corr. Hell. 1912. The sacred island was a Mecca for pilgrims from all Greek cities, and as such had a just claim to a free port.

Until Claudius improved the harbor of Ostia, all the larger vessels put in at Puteoli,[21] a hundred and fifty miles from Rome. Indeed, the ancient world has no record of any state of importance so unconcerned about its commerce as was the Roman Republic.

[21] For Puteoli as a harbor in Cicero’s day, see Cic. Verr. V, 154; In Vat. 12; Rab. Post. 40; De Fin. II, 84; and Strabo, IV, 6. It will be recalled that even St. Paul, on his way to Rome, disembarked here and made the rest of the journey by the Appian Way.

In the preceding pages, the inference has continually been drawn that Rome’s constant acquisition of new lands turned men and capital away from commerce and industry into more congenial fields, and that herein lies the chief reason for Rome’s circumscribed economic interests. It may be well to consider more fully how this restriction reacted upon society in such a way as to create peculiar moral inhibitions and even social groupings, by whose aid the natural economic evolution that we have traced justified itself to the Roman consciousness. Such a consideration may reveal why a priori methods of interpreting historical development by means of generally accepted economic and psychological maxims must be applied to Roman history only with great reserve. It will be noticed particularly that those forces which in modern societies find effective expression through universal suffrage, and a ready hearing through facile means of communication, then frequently failed to reach even the organs of government. In the Roman Republic, it is not safe to infer that a great need or a strong desire felt by a certain class or group eventually manifested itself in a governmental act or law.

For instance, the laboring classes, which are now strong enough to modify to their advantage practically every economic, industrial, or commercial bill passed by a modern lawmaking body, could in Cicero’s day exert but slight pressure upon the government. There the laboring man was either a slave whose voice was never heard, or a client who, considering his own advantage, voted as his patron told him. Even if he chose to vote independently, his ballot was usually cast in one of the four city wards with those of ex-slave offspring. He could not organize to elevate his economic position, though a free man, for slave wages and slave conditions of life determined his own. In a thousand years of Rome’s history, there is not one recorded labor strike. He received only what the ruling powers saw fit to give him, and that usually amounted, at most, to charity. In a word, he had great needs, but no way of exerting effective pressure upon the government to procure what he needed.

When we turn from the employee to the employer, we again find a similar difference between Roman and modern conditions. Whereas in a modern industrial state the businessman has come to be the controlling power not only in society but in the government, he was at Rome so far from being a leading citizen that even Cicero, who needed him for his concordia ordinum, found it possible to discuss whether he was quite respectable.[22] Cicero concluded that he was. But Cicero was equally sure that any man who went to the provinces on a business tour lacked the instincts of a true Roman: a worthy citizen could hardly leave the center of civilization for mere financial reasons. If wealth had been able to gain social and political prestige for men at Rome, the nobility could not have excluded capitalists from the Senate as they did until Caesar’s day. The novus homo seldom made his way to the consulship, and when the miracle was performed, it was not through financial power but through forensic ability or military prowess. The Roman Republican government was, in fact, blind to the political value of soundly based industry and commerce, and failed to appreciate the relatively few Romans of ability who engaged in these pursuits. It might have devised tariffs and subsidies in aid of those who faced foreign competition, but it did not. A lobby of manufacturers and shippers in the Roman Senate is quite inconceivable to anyone who knows Roman society and manners intimately. There was economic conflict enough, but the pressure was seldom exerted through political channels: apparently, in this case, it was the social caste system that acted as a barrier.

[22] Cic. Ad Quint. I, 1, 15; De Off. I, 151; Pro Flacco, 91.

To be sure, the man of wealth gained some recognition in a limited field—that is, where the civil service needed him. Since the Roman Republic, with its frequent changes of executives, could not build up permanent bureaus and boards for revenue collection and public works, it needed the capitalist to carry the contracts, and for this service it was willing to grant him a title, a ring, and a seat in the theater. Consequently, the equites became a well-organized political influence in the last century of the Republic, and latter-day expansion was in some measure attributable to this class. But it is interesting to note that, in this particular instance, social position was gained through semipolitical service to the state, and that this position was definitely conceived of as quite inferior to that of the ruling nobility.

The agricultural class, on the other hand, was very powerful during most of the Republic. The farmers and landowners were probably in control of all the rural tribes, and their interests often coincided with those of the senators, who usually owned large tracts of land. It is rather surprising, therefore, that we never hear of laws to protect Roman farm produce. However, even if we cannot find in Roman legislation any traces of positive measures in favor of the farmers, we may perhaps attribute to their predominance the government’s apathy toward industrial and commercial needs, an unenlightened revenue system, a cumbersome financial policy, and the suppression of the intricate problems that generally arise from economic conflicts.

However, it was difficult to secure common action on the part of the farmers. Being without ready means of transportation, they had to consider the advantages of the nearest market, and thus this group readily split into various factions, each moved by different interests. Perhaps this is why we can point to so little positive legislation that clearly bears the granger stamp. The influence of the landed class showed itself early in a desire for safety on the border and, consequently, for well-ordered relations between tribes. As has often been said, the prospering farmer in the open plains had everything to lose and nothing to gain from a state of border brigandage, so that he became a convert to faith in the sacredness of vested interests. Then he organized his military machine and struck back at the raiders until he converted them to his views—not forgetting to exact an indemnity and, in special cases, applying the doctrine of dreadfulness. The economic factor was therefore of great importance in shaping the Latin federation, but that does not imply that it was, or could be, organized to secure immediate economic ends.

The nobility that directed Rome’s policies could, of course, usually express their desires in action, and their economic interests, which were fairly uniform, were probably not neglected. We have seen that they paid far too little heed to the needs of industry and commerce on the one hand, and of the laboring classes on the other. They were naturally not so heedless of their own desires, though we need not assume that those desires were always material. The average Roman noble was rather hard and practical, prudently calculating, not very sentimental, but on the whole fairly just. Material interests were very important to him, for he had to conserve his property for his obligations or fall below his class. For this purpose, he needed to have his lands well managed and to receive loans from his clients. But the motives that might influence a senator were many and various. Now it is frequently said that, since man is engaged in acquiring property during most of his waking hours, he naturally employs to the same end whatever political power he may possess. If we are to apply this test to the Roman senator, however, we need to keep in mind that most of the influences around him were not economic in nature. He was not a businessman, and he spent very little of his time on his own material concerns. Problems of state and judicial or legal service usually engaged his attention, so that his daily concerns naturally kept him less occupied with the economic viewpoint than is true of men in general.

Since the economist takes cognizance of environment, we may consider how this affected the Roman senator. From boyhood, he lived in the presence of the imagines of his ancestors. Some of them had died on the battlefield, some had triumphed, and some bore names that were inscribed upon laws, treaties, and dedicated temples. There were among them consuls, judges, orators, and governors of provinces—there were no captains of industry. They had won the memoria sempiterna that Roman history held before man as his highest goal. Could the sons of a noble pass daily before those statues and not be kindled with a yearning for gloria? Nullam enim virtus aliam mercedem laborum periculorumque desiderat praeter hanc laudis et gloriae—a sentence that had not yet lost its meaning even in the days of civil strife that made the best of men cynical. No people has ever treasured more highly the glories and virtues of its ancestors. The nobles themselves wrote the nation’s history: Fabius, Cincius, Postumius, Cato, Piso, Fannius, Sempronius, and a score of others. They embodied their deep respect for brave deeds in their institutions: the laudatio funebris, the triumphal arch, honorary dedications, heroic burial, the pomp of triumph, and all the rest. To catch the spirit that entered these men, one must read Vergil’s “masque of heroes” or Livy’s epic of seven centuries. The irresistible determination, the power of self-control, the stolid puritanism, as well as the hardness and self-sufficiency of the native old Roman, were racial qualities, part of the inheritance of blood transmitted after centuries of hard-handed struggle had weeded out the unfit. In the old Roman noble, that inheritance was not so diluted that his virtus failed to respond quickly to the appeal of ancestral memories. It was not until the civil wars cut down the old race, emancipation and immigration mixed the blood, and excessive prosperity induced parasitism, that time-honored ideals went for nothing.

As we have said, daily occupation with the political and diplomatic problems of state somewhat blinded the Roman noble to the economic point of view. He dealt with the intricacies of a hundred treaties made with free, allied, and tributary states; he had to consider the state’s relations with scores of tribes in every degree of civilization or barbarism all along the border; there were always provinces to keep satisfied, governors to appoint and supervise, and armies to levy, shift, and direct. All these matters involved niceties of legal interpretation, etiquette, position, and honors. Engaged in these problems, he grew legal-minded and pompous, but he was hardly likely to become obsessed with the ideal of a “business administration.” That the Roman Senate never devoted enough attention to economic questions is largely due to this preoccupation with diplomatic, political, and ceremonial concerns.

Finally, the desire to conserve their own position and power, the auctoritas senatus, both for the sake of personal prestige and for the pecuniary advantages the position entailed, taught the nobility to maintain a conservative regime. If, for instance, some individual advocated a war of expansion, the Senate was likely to oppose him. The aristocracy had, in fact, learned early that when a small city-state extended its boundaries too far, a large army was needed to hold the empire, and a popular leader of the army was a menace to aristocratic control.

It would seem, therefore, that Rome was one of the states in which normal economic pressure generally met with strong counteracting forces. The laboring man could not reach the attention of the governing class; industrial interests were weak, and their value underrated. The farmers were so separated geographically that their interests failed to coincide, and the nobility were so preoccupied with purely administrative problems, and so jealous of their own prestige, that they gave little thought to economic measures. In general, it must be said that Roman economic problems were unusually simple. The gradual conquest of Italy and the provinces more than occupied the surplus of capital and population, so that there was no crying need for industry and commerce. The returns from simple investments in land and in capitalistic enterprise sufficed to keep the people in prosperity, and presently in flabby desuetude. The intricacies of our economic system, therefore, never threw their inordinate strain upon the government of Rome; and the charge that Livy and Tacitus wrote political history because they were “economic-blind” misstates the case: they wrote as they did because they clearly grasped the essential facts of Roman society.

CHAPTER VII

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

During the fifth century, when Rome’s political power was slipping from her grasp, she could hardly have been expected to retain control of the commerce and industry developed under the Etruscan princes. Indeed, during that period the industrial class probably shrank rather than grew, because the slow-moving revolution that ended with the plebeian victories of 339 did not truly resemble the socialist outbreaks of an urban industrial proletariat.[1] The vast area enclosed by the Servian Wall has sometimes led to the inference that the city was very populous and, by implication, that large numbers of its citizens worked in productive occupations. The wall followed its long course, however, partly because this allowed it to take advantage of certain convenient escarpments and partly because various sacred shrines on the outlying hills claimed protection. [OCR unclear: What uninhabited spaces it thus included, we ca iv.] In any case, it would be very hazardous to estimate the city’s population from the area enclosed by its walls.

Later, in the fourth century, political measures of a new kind appeared which imply that, at least temporarily, an urban democracy had gained influence. The famous Appius Claudius,[1] whose sympathy for the urban poor is revealed by his construction of an aqueduct to the workingmen’s quarters and his support of the freedman Flavius for a curule chair, seems to have aimed at universal individual suffrage. He attempted to remove property qualifications for voting by allowing the city proletariat to register in any ward of the city. Because voting took place in the city, this measure would have made the industrial class dominant in many wards. The next censor rejected the proposal, but Claudius’s attempt would seem to prove that, at the end of the fourth century, there was a considerable class of men engaged in pursuits other than agriculture.

[1] Reforms of Appius Claudius: Diod. XX, 36; Livy, IX, 46. See also E. Meyer, art. “Plebs,” in Conrad’s Handwörterbuch.

When, however, we look for the products of this supposed industry, they are difficult to find. Greek authors make no incidental references to the purchase of Roman goods, and very few articles found outside Latium can reasonably be assumed to have originated in Rome. In pottery, for example, the native wares[2] found in the Esquiline graves of that period are extraordinarily poor; they certainly could not have found a market abroad. The better wares are generally Campanian or Etruscan. One possible exception is the pair of vases found at Falerii[3] with a Latin inscription. The work is good, but the archaeologist insists that, if it was made at Rome, it was not made by a native—an adequate comment on the condition of Roman industry.

There is, to be sure, a very finely engraved silver box, the well-known Ficoronian cista, which bears the explicit testimony: “Novios Plautios made me at Rome.”[4] Artists were apparently working at Rome and, in some instances, creating wares of good quality; but here, as with the vases, both the subject and the workmanship are un-Roman. Such industries, however, did not arise from Roman needs. They were transplanted and apparently died with the generation that happened to bring them to Rome.

Apart from these two examples, we can point only to a few coarse vases of Latin manufacture that somehow entered Etruscan trade; and this happened somewhat later than the fourth century.[5] After such a meager harvest of evidence, we seem forced to conclude that the industrial class, such as it was, could hardly have supplied a vast market. There were probably only enough workers to make cloth, shoes, and armor for Rome’s expanding armies; wagons, plows, and hoes for the farms; and pots and pans for the kitchen.

[2] Pinza, Bull. Com., 1912, p. 24.

[3] Helbig, Führer³, II, 1799 b.

[4] Novios Plautios med Romai fecid. Helbig suggests that the name is apparently Campanian and that the locality would probably not have been mentioned if it had been the artist’s customary place of residence: Helbig³, II, 1752.

[5] Helbig³, I, 565; cf. Mélanges d’arch. et d’hist., 1910, p. 99.

Indeed, the fourth century was not a period of industrial progress anywhere. The Greek cities were merely marking time after the disastrous Peloponnesian War, and the new commercial activity that arose when Alexander released the resources of Asia had not yet appeared. Etruria, weakened by the loss of Campania and Latium in the south and the whole of northern Italy, no longer provided the Greeks with a rich market. It also suffered from the financial weakness of the Greek cities, which had at least purchased its ores and metalwork.

The acceleration of commerce that followed Alexander’s conquest brought little permanent value to the central Mediterranean. It was largely a feverish activity stimulated by an inflated currency, and it did not last because the source of the new wealth was not a permanently productive industry. During the century in which the newly discovered hoards gradually drained out of commercial circulation again, the complete temple accounts of Delos,[6] which record every obol of income and expenditure with such precision, monotonously and sadly trace the dulling of life through falling wages and the cheapening of labor’s products.

As for Rome, it is significant that Claudius’s reform failed and was not soon proposed again. At the end of the century and the beginning of the next, the heavy demand for men to serve in the army and the colonies[7] removed any need for a communistic political program at Rome.

[6] Glotz, Jour. des Savants, 1913, p. 206.

[7] See Chapter IV.

During the next two centuries, we find no evidence of any marked change in the nature of Roman production. The amount of ordinary ware produced at home undoubtedly increased as the city grew—ancient transportation was too costly to make trade in cheap wares profitable—but we hear of no goods worthy of export. The only difference was that work previously performed by free labor began, in the third century, to fall into the hands of slaves. This naturally stigmatized manual work so deeply that a poor citizen who could not obtain a plot of land had to stand idle at the state’s feeding trough if he wished to preserve his self-respect. The slave, who became the new man of industry, had no choice but to work in silence. Thus, the voice that had spoken for the urban industrial class in political gatherings was silent from that time onward.

For a long period, Roman commerce did no better than Roman industry. In the West, Marseilles, Carthage, and those Italiote-Greek cities that had not been “protected” [OCR unclear: to ' *' '.] Greek and Syracusan tyrants dominated maritime commerce, while minor cities such as Caere and Antium, deprived of strong political authority, fell back on privateering.

Roman trade lacked the stimulus of an aggressive productive sector seeking an outlet. It was also discouraged by the neglect of an agricultural nobility that despised commerce and even betrayed it for political advantage in treaties with commercial states. Consequently, it made no lasting progress. Under the treaty of 348, a Punic trader had free access to the markets of Latium,[8] while a Roman who wished to compete was excluded from three-fourths of the Carthaginian domain. In return for privileges that we do not know, the Senate had also surrendered the Roman trader’s right to sail along the Italian coast east of Tarentum.

At about the time of this treaty, a colony was established at the mouth of the Tiber.[9] Until then, sea-going vessels that succeeded in crossing the bar at the river’s mouth had to travel fifteen miles upstream against the strong current of the Tiber, but sailing vessels were rarely provided with enough oarsmen for that task. A harbor created a transfer station at the mouth of the river where deep-draft vessels could unload into warehouses by means of barges, or transfer part of their cargoes to lighters,[10] take on oarsmen, and continue to Rome.

This first colony was very small—apparently no more than four acres—but it seems to have been adequate for a long time. There are no signs of expansion until the days of the Gracchi. It is likely that the tribune, who did not fear paternalistic experiments, then established state granaries there, although he does not seem to have deepened the harbor.

[8] Polybius, III, 24.

[9] See Chapter III, end.

[10] Dion. Halic. III, 44; Strabo, III, 5. Ships of 3,000 talents—less than 100 tons—could not enter the Tiber in their day, whereas ordinary Mediterranean merchant ships were three to five times that size.

During the Hannibalic War, the state had to transport goods to the armies in Spain, Sardinia, and Sicily.[11] To obtain enough Roman shipping for this purpose, the government offered to insure the ships and cargoes and made agreements with three corporations on those terms. The venture was not entirely successful, however, because the companies cheated the state by collecting insurance on rotten hulks.

After the war, Rome continued to need grain transports for the armies operating in Greece and Asia, and we may assume that these contracts helped introduce Roman merchants into eastern commerce. That field, however, was already occupied by clever Greek and Syrian traders who understood the language, whims, and needs of eastern customers as no Roman could. Apart from state contracts, therefore, Roman merchants made little progress.

[11] Livy, XXIII, 48, 49; XXV, 3, 4; Polyb. I, 83, 7.

Nor did the state appear willing to patronize or advance the interests of Roman merchants except as required by the immediate needs of the commissary department. Before the Punic War, a democratic assembly forbade senators[12] to own vessels capable of sea-going travel. The reasons for this measure have been widely debated. Were the people afraid that senators might waste public funds on harbor improvements? A few years later, a censor was accused of arranging contracts for docks at Tarracina because he owned estates nearby.[13] Or were the commercial corporations already powerful enough to demand and obtain monopolistic privileges? No other evidence supports such a hypothesis.

Livy’s explanation—that Romans considered gainful occupations beneath the dignity of a senator—is undoubtedly correct, and Caesar’s reenactment of the law[14] in his own time did not change that attitude. Beneath this attitude there probably also lay the practical consideration that senators were needed at home in the service of the state. Indeed, a senator always required formal permission from his government before he could travel beyond the reach of a summons to the curia.

[12] Livy, XXI, 63, explains that the law was passed because it was considered improper for senators to engage in gainful occupations. The specified maximum was 300 amphoras, equal to about 225 bushels of wheat. The Claudian law received strong support from Flaminius, the radical democrat, which seems to imply that the restriction was not imposed solely out of respect for old Roman customs.

[13] Livy, XL, 51, 2.

[14] Digest, 50, 5, 3.

When we review the second century, therefore—a period in which Rome’s commercial interests are popularly supposed to have gained enough political influence to cause the destruction of Carthage and Corinth[15]—an examination of the sources reveals practically no important Roman trade and certainly no evidence, except during the days of the Gracchi, that the state wished to encourage Roman traders.

After Hannibal’s defeat, Rome still allowed Carthage to close its seas,[16] a fact revealing an almost incredible lack of concern. When Carthage finally fell in 146, Rome provided no harbor in Africa for its own province. Instead, it allowed Utica, a free city, to inherit the trade and even to handle the produce of Romans who settled in the new province.

In the province of Sicily, Rome established no exemptions from port duties or commercial preferences for itself.[17] In its treaty of 189 with the allied city of Ambracia,[18] Rome did request immunity from customs duties, but it explicitly required that the immunity also be extended to all the allies. This provision included the Greek trading cities of Magna Graecia, which were Rome’s real commercial rivals—if Rome had any commerce at the time.

Similarly, although Rome had helped its ally Marseilles[19] subdue the hill tribes of Savoy in 135 and, by jointly signing the treaty, had helped Marseilles establish its wine trade in the conquered territory, Rome nevertheless refrained throughout its history from imposing similar provisions in favor of its own commerce, whether in Spain, Africa, Asia, or its own Gallic provinces.

Again, when Rome gave Delos to Athens after the Third Macedonian War, it stipulated that the island should be a free port for all nations. Rome’s advantage undoubtedly lay in securing a place where its armies and navies, when operating in the East, could obtain supplies at reasonable prices. The commercial profits, however, went to the numerous traders from Greece, Syria, and Egypt who soon made Delos an important trading center. Merchants from these regions occupy the most space in the numerous Delian inscriptions of the second century. The names of a considerable number of Westerners also appear, but examination shows that, until several years after the province of Asia was acquired, these belonged to southern Italian Greeks and Campanian traders.[20] Very few Roman merchants shared in the island’s great prosperity before that time.

Finally, we may recall that, during the Republic, commercial interests at Rome were not powerful enough to secure the small appropriation needed to make the roadstead at Ostia capable of accommodating sea-going vessels.

[15] Mommsen, Roman History, III, 238; Heitland, The Roman Republic, II, 156; Ferrero, The Greatness and Decline of Rome, I, pp. 20 and 38. I have discussed the matter more fully in Roman Imperialism, Chapter XIV. See also Chapter XIV below.

[16] Peter, Hist. Rom. Frag., p. 273, fr. 9.

[17] Rhodes’s request in 169 for permission to buy grain in Sicily is sometimes taken to imply general control of Sicilian trade: Polyb. 28, 2. This request, however, was made when Rome was at war and needed the grain. Cicero, Verr. V, 145 and 157, shows that commerce in Sicily was generally free.

[18] Livy, XXXVIII, 44.

[19] See Roman Imperialism, p. 280. As a result of this treaty, Italian as well as Massilian wine found a market within the area: Athen. II, 36. But Rome never extended the prohibition to the parts of Gaul that it alone had subdued, because wine was grown throughout the large Gallic provinces: Strabo, IV, 178, 179; Colum. III, 2, 16; XII, 23; Martial, XIII, 107; Pliny, XIV, 37; C.I.L., XIII, 1954 et al. The passages that mention a prohibition—Cic. De Rep. III, 9, and Hist. Aug. Prob. 18, 8—therefore refer to the small district in lower Savoy that Marseilles annexed in 154 B.C.; see Polyb. XXXIII, 11.

[20] Hatzfeld, Bull. Corr. Hell., 1912. The sacred island was a Mecca for pilgrims from all Greek cities and, as such, had a just claim to a free port.

Until Claudius improved the harbor of Ostia, all larger vessels put in at Puteoli,[21] 150 miles from Rome. Indeed, the ancient world provides no record of any important state as unconcerned about its commerce as the Roman Republic was.

[21] For Puteoli as a harbor in Cicero’s day, see Cic. Verr. V, 154; In Vat. 12; Rab. Post. 40; De Fin. II, 84; and Strabo, IV, 6. It will be remembered that even St. Paul, on his way to Rome, disembarked there and completed the journey by the Appian Way.

Throughout the preceding pages, we have repeatedly drawn the inference that Rome’s continual acquisition of new lands diverted men and capital from commerce and industry into more congenial fields. This seems to be the chief reason for the limited scope of Rome’s economic interests. It may be useful to consider more fully how this limitation affected society, creating distinctive moral inhibitions and even social groupings through which the natural economic evolution we have traced justified itself to the Roman mind.

Such a consideration may reveal why a priori methods of interpreting historical development through generally accepted economic and psychological principles must be applied to Roman history only with great caution. In particular, it should be noted that forces which, in modern societies, find effective expression through universal suffrage and gain a ready hearing through rapid means of communication frequently failed even to reach the organs of government at Rome. In the Roman Republic, it is unsafe to infer that a great need or strong desire felt by a particular class or group eventually expressed itself in a government action or law.

For example, the laboring classes, which are now powerful enough to alter practically every agricultural, industrial, or commercial bill passed by a modern legislature to their own advantage, could exert only slight pressure on the government in Cicero’s day. At Rome, the laborer was either a slave whose voice was never heard or a client who, with his own advantage in mind, voted as his patron instructed him. Even if he chose to vote independently, his ballot was generally cast in one of the four city wards alongside those of the descendants of former slaves.

Although free, he could not organize to improve his economic position, because slave wages and slave living conditions determined his own. In a thousand years of Roman history, not one labor strike is recorded. He received only what the ruling powers saw fit to give him, and that was generally no more than charity. In short, he had great needs but no means of exerting effective pressure on the government to obtain what he needed.

When we turn from the employee to the employer, we again find a similar difference between Roman and modern conditions. In a modern industrial state, the businessman has become the controlling power not only in society but also in government. At Rome, however, he was so far from being regarded as a leading citizen that even Cicero, who needed him for his concordia ordinum, could consider whether he was entirely respectable.[22] Cicero concluded that he was. Yet Cicero was equally certain that any man who traveled to the provinces on business lacked the instincts of a true Roman: a worthy citizen could hardly leave the center of civilization merely for financial reasons.

If wealth had been able to give men social and political prestige at Rome, the nobility could not have excluded capitalists from the Senate, as they did until Caesar’s day. The novus homo rarely rose to the consulship, and when that miracle occurred, it was achieved not through financial power but through forensic skill or military prowess.

The government of the Roman Republic was, in fact, blind to the political value of soundly based industry and commerce, and it failed to appreciate the relatively few capable Romans who pursued them. It might have devised tariffs and subsidies to assist those facing foreign competition, but it did not. Anyone intimately familiar with Roman society and customs would find a lobby of manufacturers and shippers in the Roman Senate inconceivable. There was enough economic conflict, but pressure was rarely applied through political channels. In this case, the social caste system apparently acted as a barrier.

[22] Cic. Ad Quint. I, 1, 15; De Off. I, 151; Pro Flacco, 91.

The wealthy man did gain some recognition within a limited sphere—namely, where the civil service needed him. Because the Roman Republic, with its frequent changes of executives, could not establish permanent bureaus and boards to collect revenue and supervise public works, it needed capitalists to assume contracts. In exchange for this service, it was willing to grant them a title, a ring, and a seat in the theater.

Consequently, during the Republic’s final century, the equites became a well-organized political influence, and some of the later territorial expansion was attributable to this class. It is interesting, however, that in this particular case social position was obtained through semipolitical service to the state, and that the resulting position was clearly understood to be inferior to that of the ruling nobility.

The agricultural class, on the other hand, was very powerful during most of the Republic. Farmers and landowners probably controlled all the rural tribes, and their interests often coincided with those of the senators, who generally owned large tracts of land. It is therefore rather surprising that we never hear of laws protecting Roman farm produce.

Even if we cannot find traces in Roman legislation of positive measures favoring farmers, we may perhaps attribute to their predominance the government’s indifference toward industrial and commercial needs, its unenlightened revenue system, its cumbersome financial policy, and its neglect of the complex problems that usually arise from economic conflicts.

It was difficult, however, to secure united action from the farmers. Because they lacked rapid transportation, they had to consider the advantages of the nearest market. The group therefore readily divided into diverse factions, each driven by different interests. Perhaps this explains why we can identify so little positive legislation that clearly bears the farmers’ stamp.

The influence of the landed class appeared early in a desire for border security and, consequently, for orderly relations between tribes. As has often been said, the prosperous farmer of the open plains had everything to lose and nothing to gain from border brigandage. He therefore became a believer in the sanctity of vested interests. He then organized his military machine and struck back at the raiders until he converted them to his views—not forgetting to demand an indemnity and, in special cases, to apply the doctrine of frightfulness.

The economic factor was therefore very important in shaping the Latin federation, but that does not mean the federation was, or could have been, organized to achieve immediate economic objectives.

The nobility that directed Rome’s policies could ordinarily turn its desires into action, and its fairly uniform economic interests were probably not neglected. We have seen that the nobles paid far too little attention both to the needs of industry and commerce and to those of the laboring classes. Naturally, they were not so indifferent to their own desires, though we need not assume that those desires were always material.

The average Roman noble was rather hard and practical, prudent and calculating, not very sentimental, but on the whole reasonably just. Material interests were very important to him, because he had to preserve his property unimpaired for later generations or fall beneath his class. For this purpose, he needed his lands to be well managed and his clients’ loans to be repaid. Yet the motives that might influence a senator were many and varied.

It is sometimes said that, because a man spends most of his waking hours acquiring property, he naturally uses whatever political power he possesses toward the same end. If we apply this test to the Roman senator, however, we must remember that most of the influences surrounding him were not economic. He was not a businessman, and he spent very little time on his own material concerns. Problems of state and judicial or legal service generally occupied his attention, so his daily activities naturally made him less concerned with the economic viewpoint than people generally are.

Since economists take the environment into account, we may consider how it affected the Roman senator. From boyhood, he lived in the presence of the imagines of his ancestors. Some had died on the battlefield, some had celebrated triumphs, and some bore names inscribed on laws, treaties, and dedicated temples. Among them were consuls, judges, orators, and provincial governors—but no captains of industry.

They had won the memoria sempiterna that Roman history presented as humanity’s highest goal. Could the sons of a nobleman pass daily before those statues without being kindled by a longing for gloria? “Nullam enim virtus aliam mercedem laborum periculorumque desiderat praeter hanc laudis et gloriae”—a sentence that had not yet lost its meaning even during the civil strife that made the best men cynical.

No people has ever treasured the glories and virtues of its ancestors more deeply. The nobles themselves wrote the nation’s history: Fabius, Cincius, Postumius, Cato, Piso, Fannius, Sempronius, and twenty others. They embodied their profound respect for brave deeds in their institutions: the laudatio funebris, the triumphal arch, honorary dedications, heroic burial, the splendor of the triumph, and all the rest. To understand the spirit that entered these men, one must read Vergil’s “masque of heroes” or Livy’s epic of seven centuries.

The irresistible determination, self-control, stolid puritanism, hardness, and self-sufficiency of the native old Roman were racial qualities. They formed part of a hereditary legacy transmitted after centuries of hard struggle had eliminated the unfit. In the old Roman noble, that inheritance had not been diluted enough to prevent his virtus from responding quickly to the appeal of ancestral memories. Only when the civil wars had cut down the old race, emancipation and immigration had mixed the blood, and excessive prosperity had encouraged parasitism did the time-honored ideals cease to matter.

As already noted, daily attention to the state’s political and diplomatic problems partly blinded the Roman noble to the economic point of view. He dealt with the complexities of a hundred treaties made with free, allied, and tributary states. He had to consider the state’s relations with scores of tribes, at every stage of civilization or barbarism, along the entire frontier. There were always provinces to keep satisfied, governors to appoint and supervise, and armies to raise, move, and direct.

All these matters involved fine distinctions of legal interpretation, etiquette, rank, and honors. Immersed in such problems, the noble became legalistic and pompous, but he was hardly likely to become obsessed with the ideal of a “business administration.” The Roman Senate’s persistent failure to devote enough attention to economic questions was largely due to this preoccupation with diplomatic, political, and ceremonial concerns.

Finally, the nobles’ desire to preserve their own position and power—the auctoritas senatus—both for the sake of personal prestige and for the financial advantages attached to their rank, taught them to maintain a conservative regime. If, for example, an individual leader advocated a war of expansion, the Senate was inclined to oppose him. The aristocracy had learned early that when a small city-state expanded its boundaries too far, a large army became necessary to hold the empire; and a popular commander of that army threatened aristocratic control.

Rome therefore appears to have been one of those states in which normal economic pressures generally encountered strong counteracting forces. The laborer could not attract the attention of the governing class. Industrial interests were weak, and their value was underestimated. Farmers were so geographically separated that their interests failed to coincide. The nobility was so preoccupied with purely administrative problems, and so jealous of its own prestige, that it gave little thought to economic measures.

In general, it must be said that Rome’s economic problems were unusually simple. The gradual conquest of Italy and the provinces absorbed more than the surplus of capital and population, so there was no urgent need for industry and commerce. The returns from simple investments in land and capitalistic enterprises were enough to keep the people prosperous and, eventually, weak through inactivity.

The complexities of our economic system therefore never imposed their excessive strain upon Rome’s government. The accusation that Livy and Tacitus wrote political history because they were “economically blind” misrepresents the case: they wrote as they did because they clearly understood the essential facts of Roman society.