212
AGRICULTURE, TRADE, AND COMMERCE.
[Book I.
into the hands of the great landholder, seeing that he alone possessed the vessels for it and, in his produce, the articles for export.[1] In fact the distinction between a landed and a moneyed aristocracy was unknown to the Romans of earlier times; the great landholders were at the same time the speculators and the capitalists. In the case of a very active commerce such a combination certainly could not have been maintained; but, as the previous representation shows, while there was a comparatively vigorous traffic in Rome inasmuch as the trade of the Latin land was there concentrated, in the main Rome was by no means a commercial city like Cære or Tarentum, but was and continued to be the centre of an agricultural community.
- ↑ Quintus Claudius, in a law issued shortly before 534 [219], prohibited the senators from having sea-going vessels holding more than 300 amphoræ (1 amph. = nearly 6 gallons): id satis habitum ad fructus ex agris vectandos; quæstus omnis patribus indecorus visus (Liv. xxi. 63). It was thus an ancient usage, and was still permitted, that the senators should possess sea-going vessels for the transport of the produce of their estates: on the other hand, transmarine mercantile speculation (quæstus, traffic, fitting-out of vessels, &c.) on their part was prohibited. It is a curious fact that the ancient Greeks as well as the Romans expressed the tonnage of their sea-going ships constantly in amphoræ; the reason evidently being, that Greece as well as Italy exported wine at a comparatively early period, and on a larger scale than any other balky article.
