Roman commerce

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Roman commerce was the engine that drove the growth of the Roman Empire. Romans were businessmen — the longevity of their empire was due to their commercial trade.

Fashions and trends in historiography and in popular culture have tended to neglect the economic basis of the empire in favor of the lingua franca of Latin and the exploits of the Roman legions. The language and the legions were supported by trade while being at the same time part of its backbone.

In theory, members of the Roman Senate and their families were prohibited from engaging in trade. The members of the Equestrian order were involved in businesses, despite their upper class values that laid the emphasis on military pursuits and leisure activities. Plebeians and freedmen held shop or manned stalls at markets while vast quantities of slaves did most of the hard work. The slaves were themselves also the subject of commercial transactions, and given their high proportion in society (compared to that in Classical Greece), and the reality of runaways, the Roman Servile Wars and minor uprisings, they gave a distinct flavor to roman commerce.

The Romans knew two types of businessmen, the negotiatores and the mercatores.

The negotiatores were in part bankers because they lent money on interest. They also bought and sold staples in bulk or did commerce in wholesale quantities of goods. In some instances the argentarii are considered as a subset of the negotiatores and in others as a group apart. The argentarii acted as agents in public or private auctions, kept deposits of money for individuals, cashed cheques (prescriptio) and served as moneychangers. They kept strict books, or tabulae, which were considered as legal proof by the courts. The argentarii sometimes did the same kind of work as the mensarii, who were public bankers appointed by the state.

The mercatores were usually plebeians or freedmen. They were present in all the open-air markets or covered shops, manning stalls or hawking goods by the side of the road. They were also present near roman military camps during campaigns, were they sold food and clothing to the soldiers and paid cash for any booty coming from military activities.

The Forum Cuppedinis in ancient Rome was a market which offered general goods while at least four other large markets specialized in particular goods such as cattle, wine, fish and herbs and vegetables, and the Roman forum drew the bulk of the traffic. All new cities, like Timgad, were laid out according to an orthogonal grid plan which facilitated transportation and commerce. Maritime archaeology and ancient manuscripts from classical antiquity show evidence of vast Roman commercial fleets.

As with most Roman technology the roman sea going commercial ships had no significant advances over Greek ships of the previous centuries. The round hulled sailing ships they used would have been easy prey for pirates had it not been for the fleets of Liburnian galleys and triremes of the Roman navy. This continuous Mediterranean "police" protection over several centuries was one of the main factors of success of Roman commerce, given that Roman roads were designed more for feet or hooves than for wheels, and could not support the economical transport of goods over long distances.

Early on, even before the republic, the Roman Kingdom was engaged in regular commerce using the river Tiber. The Roman Empire traded with the Chinese over the Silk Road. Staple goods and commodities like cereals for making bread and papyrus scrolls for book production were imported from ancient Egypt to Italy in a continuous fashion.

The intricate, complex, and extensive accounting of Roman trade was conducted with counting boards and the Roman abacus. The abacus, using Roman numerals, was ideally suited to the counting of Roman currency and tallying of Roman measures.

Mercury, who was originally only the god of the mercatores and the grain trade eventually became the god of all who were involved in commercial activities. On the Mercuralia on May 14, a Roman merchant would do the proper rituals of devotion to Mercury and beseech the god to remove from him and from his belongings the guilt coming from all the cheating he had done to his customers and suppliers.