ABSTRACT
If we look at the industrial development of the second period of the Republic we find that its characteristics, as a whole, may be fairly clearly descried. Manufacture was revolutionized by the conquests, which, whilst they led to the putting into circulation of adequate supplies of currency and were accompanied by an ever-increasing contingent of captive workers, initiated the Romans into the technical processes of Greece and Asia and engendered new standards of comfort and luxury. Unity of production was disappearing at the same time as the simplicity of former days. Although it did not become entirely detached from the land—for the latifundia still remained centres for weaving and pottery—and without entirely ceasing to be domestic—for the great still required their “town families” to make the garments of current wear—industry came to acquire a very genuine independence. At the same time, it assumed more complex forms and was characterized by a more regular output in proportion as the Romans borrowed the refinements of the eastern world and increased their demand for manufactured articles. The division of labour, unknown at the beginning, gradually increased, without, however, at any time arriving at the extreme specialization which can alone be justified by the mechanical resources of our own age; certain towns acquired, as will be seen, either owing to the quality of their cloths or their vases, or because of their natural wealth of raw materials, what amounted to monopolies.
