ABSTRACT
Trade was regarded as ungenteel by the land-owners and literati of ancient Rome, just as it was by the aristocracy and gentry of more recent times. The ownership of land lay at the centre of the traditional Roman view of society and status, as may be seen in the census qualifications required for membership of the governing classes (Part 9). However, the use of land was not confined to recreation or feeding the owner’s household ; profits, whether from rents or from the sale of produce, were intentionally sought, with the aid of labour (slaves, hired labourers or tenants), agents, equipment (for processing and packaging produce), wagons and boats, etc., as appropriate. Commercial services as such were relatively undeveloped, but links of kinship or friendship between landed families in Rome and in the provinces enabled agents, servants, couriers and shippers to be called upon according to need. Such people must also have been the ostensible providers of loans and guarantees which could often have come originally from senators who remained in the background (D’Arms, 1981).
