ABSTRACT
The economy of the Roman Empire was predominantly agricultural; for the rich land was the safest, and therefore the most honourable investment and most men worked on the fields. The development of trade and industry was hampered by the high cost of transport, especially by land (Part 8, Chapter 23; Brunt, 1971, 179–81, 135, 703–6; Duncan-Jones, 1982, App. XVII but note K. Hopkins, 1983), and by technological backwardness; inventiveness, not marked in the Greek world, diminished under Roman rule. No doubt knowledge which already existed in the more advanced areas was more widely diffused, yet the water-mill, devised in Asia in the first century BC, was not generally used for four centuries, and then only for the grinding of grain (Finley, 1981, Chapter 11). In the absence of large machines there was no advantage in concentrating labour in big factories; industrial establishments will hardly ever have employed more than a score or two of hands (Kiechle, 1969), and in some workshops the master craftsman would work side-by-side with a few slaves. Wool was often spun and woven in the great households under the eye of the mistress, or by artisans in their own homes.
