ABSTRACT
This chapter explains and illustrates the use of the peculiutn, without some knowledge of which it is impossible to understand the independent position occupied by slaves in commerce and industry. Commercial and industrial enterprise includes many varied forms of activity; the hewer of stone and the digger of clay, the dock porter and the transport worker, the mason and the potter, the manager and overseer, the salesman and agent, the banker and private investor—all perform different services; some provide mere physical strength, others skill of hand, others mental ability and experience, others ready capital. The age of Augustus was the beginning of a period of commercial and industrial expansion. Slaves had, indeed, been engaged in such work before, but the sudden growth of trade compelled their employment in numbers that would otherwise have been unnecessary.
