Roman government policy toward commerce varied over the centuries. At
times the state appears to have provided little direction except to make cer-
tain that it collected as much in customs and taxes as possible and supported
whatever strategies were necessary to ensure that the empire’s most privi-
leged group, the Roman oligarchy, benefited the most. For reasons related to
its military and political needs, the empire did construct and maintain an
impressive transportation and communications infrastructure. Roads were
built to facilitate the march of armies, but were used by merchants as well.
Rivers, chief among them the Tiber, Rhone, Rhine, Danube, Euphrates,
Seine, Loire, and Guadalquivir, were also used to transport goods, and canals
were dug to connect natural bodies of water. Along the seacoast naval stations
were maintained to protect commerce at strategic points, including the Bay
of Naples, the northern Adriatic, the southern Aegean, the Syrian coast, and
Alexandria. As trade and naval activity increased, ports on the Mediterranean,
Black, and Red seas and even the Atlantic were greatly improved, harbors
and docks were rebuilt and enlarged, and new harbor basins were put in.
The Romans also rebuilt Corinth and Carthage since leaving them aban-
doned was self-defeating once Roman rule was unchallenged. The Romans
recolonized Carthage but initially did not revive its trade in wine and olive
oil since these were major Italian exports. Rome, however, needed wheat,
and the region around Carthage became one of its breadbaskets. Eventually
wine and oil came back to supplement Italian shortfalls, and Carthage also
became a center along with Spain for the production of garum, afish sauce
widely used as a condiment.
As was the case in earlier societies, those who engaged in trade and those
who benefited most from trade were not necessarily the same people, nor did
they form a distinct social class. Merchants could own their own ships, rent
space aboard someone else’s ship, or serve as agents for goods owned by
someone else. Some specialized in only one product such as grain, timber, or
slaves. Traders identified as “Roman” could come from anywhere in the
empire except the region they were operating in, so, for example, Roman
traders in Greece were often Italians, including Greek Italians, but Roman
traders in the Indian Ocean trade were more likely to be Syrians or Egyptian
Greeks. Italian traders, particularly from the south, did settle in ports around
the Mediterranean while others operated in conjunction with Roman armies
to secure the spoils generated from plunder. Often they enjoyed privileges
that gave them enough advantage to drive their Greek, Levantine, and other
competitors out. Several classical authors report that Italian traders had a
reputation for greed in dealing with people both in and out of the empire,
and in one instance involving Celtic people in the Alps, Italian traders so
antagonized the locals that the Roman Senate had to curtail their activities
to prevent a war.
The system provided opportunities especially for those well connected, as
seen in a story from Petronius in which a merchant who lost five ships
76 Shifting cores and peripheries in the Imperial West