72 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
In ancient Rome, small- scale handicraft industry was predominant. Some
goods were made in quantity, notably pottery and textiles. But little technical
expertise or accumulation of capital was required for their production. They
were in constant demand as basic and inexpensive consumer goods.
However, no one producer or group of producers could be sure of a steady
or expanding non- local market.
In Rome as in other pre- industrial economies, commerce received some
of the capital that could not fi nd an outlet in industrial enterprise. But the
riskiness of trade acted as a disincentive to potential investors. In addition,
transport facilities were backward. Land transport was slow and costly,
even as it was after Roman times, when the collar harness and nailed shoes
were invented. Water transport was altogether cheaper and faster, although
goods could not be moved with speed and effi ciency in all seasons until the
invention of the steamship in the nineteenth century. Most agricultural areas
inevitably aimed at subsistence rather than the production of an exportable
surplus. In the case of manufactures, too, proximity or ease of access to
markets was essential. The emergence of Pisa and then Lyon as centres
for the production of fi ne tableware illustrates the problems faced by the
potters of Arezzo in the early decades of the fi rst century AD in selling their
product on the northern frontiers where the Roman army offered a ready
market. In general, the backwardness and expense of transport and the
relatively low level of demand limited opportunities for profi table investment
in commerce.
Trading profi ts were attracted into land and money- lending. Money-
lending brought the better return. Interest rates were especially high where
the risks were great, as was the case with nautical loans and loans abroad
(an empire afforded opportunities for exploitation). Money- lending was
also unproductive: loans to aristocrats, for example, were used for purposes
of consumption rather than land improvement and increased productivity.
Land investment offered security and a steady income. In modern
developing countries, the scale of speculation in land suggests that many of
those who have wealth fi nd alternative opportunities for investment limited,
or consider anything but a marginal investment in trade (or industry) unsafe
or undesirable. In such societies, as was the case in pre- industrial Europe,
land is valued also as a source of prestige and political power. The conversion
of profi ts won in commerce into landed wealth often heralds the arrival of a
new family in the ranks of the aristocracy. In such cases, the acquisition of
property may be followed by the purchase of offi ce and the forging of
marriage connections with the upper class. The process of assimilation into
the aristocracy might take one generation or more. As regards Rome, the
best- known example of the merchant turned landowner is fi ctional, the
freedman Trimalchio in Petronius’ mid- fi rst-century AD novel; and he,
notoriously, failed to found a family that might have secured the status that
was denied to Trimalchio himself. Freedmen were barred from political
offi ce. However, as many inscriptions from Italy and elsewhere demonstrate,