AN UNDERDEVELOPED ECONOMY 75Jones’ argument represents an attempt to evade the problem of the non-
existent quantitative data by conjuring up isolated texts of special
signifi cance. There are a few such texts bearing on trade, for example, the
Vienna papyrus that documents the extraordinarily high value of a cargo of
nard, ivory and cloth imported into Egypt from India, and invites inferences
concerning the cost of investment in the trade in luxuries, and its profi tability.^4
Another valuable document, which needs careful interpretation, is the
emperor Diocletian’s price edict of AD 301.^5
In contrast, any attempt to establish the signifi cance of trade and
manufacture in the economy with reference to texts allegedly bearing on
upper- class economic activity would be inhibited by data that is qualitatively
as well as quantitatively defi cient. The patient collection of stray items from
diverse sources might just about be justifi ed if the individual pieces of
evidence were self- evidently valuable. But, to cite a typical case, there is no
reason for accepting that a particular Roman senator had invested in trade
through an ex- slave or slave unless we can be sure about the precise nature
of the economic activities of the alleged middleman, establish fi rm links
between the parties, and show that a sharing of risks and profi ts was
entailed.^6 As yet no text has yielded this kind of information, just as
documentary evidence for the direct involvement of senators in trade is
lacking. What can be said, on the basis of diverse, mainly non- literary,
sources, is that individual aristocrats (and emperors) were proprietors of
large warehouses, brickyards and pottery works, or the source of loan
capital invested by third parties in, among other things, shipping. As owners
rather than exploiters, as lenders on fi xed interest rather than direct
participants, they avoided whatever risks and ignominy were associated
with direct and public investment in trade and manufacturing.^7
Such evidence justifi es the negative assertion that not all members of the
high elite were completely uninvolved in trade or manufacture. But there is
nothing very radical about this fi nding, and the key questions remain: how
many individuals, and what proportion of their wealth? Any over- optimistic
answers would run up against the reality of the substantial investment of
senators and other rich men in rural property, and the survival in law and
convention of opposition to senatorial involvement in trade.
There remains a further, critical, issue. So far the assumption has gone
unchallenged that insofar as we can piece together the sources of wealth of
the rich, we can reconstruct the sources of wealth of the empire at large. But
Polanyi, and more recently, Finley, have reminded us that not all commodity
movement in antiquity is properly described as trade in the sense of market
exchange. In particular, the transport of goods by order of or under the
control of the state, ‘redistribution’, or ‘administered trade’, was of singular
importance under the Roman empire. Insofar as rich investors were caught
up in the transport to the city of Rome or the Roman armies of massive
quantities of goods, especially tax grain, this would tell us little about the
importance of trade in the Roman world.^8