94 Chapter 5
had long been famous. Linens, drugs, perfumes, pre-
cious stones, and such delicacies as dried fruit and pick-
led fish came from various sources within the empire.
Other luxuries came from far away. The Silk Road
across central Asia connected Syria with China. More
than a hundred ships sailed annually from the Red Sea
ports to India for cargoes of spice, and Africa continued
as it had for centuries to provide the Mediterranean
world with gold, ivory, palm oil, and those hardy
perennials, frankincense and rhinoceros horn.
Almost without exception, these were low-volume,
high-profit trades that entailed a substantial element of
risk. They made a few people, mostly equestrians or
freedmen who eventually merged with the equestrian
class, enormously rich, but the prosperity they gener-
ated was not widely shared. Aristocrats, too, sometimes
invested in such ventures or speculated on the com-
modities market. They usually did so through agents
because the old prejudice against trade died hard.
Overall, the economy of the empire remained agrarian,
and mercantile activities were restricted to a few.
In the first century A.D. a million people may have
lived in the city of Rome, a nearly incredible total given
the limits of ancient technology and systems of distrib-
ution. As in any community, their lives were con-
strained by an elaborate social structure. While most
were desperately poor, few would have chosen to live
anywhere else. Rome was, to the Romans, the center of
the world.
About one-third of the city’s land area was occu-
pied by the palaces of the rich, the most spectacular of
which were clustered on the Palatine Hill. Some of
these structures, with their courtyards, galleries, baths,
and gardens, covered several acres and employed hun-
CAE
SARE
A-ROME
(^20) DAYS
ALE
XAN
DRIA-P
UTEOLI (^15) – 2
(^0) DA
YS
GADES-OSTI
A 9 DAYS B
YZ
AN
TIUM-
GAZA
(^10) -
(^12)
DA
YS
OST
IA
- C
AT
HA
GE
3 –
5 D
AY
S
Po R.
Black Sea
Red
Sea
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Sea
Baltic
Sea
Me
dit
err
ane
an
Sea
Danu
be R.
Sava
R.
RhineR
.
iN
le
R.
Rh
on
e
R.
LoireR.
Dniep
erR
Tagus R.
TigrisR
.
Euphr
ates
R.
Pyrenees
Mts.
Alp
sM
ts.
Caesarea
Palmyra Dura-Europus
Tyrus Seleucia
Rome
Arretium
OstiaPuteoli
Gades
Corduba
Carthago Nova
Tarraco
Narbo
Lugdunum Carnuntum Apulum
Brundislum
Aquileia
Salonae
Londinium
Colonia Agrippina
Augusta Treverorum
Arelate
Massilia
Alexandria
Sardinia
Corsica
Sicily
Crete Cyprus
Ancona
Balearics
Carthage
Cyrente
Corinth
Athens
Syracuse
Rhegium
Pergamum
Ephesus
Nicomedia
Sinope
Byzantium Trapesus
Antiochia
Tarsus
Jerusalem
Gaza
Coptos
0 200 400 Miles
0 200 400 600 Kilometers
Gold
Lead
Grain
Olive Oil
Wine
Slaves
Pottery
Timber
Textiles
Trade Route
Roman Empire
A.D. 200
MAP 5.2
Trade Routes and Products in the Roman Empire, c. 200