| Roman Culture |
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Traders in ancient Rome were always busy buying their goods from one place and trying to sell them in another. As the city of Rome expanded, trading became very important. Large trading companies owned by wealthy investors employed many of Rome's traders. Many other traders were self-employed.
Aelius Aristides, a Greek rhetorician from the second century A.D, had this to say about Rome:
Large continents lie all around the Mediterranean, and from them, to you, flow constant supplies of goods. Everything is shipped to you, from every land and from every sea--the products of each season, of each country, of each river and lake, the crafts of Greeks and other foreigners. As a result, if anyone wants to see all of these items, he must either travel through the whole world to behold them, or live in this city. Everything that is grown or manufactured by each people is not only always present here, but is present in abundance. So many ships land here bringing cargo from all over, during every season, after every harvest. And thus the city seems like a common market for the world. You can see so many cargoes from India or, if you wish, from Arabia Felix, that you might think the trees in those countries had been left permanently bare and that the inhabitants would have to come to Rome if they needed anything, to beg for their own goods. Clothing from Babylonia and ornaments from foreign lands beyond arrive here in greater quantity and more easily than goods shipped from Naxos or Cythnos or Athens. Egypt, Sicily, and the cultivated part of Libya are your farms. The arrival and departure of ships never cease. And consequently it is quite amazing that there is enough room in the sea, much less the harbor, for the ships. . . . Everything comes together here: trade and commerce, the transportation industry, agriculture, metallurgy, every skill which exists now and has existed, all that is produced and grown.
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