25. The Roman state; Rome not a commercial city.—In entering on the period of Roman domination we need spend no time over the earlier history of the city which came to rule the world. The Romans were not a commercial people. Even in the last two centuries B.C., when Rome extended her sway over the eastern countries which have already been noticed, and subjected a large part of the West as well, Rome did not become a commercial center. The city grew to unparalleled size, it is true, and required immense imports of food to support the population. These imports came, however, as taxes and tribute to the conquerors. Rome supplied no exports of considerable amount, and built up no great carrying and forwarding trade such as would have made the city the center for the exchanges of other people. The service which the Romans gave to the world of their time, and for which they received such rich reward, was not economic but political in character; they were the greatest organizers and administrators of antiquity, and by their skill in the arts of war and government succeeded in living on the labor of subject peoples. They were not mere parasites. They earned all that they received by one great contribution, “pax Romana,” Roman peace, which continued almost unbroken for centuries, and which furnished an opportunity for commercial development before unknown.

26. Development of commerce in the Roman East.—The study of commerce in the Roman period resolves itself, as suggested above, into a study of commerce in the different regions of which the great Roman state was composed. In the East commerce developed on the lines which have already been described; Alexandria and Antioch continued to be great markets for Oriental wares, coming now even from India and China; and Carthage remained an important outlet for the African trade. Asia Minor, northern Africa, and southeastern Europe reached the very pinnacle of their historical development in the Roman period; these countries have never since attained to anything like the prosperity they then enjoyed. We shall not have the time hereafter to notice the commerce of these regions in detail; the reader may take it for granted that merchants struggled strenuously to keep the place they had reached, and that decline came slowly, when it did come later.

Our attention must be directed hereafter mainly to the West. It was there that the most important states of modern Europe arose, and there that commerce grew up in its modern form. Our chief interest must be to know what progress the peoples of the West made under Roman rule, and how far commerce had developed among them.

27. Backward condition of the people of the West.—The peoples of the West were far behind those of the East in civilization. They have sometimes been compared to the American Indians, and though the comparison is inexact in detail and may easily mislead, it gives still a rough indication of their backwardness. They lived more from the products of their flocks and herds than from agriculture, when the Romans came in contact with them; they had practically no towns, and no considerable trade.

The five hundred years (roughly) of Roman rule made some striking changes in the Roman provinces of the West (modern Spain, France, England; not Germany or countries farther east). It kept the people in order, and gave them an opportunity to acquire the elements of a higher civilization. The fact that modern Spanish and French are based on Latin remains always a striking testimony to the Roman influence on the provincials.

28. Limited influence of Rome on the commercial development of the West.—It is easy, however, to overestimate the results of this influence, especially so far as regards economic progress. Rome gave her subject peoples of the West a chance at commercial development, but none had sought it and few were ready to profit by it. The Roman government constructed a system of military roads, models of their kind, which enabled troops and messengers to reach speedily the different provinces. Romans settled in the provinces as officials or private gentlemen, and Roman culture was acquired by the wealthy provincials; cities and large landed estates formed centers of industry and exchanged manufactured products for the raw materials of the surrounding districts.

The roads, however, seem to have served mainly Roman purposes, and the cities and culture depended mainly on Roman influence for their support. The mass of the people remained passive, and advanced slowly. Most of them lived by agriculture in the country districts, producing the things necessary for their own subsistence and a small surplus for the Roman tax-gatherer; they received for their surplus no wares which would have formed the basis of commerce. However much Rome did to efface the differences of race, language, and national tradition, such differences remained to hinder commerce; and peoples were still separated by great distances and by serious physical barriers. The commercial development of the West, though it may seem great in comparison with conditions in the following period of disorder, was very limited even at the height of Roman power.

29. Decline of Roman power and of commerce in the West.—The time came soon when the provincials could no longer look to Rome for protection and stimulus. In the third century, A.D., the Roman government began to go to pieces. It lacked the force to repress internal revolts in the provinces, and to repel the inroads of barbarians on the frontiers. The process of decline had already proceeded far before the “Fall of Rome” (476), when even the shadow of authority passed from the Roman Emperor of the West. The remnants of Roman rule centered henceforth about the eastern capital, Constantinople. In the West barbarian chieftains established government of a kind on the fragments of the Roman state, but endeavored in vain to follow the models which the Romans had set them. The motives to commerce grew weaker as Roman culture disappeared, and the obstacles to commerce increased rapidly with the decline in public order. Brigandage and piracy became more profitable than honest industry; roads and bridges deteriorated; the course of rivers was obstructed. Even a great ruler like Charlemagne, who had himself crowned Emperor in 800, could do little to stay the process of decline, and weaker successors could do still less. The last remnants of the Roman organization seemed to have passed away, and the European world passed into the “Dark Ages.”

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

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