THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

III. From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter XII - The Management of Land and of Capital

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Page 28

But no endeavours were apparently made to transplant to Italy any such professional industry as existed in Egypt and Syria, or even merely to carry it on abroad with Italian capital. Flax indeed was cultivated in Italy and purple dye was prepared there, but the latter branch of industry at least belonged essentially to the Greek Tarentum, and probably the import of Egyptian linen and Milesian or Tyrian purple even now preponderated everywhere over the native manufacture.

Under this category, however, falls to some extent the leasing or purchase by Roman capitalists of landed estates beyond Italy, with a view to carry on the cultivation of grain and the rearing of cattle on a great scale. This species of speculation, which afterwards developed to proportions so enormous, probably began particularly in Sicily, within the period now before us; seeing that the commercial restrictions imposed on the Siceliots,(18) if not introduced for the very purpose, must have at least tended to give to the Roman speculators, who were exempt from such restrictions, a sort of monopoly of the profits derivable from land.

18. III. III. Organization of the Provinces

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