COMMERCE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Pompei market stalls In ancient Rome there were no corporations, no stocks and bonds, and real estate was rarely put up for sale. Roman oil amphoras were frequently marked with information specifying their contents or manufacturer. One example of branding from ancient Rome is the statement “Miscenius Ampilatus makes [this] in Salone”, which was found in modern-day Croatia on a mold that was used make bread or cakes sold during gladiator contests."
J. A. S. Evans wrote: Cities had markets on regular market days, and a farm close to a city (fundus suburbanus) would gear its production to the market. Timber, firewood, orchard fruit, dessert grapes, flowers, poultry and eggs were all in demand. Vineyards and olive orchards were profitable, and so was sheep ranching, which produced wool, hides, meat, and cheese. Cities were centers of small-scale manufacturing and service industries, and commerce was lively: we find shoemakers, weavers, fullers, silver workers who might combine their trade with some money-lending, millers, and bakers, and a whole host of other tradesmen, who generally passed on their trades from father to son. In the imperial period, however, we find that large estates would often set up their own workshops and produce their own jars, iron implements, cordage, tiles, and pots. This must have had an inhibiting effect on commerce in the cities. [Source: J. A. S. Evans, New Catholic Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia.com]
Roman commerce covered all known lands and seas, though Italy had little export trade. Pliny the Elder tells us that the trade with India and China took from Rome $5,000,000 yearly. The West sent more raw materials than the East, and fewer finished articles.The wholesale trade was to a large extent in the hands of the capitalists (equites); the retail business was conducted chiefly by freedmen and foreigners. The supplying of food to the city must have given employment to thousands, but the producer seems to have dealt directly with the retailer, as a rule, and there were few middlemen. The clothing trade has been mentioned already. No factory system seems to have developed there. The spinning and weaving were probably done at home by women who may have contracted for the disposition of their work with the large dealers, the fullers, perhaps, as the cloth had to go through their hands for finishing. There are not many traces of a regular factory system, but something of the sort seems to have been developed in iron at Puteoli, in fine copper and bronze work at Capua, perhaps also in silverware and in glass, and at Rome in brick and tile. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
Building operations were carried on to an immense scale and at an immense cost. Public buildings and many of the important private buildings were erected by contract. There can be little doubt that the letting of the contracts for the public buildings was made very profitable for the officer who had it to do, but it must be admitted on the other hand that the building was well done. Crassus seems to have done a sort of salvage business. When buildings seemed certain to be destroyed by fire, he would buy their contents at a nominal sum, and then fight the flames with gangs of slaves that he had trained for the purpose. The slave trade itself, though disreputable, was very considerable, and large fortunes were amassed in it. The heavy work of ordinary laborers was performed almost entirely by slaves, and much work was then done by hand that is now done by machinery. The book business has been mentioned. |+|
“For a most important passage relating to the Roman attitude toward trade and business see Cicero,De Officiis, I, 150-151.
RELATED ARTICLES:
LABOR, JOBS AND WORK IN THE ROMAN ERA factsanddetails.com ;
TRADESMEN AND PROFESSIONS IN THE ROMAN ERA europe.factsanddetails.com ;
ECONOMY OF ANCIENT ROME: GRAIN, SUBSIDIES, INFLATION europe.factsanddetails.com ;
MONEY IN ANCIENT ROME: HISTORY, COINS, DEBASEMENT europe.factsanddetails.com ;
MAJOR ECONOMIC POLICIES OF THE ROMAN EMPERORS europe.factsanddetails.com ;
INDUSTRIES IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE factsanddetails.com ;
TRADE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE factsanddetails.com ;
MINING AND RESOURCES IN ANCIENT ROME factsanddetails.com
Websites on Ancient Rome: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; Lacus Curtius penelope.uchicago.edu; The Internet Classics Archive classics.mit.edu ; Bryn Mawr Classical Review bmcr.brynmawr.edu; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org; Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library web.archive.org ; History of ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame web.archive.org ; United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History unrv.com
Rich People in Ancient Rome
The upper classes and elite consisted of landowners, military officers, government officials and administrators and wealthy soldier-landowners who were similar to medieval knights. Together they made up less than 1 percent of the population. Rich Romans had land, slaves, livestock and wealth. They could easily be identified by their clothes. The historian Michael Grant said the standard of grand villas built in Pompeii "was never achieved again until the 19th century, To pay for their indulgences, many rich Romans, particularly in Italy, exploited the slaves, farmers and peasants under their control. One scholar wrote: "They were permitted to do a great deal — as long as they did nothing constructive.”
The historian William Stearns Davis wrote: “Great fortunes under the Empire fell into two general classes — those founded on commerce, and those founded on land. A good instance of the latter is here cited from Pliny the Elder. Isidorus must have been a great territorial lord — almost a petty prince upon his vast domains. It was estates like his — worked by cheap slave labor — which ruined the honest peasant farmers of Italy.”
On “A Wealthy Roman's Fortune,” Pliny the Elder (23/4-79 A.D.) wrote in “Natural History”, XXXIII.47: “Gaius Caecilius Claudius Isidorus in the consulship of Gaius Asinius Gallus and Gaius Marcius Censorinus [8 B.C.] upon the sixth day before the kalends of February declared by his will, that though he had suffered great losses by the civil wars, he was still able to leave behind him 4,116 slaves, 3,600 yoke of oxen, and 257,000 head of other kinds of cattle, besides in ready money 60,000,000 sesterces. Upon his funeral he ordered 1,100,000 sesterces to be expended. [Source: Pliny the Elder (23/4-79 A.D.), “Natural History,” XXXIII.47: “A Wealthy Roman's Fortune,” William Stearns Davis, ed., “Readings in An
See Separate Article: RICH PEOPLE AND NOBILITY IN ANCIENT ROME europe.factsanddetails.com
Crassus, Rome's Richest Man

Crassus
One of the most powerful politicians in the era of corruption, Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 B.C.), not surprisingly was also one of the richest Roman. Born into a wealthy family, he acquired his riches, according to Plutarch, through "fire and rapine." Crassus became so powerful that he financed the army that put down the slave revolt led by Spartacus. To celebrate Spartacus's crucifixion, Crassus hosted a banquet for the entire voting public of Rome (10,000 people) that lasted for several days. Each participant was also given an allowance of three months of grain. His ostentatious displays gave us the word crass.
Crassus made a fortune in real estate by controlled Rome's only fire department acquiring the land from property owners victimized by fire.. When a fire broke out, a horse drawn water tank was dispatched to the site, but before fire was put out, Crassus or one of his representatives haggled over the price of his services, often while the house was burning down before their eyes. To save the building Crassus often required the owner to fork over title to the property and then pay rent.
Crassus was most likely the largest property owner in Rome. He also purchased property with money obtained through underhanded methods. While serving as a lieutenant in the civil war of 88-82 he able to buy land formally held by the enemy at bargain prices, sometimes by murdering its owners. Crassius also opened a profitable training center for slaves. He purchased unskilled bondsmen, trained them and then sold them as slaves for a handsome profit.
Crassus was not unlike successful modern businessmen who contribute large sums of money to a political parties in return for favors or high level government positions. He gave loans to nearly every Senator and hosted lavish parties for the influential and powerful. Through shrewd use of his money to gain political influence he reached the position of triumvir, one of the three people responsible for controlling the apparatus of state.
See Separate Article: CRASSUS — ANCIENT ROME'S RICHEST MAN europe.factsanddetails.com
Equites: Roman Capitalists

equite
The name of knight (eques) had lost its original significance long before the time of Cicero. The equites had become the class of capitalists who found in financial transactions the excitement and the profit that the nobles found in politics and war. Under the Empire certain important administrative posts were turned over to the equites, and there came to be a regular equestrian cursus honorum, but the equites continued to be on the whole the business class. It was the immense scale of their operations that relieved them from the stigma that attached to working for gain just as in modern times the wholesale dealer may have a social position entirely beyond the hopes of the small retailer. From early times their syndicates had financed and carried on great public works of all sorts, bidding for the contracts let by the magistrates. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
“Though “big business” never exerted the power at Rome attributed to it in modern times, in the later years of the Republic the equites as a body exerted considerable political influence, holding in fact the balance of power between the senatorial and the democratic parties. As a rule they exerted this influence only so far as was necessary to secure legislation favorable to them as a class, and to insure as governors for the provinces men that would not look too closely into their transactions there. For in the provinces the knights as well as the nobles found their best opportunities. Their chief business in the provinces was collecting the revenues on a contract basis. For this purpose syndicates were formed, which paid into the public treasury a lump sum fixed by the senate, and reimbursed themselves by collecting what they could from the province. While the system lasted, the profits were far beyond all reason, and the word “publican” became a synonym for “sinner.” Besides farming the revenues, the equites “financed” provinces and allied states, advancing money to meet the ordinary or extraordinary expenses. Sulla levied a contribution of 20,000 talents (about $20,000,000) in Asia. |+|
“The money was advanced by a syndicate of Roman capitalists, and they had collected the amount six times over, when Sulla interfered, for fear that there would be nothing left for him in case of future needs. More than one pretender was set upon a puppet throne in the East in order to secure the payment of sums previously lent to him by the capitalists. The operations of the equites as individuals were only less extensive and less profitable. The grain in the provinces, the wool, and the products of mines and factories could be moved only with the money advanced by them. They ventured also to engage in commercial enterprises abroad that were barred against them at home, doing the buying and selling themselves, not merely supplying the money to others. They lent money to individuals, too, though at Rome money-lending was discreditable. The usual rate of interest was twelve per cent, but Marcus Brutus was lending money at forty-eight per cent in Cilicia, and trying to collect compound interest, too, when Cicero went there as governor in 51 B.C., and he expected Cicero to enforce his demands for him.” |+|
Bankers, Moneylenders and Stone Receipts in Ancient Rome
Roman commerce covered all known lands and seas, though Italy had little export trade. Pliny the Elder tells us that the trade with India and China took from Rome $5,000,000 yearly. The West sent more raw materials than the East, and fewer finished articles. Bankers (argentarii) united money-changing with money-lending. Money-changing was very necessary in a city into which came all the coins of the known world; money-lending was never looked upon as entirely respectable for a Roman, but there can be no doubt that many a Roman of the highest respectability drew large profits from this business, carried on discreetly in the name of a freedman. The bankers took deposits, paid interest, and made payments on written orders. They helped their clients to find investments, and through their foreign connections could supply letters of credit to travelers. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
Like the modern financier, the Roman entrepreneur fruitfully employed his capital in large and innumerable loans. An epigram by Martial, shows us Afer enjoying himself by totting up the number of his borrowers and the total of their indebtedness: "Coranus owes me 100,000 sesterces and Mancinus 200,000; Titius 300,000; Albinus twice as much; Sabinus a million and Serranus another million....." It may be that this Afer, like Maximus, was only an imaginary personage; they are all the more typical of the plutocracy which flourished in the Rome of Martial's time. In their narrow circle, gleaming with the gold of all the earth, we may be very sure that mortgagers were not lacking, like the fortune-hunter Africanus with his 100,000,000 sesterces to whom Martial alludes. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]
In May 2024, archaeologists announced that they found a 2,000-year-old inscribed receipt in Jerusalem on a hand-size rock — the fragmented lid of an ossuary, or burial chest. It has seven lines of partially preserved text that mention people's names and sums of money. These letters and numbers are likely the record of financial activity, perhaps of payment for workers or people who owe money, according to a study published in the journal 'Atiqot. "At first glance, the list of names and numbers may not seem exciting, but to think that, just like today, receipts were also used in the past for commercial purposes, and that such a receipt has reached us, is a rare and gratifying find that allows a glimpse into everyday life in the holy city of Jerusalem," the study authors, archaeologists Esther Eshel, a professor at Bar-Ilan University, and Nahshon Szanton, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement. [Source Laura Geggel, Live Science, May 24, 2023]
According to Live Science The legible parts of the receipt's text include names with numbers written next to them. For instance, one line has Shimon, a popular biblical male name during the early Roman period (37 B.C. to A.D. 70), the researchers said. Following the name is the Hebrew letter mem, an abbreviation of ma'ot — Hebrew for "money." The stone was found in a debris pile during a 2016 salvage excavation on Pilgrimage Road, a main thoroughfare frequently traveled at the time. Around the turn of the first millennium, when Jerusalem and the surrounding region were a province of the Roman Empire, this road was likely a commercial hub, according to previous finds of stone weights and measuring tables that were likely part of ancient commerce. The road extended about a third of a mile (600 meters), connecting Jerusalem's city gate to the gates of the Temple Mount and the Second Temple, which the Romans destroyed in A.D. 70. Four other Hebrew inscriptions written on stone, similar for having names followed by numbers, have been found in the region, but this is the first of its kind from Jerusalem, the researchers said. The type of script and stone, as well as its similarities to the other stones, helped the archaeologists date it to between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D.
Client Relationships in Ancient Rome

Even if they were unemployed they were no sooner out of bed than men were in the grip of the duties inseparable from being a "client." For it was not only the freedmen who were dependent on the good graces of a patron. From the parasite do-nothing up to the great aristocrat there was no man in Rome who did not feel himself bound to someone more powerful above him by the same obligations of respect, or, to use the technical term, the same obsequium, that bound the ex-slave to the master who had manumitted him.[Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]
The patronus for his part was in honor bound to welcome his client to his house, to invite him from time to time to his table, to come to his assistance, and to make him gifts. To clients who were in actual want the patron distributed food; which they carried off in a basket or more often, to avoid the trouble this entailed, he gave them small presents of money when they called. In Trajan's time these customs were so universal that the number of clients scarcely varied from one house to another, and a sort of sportula tariff had become established in the Urbs: six-and-aquarter sesterces per head per day. How many briefless barristers, how many professors without pupils, how many artists without orders reckoned this meagre dole as their main source of revenue! Clients who also practiced a trade supplemented their earnings by the patron's dole, and in order not to arrive too late at their workshop they ran round to their patron to fetch it before daybreak. As the importance of a magnate depended on the size of his clientele, a man would have tarnished his reputation if he had preferred a long morning in bed to the pleasure of the mob at his morning receptions. Such relaxation might pass in the provinces, in a distant spot like Bilbilis, for instance; but in Rome the great man would not dare to be inattentive to the complaints of one, the demands of another, the salutations of all.
A severe and meticulous code of etiquette regulated this obligatory attendance. First, though a client was free to come on foot rather than in a litter, he could not decently appear without a toga; and this strict insistence on ceremonial dress weighed so heavily on his budget that it would soon have eaten up his sportulae if it had not become the fashion for the patron to take advantage of some solemn occasion to present him with a new toga in addition to the five or six pounds of silverware which he reckoned on receiving each December, when the Saturnalian gift giving came round. Secondly, clients were bound to wait their turn patiently, and this depended not on the order of their arrival but on their social status; the praetor came before the tribune, the eques before the plain citizen, the freedman before the slave. Finally, the client had to take great care in addressing his patron not to call the great man simply by his name but to give him the title of dominus failure to observe this detail might cause him to return home empty handed: "This morning I address you, as it chanced, by your own name, nor did I add 'My Lord,' Caecilianus. Do you ask how much such casual conduct has cost me? It has robbed me of a hundred farthings."
Each morning, therefore, Rome awoke to the coming and going of clients discharging these customary politenesses. The humblest of all multiplied their attendances to collect as many sportulae as possible; the richest were not exonerated from paying client calls because they had first received some. For however high a man might climb in the Roman hierarchy, there was always someone above him to claim his homage. There was in fact no one in Rome, save the emperor alone, who recognised none greater than himself. The women were at least exempt from this merry-go-round of salaams. They neither held court nor received it. In the second century the only exceptions to this rule were widows anxious to carry in person their tale of woe or their requests to the patron of their dead husband, and the wives of certain rapacious beggars who hbped by ostentatious sycophancy to cadge some supplementary alms and therefore made their wives accompany them in a litter on their round of calls. Juvenal does not stint his scorn for these self-interested manoeuvres: "Here is a husband going the round followed by a sickly or pregnant wife; another by a clever and well-known trick claims alms for a wife who is not there, pointing in her stead to a closed and empty chair, 'My Galla's in there/ says he; 'let's be off quick' 'Galla, put out your head!' 'Don't disturb her, she's asleep!' " The ruse is so clumsy that we wonder whether Juvenal has not merely invented it. Real or fictitious, however, it gives us an idea that the Roman matron may have been reluctant to follow her husband of a morning in his round of client visits.
Trade and Business at Vindolanda
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England. Over 400 tablets, with readable Roman-era letters and messages, have been found there. Dr Mike Ibeji wrote for the BBC: “Another fabulous, long and very well preserved letter, from Octavius to his brother Candidus, gives us the names of these two brothers and portrays them as a couple of local wide-boys, with their fingers in as many pies as possible (Tab. Vindol. II 343): “Octavius to his brother Candidus, greetings. The hundred pounds of sinew from Marinus, I will settle up. From the time when you wrote about this matter, he has not even mentioned it to me. I have several times written to you that I have bought about 5,000 modii of ears of grain, on account of which I need cash. Unless you send me some cash, at least 500 denarii, the result will be that I shall lose what I have laid out as a deposit, about 300 denarii, and I shall be embarrassed. So, I ask you, send me some cash as soon as possible. The hides which you write are at Cataractonium, write that they be given to me and the wagon about which you write. And write to me what is with that wagon. I would have already have been to collect them except that I did not care to injure the animals while the roads are bad. See with Tertius about the 8½ denarii which he received from Fatalis. He has not credited them to my account. Know that I have completed the 170 hides and I have 119(?) modii of threshed bracis. Make sure that you send me some cash so that I may have ears of grain on the threshing room floor. Moreover, I have already finished threshing all that I had. A messmate of our friend Frontius has been here. He was wanting me to allocate(?) him some hides, and that being so, was ready to give cash. I told him I would give him the hides by the Kalends of March. He decided that he would come on the Ides of January. He did not turn up, nor did he take the trouble to obtain them since he had hides. If he had given the cash, I would have given him them. I hear that Frontinius Julius has for sale at a high price the leather ware(?) which he bought here for five denarii apiece. Greet Spectatus and ...and Firmus. I have received letters from Gleuco. Farewell. [Source: Dr Mike Ibeji, BBC, November 16, 2012 |::|]|

fabric merchant
“Candidus was obviously so well known in the fort that his brother did not need to put his name on the back for whoever was delivering the note. The two seem to have the supply of grain to Vindolanda sewn up (which is interesting when you consider that the military granary of Corbridge was just down the road). The regular allocations to Macrinus and Crescens are probably rations doled out to individual unit centurions: since a Crescens is named as a centurion of III Batavorum. In that case, who are Firmus and Spectatus? Clearly Firmus is a key individual, as he has the authority to allocate grain to a detachment of legionaries in the fort; yet does this mean that he is a senior centurion of one of the cohorts, or is he just a middle-man? Since Spectatus uses grain as a loan to Victor, it seems most likely that they were agents of the brothers (though this does not necessarily stop them being soldiers). |::|
“I think it is clear that the two brothers were civilian entrepreneurs, and when you consider that the annual pay of an auxiliary soldier at this time was about 300 denarii, they were obviously not in the little-league if they could fork out 500 denarii for their grain supplies. The fact that they had Roman names can tell us little, since anyone who wanted to get on is likely to have 'Romanised' by this time. One possibility does come to mind. Given the Roman penchant for farming out public services (like tax-collecting and mining) to individual entrepreneurs, it is possible that these two men had the contract for supplying grain to the army from Corbridge. Flavius Cerialis and his family |::|
The other great strength of the Vindolanda tablets is the insights that they give into the personal lives of some of the people who inhabited the fort. Naturally, this is most graphic for the officers of the fort, especially since the majority of the tablets were found in a rubbish tip linked to the commander's house, but there are things they can say about the lesser individuals who lived and worked in the vicinity also.” |::|
Pompeii Inscriptions on Business and Properties to Rent
The historian William Stearns Davis wrote: “There are almost no literary remains from Antiquity possessing greater human interest than these inscriptions scratched on the walls of Pompeii (destroyed 79 A.D.). Their character is extremely varied, and they illustrate in a keen and vital way the life of a busy, luxurious, and, withal, tolerably typical, city of some 25,000 inhabitants in the days of the Flavian Caesars. [Source:William Stearns Davis, ed., “Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources,” 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, pp. 260-265]

vegetable seller
Inscriptions from Pompeii About Properties to Rent: 1) “Inn to let. Triclinium [dining room] with three couches.” 2) “To rent from the first day of next July, shops with the floors over them, fine upper chambers, and a house, in the Arnius Pollio block, owned by Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius. Prospective lessees may apply to Primus, slave of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius.” 3) “To let, for the term of five years, from the thirteenth day of next August to the thirteenth day of the sixth August thereafter, the Venus bath, fitted up for the best people, shops, rooms over shops, and second-story apartments in the property owned by Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius.” Business Transactions on Wax Tablets from Pompeii: “Umbricia Januaria declares that she has received from Lucius Caecilius Jucundus 11,039 sesterces which sum came into the hands of Lucius Caecilius Jucundus by agreement as the proceeds of an auction sale for Umbricia Januaria, the commission due him having been deducted. Done at Pompeii, on the 12th of December, in the consulship of Lucius Duvius and Publius Clodius. [56 A.D.]. (Many witnesses follow).”
“On the 18th of June in the duumvirate of Lucius Veranius Hypsaeus and Lucius Albucius Justus, I, Privatus, slave of the colony of Pompeii, declared in writing that I had received from Lucius Caecilius Jucundus 1,675 sesterces, and previous to this day, on June 6, I received 1000 sesterces as rent for the public pasture. Done at Pompeii in the consulship of Gnaeus Fonteius and Gaius Vipstanus “[59 A.D.]. (Many witnesses follow).
The Sulpicci Archives is a collection of 127 tablets dated between A.D. 26 and 61. They record transactions at the port of Naples. The Sulpiccis were a family of bankers and moneylenders. The tablets give insight into banking and financial services in the Roman era. Most of the documents are payment orders, receipts and IOUs.
The Sulpicci Archives also shows evidence of lawsuits, guarantees for loans in the form of pledges of goods and slaves, cosigned loans and agreements that if a debt wasn't paid in time the creditors had the right to auction the pledged goods. One of the tablets described a loan of 10,000 sesterces given with a collateral of goods — 61,000 liters of Alexandrian wine and 35,000 liters of chickpeas, emmer wheat and lentils — held in storage until the debt was repaid.
Forums in the Roman Empire
The forum was the main square or market place of a Roman city. It was the center of Roman social life and the place where business affairs and judicial proceedings were carried out. Here, orators stood on podiums pontificating about the issues of the days, priests offered sacrifices before the gods, chariot-borne emperors rode past worshipping crowds, and people milled about shopping, gossiping and simply hanging out.
Dr Joanne Berry wrote for the BBC: Pompeii's forum was “the political, commercial and social heart of the town, as in all other Roman towns. As was typical of the time, most of the most important civic buildings at Pompeii - the municipal offices, the basilica (court-house), the principal temples (such as the Capitolium), and the macellum (market) - were located in or around the forum. [Source: Dr Joanne Berry, Pompeii Images, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“Recent archaeological work has demonstrated that in the years immediately before Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii, building work was taking place to improve the appearance of the forum. Wall-paintings in one of the houses excavated illustrate scenes from the forum, such as bustling market-stalls set up in the colonnade fronting many of the forum buildings. Such evidence highlights the importance of this area in the everyday lives of the town's inhabitants.” |::|

shopping for belts and pillows in ancient Rome
Roman-Era Malls, Shopping Lists and Shoplifting
It has been asserted that the Romans invented the shopping mall. Andrew Handley wrote for Listverse: “Trajan’s market was a massive open building in ancient Rome that is probably one of the world’s first examples of something we usually associate with the 20th century—a shopping mall. And while today’s malls probably wouldn’t stand up against even a mediocre hurricane, the Roman building is still standing more than 2,000 years later. [Source: Andrew Handley, Listverse, February 8, 2013 ]
“The two level building was located in the center of what used to be the main city of Rome, and is large enough to hold roughly 150 different shops. The reason it has weathered so well is because of the innovative way Romans made concrete for their structures—they were one of the first to start mixing lime in with concrete to protect it from corrosion.”
An inscriptions from Pompeii reads: “A copper pot has been taken from this shop. Whoever brings it back will receive 65 sesterces. If any one shall hand over the thief he will be rewarded”.
In 2001, Oxford historian Dr Roger Tomlin deciphered a document dated to A.D. 75-125, found near Hadrian’s Wall that was determined to be a shopping list for a Roman soldier. It said that for the soldier to buy a clothing outfit at auction would require him to pay 8 percent of his yearly income (25 denarii). He would have had to fork out another 10 percent for a cloak to protect him from Britain's hostile climate.” [Source: Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online, March 5, 2001]
Roman Forum
The Roman Forum (between the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Capitoline Hill) is a huge jumble of weathered arches, fallen columns, broken pedestals, stone blocks and buildings still in the process of being restored. Set up like a big park, it is a good place to stroll around admire Roman architecture and watch cats fight. Situated in a long green valley that was originally a swamp, it was used by the predecessors of the Etruscans to bury their dead. The Etruscans and Greeks set up a market there. The early Romans established a village where Romulus held a meeting on 753 B.C. that led to the rape of the Sabine women. In Imperial Rome, , the Forum was sort of like New York's Park Avenue and Washington D.C.'s Mall all rolled into one. It was the political and economic center of Rome and the main gathering place for Rome's people.

Roman Forum
The Forum consists of a vast esplanade more than one hundred meters long and over eighty meters wide. In the middle rises a temple of Annona Augusta, the Divinity of Imperial Supplies. Along the side which faces the entrance to the sanctuary runs a portico supported on columns of cipollino, which backs on to the stage of the town's theater, and in its shade the spectators of long ago were wont to stretch their legs. The three other sides were enclosed by a wall fronted by a double colonnade of brick faced with stucco, onto which opened a series of sixty-one small rooms separated from each other by a wooden partition resting on a foundation of masonry. From their uniform appearance and identical dimensions (approximately four meters by four) these little rooms all served one and the same purpose. What this purpose was has been revealed by the series of mosaics black cubes on a white ground which paved the colonnade in front of each. These mosaics with their figures and inscriptions introduce us into the corresponding rooms and assign them to one or another of the various professional associations which were installed there by permission of the Roman authorities. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]
People came here to the Forum to chat and gossip with their friends; to listen to orators and politicians, who stood on podiums pontificating about the issues of the day; to worship and make sacrifices to their pagan Gods; and to shop for foodstuffs and items brought in from as far as Africa and Persia. Emperors and noblemen built their palaces on the hills surrounding the Forum.
For 500 years, until the middle of the 5th century when Rome was sacked, every emperor raised new monuments in the Forum. After Rome was claimed by Barbarian tribes, the Forum was abandoned and ignored. When archeologists began excavating it in the 19th century it was covered by 20 feet of soil and cattle grazed on the grass above it.
The Forum today is divided into the Civic Forum (Capitoline Hill side of the Forum), Market Quare, the Lower Forum, the Upper Forum (Colosseum-side entrance of the Forum), the Velia and Palantine Hill. As is true with the Colosseum, most of the buildings are the brick superstructures of the originals, whose marble facades were dismantled and carted away and used to make other building in Rome such as St. Peter's Basilica. Some of the pieces of stone have numbers on them to identify their position. The Temple of Mars Ultor (mars the Avenger) is dedicated to the god of war for avenging Rome after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Small Business in Ancient Rome
Little is to be found in literature about the small tradesman or the free laborer. From the excavations at Pompeii, however, we may form some idea of the shops and the business done in them. It has been said already that the street sides of residences might be rows of small shops, most of which were not connected with the house within. Such a shop was usually a small room with a counter across the front, closed with heavy shutters at night. The goods sold over the counter were often made directly behind it. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
The shoemaker (sutor) had his workbench and his case of lasts (formae), and made, sold, and repaired shoes. Some masonry counters have holes for several kettles, where the hot food prepared in the shop was kept for sale. In one case change was found lying on the counter as it was left in alarm at the time of the eruption. Locksmiths, goldsmiths, and other craftsmen had the necessary equipment and sold their own goods. There were also retail shops where goods were sold that were produced elsewhere on a larger scale, as the red glazed Arretine ware from Arretium and Puteoli, the copper and bronze utensils from Capua, and so on. The shopkeeper might work alone in his small room by day and sleep there at night. |+|
The plan of the house of Pansa shows that there were also larger establishments of several rooms, as the bakery, for instance, which, as usual, included mills for grinding the grain, because there were no separate mills. Some shops have stairways leading to a room or two in the floor above, where the family, we may suppose, lived over the shop. Shoppers drifted along the street from counter to counter, buying, bargaining, or “just looking.” Martial describes a dandy in the fashionable shopping district at Rome going from one shop to another. He demands that the covers be taken off expensive table-tops and that their ivory legs be brought down for his inspection, he criticizes objects of art and has certain ones laid aside, and, leaving at last for luncheon, buys two cups for a penny and carries them home himself!|+|
In 2016, Italian and French archaeologists announced that they had discovered four skeletons and gold coins in the ruins of an ancient shop on the outskirts of Pompeii. The skeletons included that of a an adolescent girl, who perished in the back of the shop when Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered Pompeii in ash in A.D. 79. Associated Press reported: “Three gold coins and a necklace's pendant were scattered among the bones. In the workshop was an oven which archaeologists think might have been used to make bronze objects. The excavation of that and a second ancient shop started in May near a necropolis in the Herculaneum port area. Archaeologists are puzzling over what kind of business the second shop did. It features a circular well accessible by a spiral staircase and dug out of the terrain. Officials said there was evidence the shop had been ransacked by clandestine diggers after the eruption, presumably "on the hunt for treasures buried under the ashes." The coins and the gold-leaf-foil pendant, in the shape of a flower, apparently escaped the eyes of those pillaging the shop, the archaeologists said.” [Source: Associated Press, June 24, 2016]
Food and Luxury Goods Suppliers in Ancient Rome
Pompeii bakeryThe organisation of food supplies was split up in the course of its natural development into a multitude of different specialist lines. Some groups represented retailers who had nothing to do but distribute their wares: purveyors of lupines (lupinarii), of fruits (fructuarii), and of melons (peponarii). Others were composed of people who had taken the trouble to produce or procure the goods they sold : the olitores, who were at once greengrocers and market gardeners; the piscatores, both fishermen and fishmongers. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]
The greater number of these lines involved the exercise of a real trade. The travelling vinarii went from vicus to vicus with a. whole battery of barrels and jars (amphorae) piled on their carts. The tavern-keepers (thermopolae) offered in their bowls cunning blends of wine and water which they then brought to the required temperature. A mere glance at the bas-reliefs which decorate the famous tomb of Eurysaches shows that in a great bakery the baker or pistor was assisted by a miller (mollnarius). The pastry-cooks (siliginarii), the confectioners (pastillarii), and the inn-keepers (caupones) won customers for their counters or their tables only by the reputation they established for care and skill in carrying out their receipts.
Passing to the luxury trades, we observe the labour and technical skill which they exacted at every turn: the perfumers and druggists (pigmentarii) boasted of the mixtures they had prepared; the mirror sellers had polished the mirrors hung from their shop-fronts; the florists (rosarii, violarii) had arranged the bouquets on their stalls to please the passers-by and had woven the wreaths which were to be found at the coronarii's; the ivory vendors (eborarii) knew the art of working the tusks received from the African hunter; the sellers of rings (anularii) and pearls (margaritarii), the goldsmiths (brattarii inauratores), and the jewellers (aurifices) had all their several skills. In the prof essions which had to do with dress, there was none where sale and manufacture were separate. The lintearii, for instance, stiffened their own lawns; the robemakers (vestarii) and the cloakmakers (sagarii), the shoemakers (sutores), the makers of men's boots (caligarii) and of women's boots (fabri soliarii baxiarii), one and all manufactured the goods they sold. Nor must we overlook all the humbler, subsidiary industries which hung on the skirts of the clothing trade, employing the washermen (fontani), the fullers (fullones), the dyers (tinctores, afectores, infectores), the more finely-skilled embroiderers (plumarii) and manipulators of silk (serarii) who introduced threads of cotton into the silken tissues which from the reign of Claudius on China regularly sent with the monsoon.
Thermopoliums: Roman Fast Food Restaurants?
Pompeii was filled with thermopolia — small shops or 'bars' that are thought to have sold food. Dr Joanne Berry wrote for the BBC: “ They consist of terracotta containers (dolia) sunk into a masonry counter (sometimes covered with polychrome marble) that are believed to have contained hot food that was sold to customers. Some thermopolia have decorated back rooms, which may have functioned as dining-rooms. [Source: Dr Joanne Berry, Pompeii Images, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“In one thermopolium, the remains of a cloth bag were discovered in one of the dolia, along with over a thousand coins; these are thought to represent the day's takings and demonstrate the popularity of the establishment. Lararia (domestic shrines) are a fairly common feature of thermopolia, and sometimes depict Mercury and Dionysus, the gods of commerce and wine respectively. |::|
Stephen Dyson, one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient Rome and a professor of classics at the University of Buffalo, likened Roman thermopolium to a cross between “Burger King and a British pub or a Spanish tapas bar.” Open to the street, each had a large counter with a receptacle in the middle from which food or drink would have been served. “Dyson said, “Italy’s vibrant street and bar scenes today, along with the often multipurpose design of homes with bedsteads stacked in a corner, or kitchenettes in surprising places, reflect the wonderful, slightly chaotic, aspects of early Roman life.” [Source: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, June 20, 2007]

marble-surfaced counter of a thermopolium in Pompeii
Vetutius Placidus's thermopolium in Pompeii is perhaps the most famous ancient Roman restaurant. Named after its owner, it was best known for its house-speciality – baked cheese smothered in honey and the L-shaped counter in its triclinium, or dining area. Michael Day wrote in TribuneNews: “Inside, as in many modern cafés and bars, visitors are greeted with a large, L-shaped, decorated counter where customers stood to enjoy a quick lunch. Cylindrical holes in the bar contained glass dolia, or jars, displaying food. Archaeologists working at the site also found a jar full of coins, amounting to about two days’ income. They speculate that the owner may have left them in a last-ditch attempt to save his wealth as he fled the doomed city. [Source: Michael Day, TribuneNews March 21, 2010]
“The thermopolium used to open directly on to a main street, the Via dell’Abbondanza. All sections of Pompeii society would call by for snacks or a light Mediterranean lunch...Sweet, calorie-filled desserts were the real stars of the snack bar. Its creations — named mostaccioli and globe — were filled with sticky honey and ricotta cheese have direct descendants in the cafés of nearby Naples today. Dr Annamaria Ciarallo, an environmental biologist and researcher at Pompeii, said: many of the snack bar’s customers would have grabbed snacks and light meals as takeaways: “There wasn’t a lot of ceremony. Often people, especially the busy ones, would have eaten outside.” “But for customers who preferred to sit, the thermopolium had a triclinium, or dining area, with couches. The house of the owner and his family adjoined the premises.” [Ibid]
Ancient Roman Inns

There were numerous lodging houses and restaurants in all the cities and towns of Italy, but all were of the meanest character. Respectable travelers avoided them scrupulously; they either had stopping-places of their own (deversoria) on roads that they used frequently, or claimed entertainment from friends and hospites, whom they would be sure to have everywhere. Nothing but accident, stress of weather, or unusual haste could drive them to places of public entertainment (tabernae deversoriae, cauponae). [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]
“The guests of such places were, therefore, of the lowest class, and innkeepers (caupones) and inns bore the most unsavory reputations. Food and beds were furnished the travelers, and their horses were accommodated under the same roof and in unpleasant proximity. The plan of an inn at Pompeii may be taken as a fair sample of all such houses. The entrance (a) is broad enough to admit wagons into the wagon-room (f), behind which is the stable (k). In one corner is a watering-trough (l), in another a latrina (i). On either side of the entrance is a wine-room (b, d), with the room of the proprietor (c) opening off one of them. The small rooms (e, g, h) are bedrooms, and other bedrooms in the second story over the wagon-room were reached by the back stairway.
“The front stairway has an entrance of its own from the street; the rooms reached by it had probably no connection with the inn. Behind this stairway on the lower floor was a fireplace (m) with a water heater. An idea of the moderate prices charged in such places may be had from a bill which has come down to us in an inscription preserved in the Museum at Naples: a pint of wine with bread, one cent; other food, two cents; hay for a mule, two cents. The corners of streets, especially at points close to the city walls, were the favorite sites for inns, and they had signs (the elephant, the eagle, etc.) like those of much later times.” Innkeepers inscribed wine lists and prices on the wall of their facilities. |+|
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons and Roman Forums
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.
Last updated November 2024