Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/232

212 into the hands of the great landholder, seeing that he alone possessed the vessels for it and, in his produce, the articles for export. In fact the distinction between a landed and a moneyed aristocracy was unknown to the Romans of earlier times; the great landholders were at the same time the speculators and the capitalists. In the case of a very active commerce such a combination certainly could not have been maintained; but, as the previous representation shows, while there was a comparatively vigorous traffic in Rome inasmuch as the trade of the Latin land was there concentrated, in the main Rome was by no means a commercial city like Cære or Tarentum, but was and continued to be the centre of an agricultural community.