state because the latter had little concern in foreign trade? It will not do to object that the very limitations imposed upon the Romans imply that there is Roman trade to limit, for later history shows that the doctrine of mare clausum is Carthaginian and not Roman, and Carthage is here applying it against all future contingencies. In short, the treaty should be used as a Punic not a Roman document, even as Penn's treaty with the Indians may be used as evidence for William Penn's theories of human rights but not for those of the Indians. The Carthaginian treaties therefore do not prove the existence of a Roman commerce. They disprove it rather, since it is not reasonable to suppose that the imperious Romans would have signed away an equity in anything they really cared for. We have not so learned Rome! In this connection it will be remembered that Rome showed herself similarly negligent of trading advantages by promising Tarentum not to sail any Roman ships as far as the Tarentine Gulf.

If further evidence of the fact that the early Romans avoided the seas were needed, there is the additional testimony of archaeology. It has been found, for example, that although the early tombs of the Etruscan towns nearby are store chambers of Oriental and Egyptian wares, Roman tombs of the same period show no such evidences of extensive trading. The foreign articles found in these Roman tombs were brought by Sicilian and Massaliot passers-by. And this evidence agrees with the fact so often pointed out that none of the technical naval terms employed by the Romans except those relating to the simplest parts of a small craft are of Latin extraction. They have all been borrowed from the Doric Greek and were picked up from the vocabulary of Sicilian merchants. Apparently the passages in later Roman historians which refer to an early seaport at Ostia and to an extensive commerce are to be attributed to patriotic megalomaniacs who represented the state and pomp of Romulus and King Marcius in terms more appropriate to Augustus's day. Even Ostia remained only a small village throughout the republic. Not till 42 A. D. was the sand-bar in front of the Tiber's mouth dredged and jetties built so that laden seafaring vessels could anchor in still water. In the meantime the most serviceable port of Rome was Puteoli, 150 miles away. Does this imply that shippers had a strong lobby in the Roman senate?

Let us now examine a number of political measures adopted during the last two centuries of the republic which have frequently

The treaty with Tarentum apparently dates from the latter half of the fourth century B. C.

been interpreted as implying the existence of a mercantile policy in the Roman senate, for it is largely upon these that historians have relied in blaming commercialism for deeds like the subjection of Greece, the destruction of Corinth, and the annexation of Carthage.

1. The senate concluded a treaty' with the Aetolians after their subjection in 189 in which the stipulation was made that Romans and Italians should have free entry at the port of Ambracia. It is usual to infer from this sole instance that the senate regularly included a clause in its treaties with subject allies requiring exemption from port dues in order to gain advantages for Roman trade. There are however several specific facts militating against this generalization and none, to my knowledge, favoring it. There are in existence several treaties, including the very important ones with Carthage (201 B. C.), Philip (196 B. C.), and Antiochus (189 B. C.), none of which contain this clause. Egypt quite certainly did not grant any such privilege, for the Ptolemaic system of monopolies would preclude such a practice. The treaty with the Termessians, 71 B. C., which explicitly grants transit to tax collectors, says nothing of others; and from a passage in Cicero it is certain that not even the governor of Sicily enjoyed the freedom of the Sicilian port either in Roman cities or in allied towns like Messana and Halaesa. It is safe to say, therefore, that the early treaty with Ambracia contained an exceptional rather than a normal stipulation. Perhaps it was inserted in this particular case to aid the eastern communications of the Latin colony of Brundisium. But even granting that such a stipulation may have been inserted in several other treaties which one would scarcely deny-it is difficult to understand how it would aid Roman commerce to any appreciable extent, since it would grant the same privileges to the traders of a score of other Italian towns, partly Latin, partly Greek.

2. In Cicero1o we hear of another peculiar measure which has also been used in support of the view that the senate was swayed by a commercial policy. Some time before 130 B. C. Rome seems to have specified in her dealing with a Transalpine tribe that the latter should refrain from the cultivation of wine and oil. The younger Africanus is represented as saying that the purpose of this measure was to aid the Roman fruit-grower. Modern writers11 have added

Livy, XXXVIII. 44. The phrase socii nominis Latini of course includes all Italian allies (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, III. 661). Ac is understood. The inferences usually drawn from this passage are found in Mommsen, Staatsrecht, III. 691. Bruns, Fontes, p. 94.

Cicero, Verr., II. 185.

10 De Rep., III. 16.

11 Mommsen's view of this passage, expressed in Roman History, III. 415, is usually adopted, but Polybius, XXXIII. 11, says that the Gauls gave their hostages

that it would also aid the Roman carrier. Now, before 130, a Roman army had fought battles in Transalpine Gaul only once and that was at the request of Rome's most loyal ally, Marseilles. When the war had been successfully ended and a treaty signed the terms of which were naturally dictated by Marseilles-the Romans withdrew. Marseilles was a wine-growing state, and if a market for wine was created in Gaul, she naturally profitted. A copy of the treaty was of course carried to Rome, since her legions had secured the victory, and its purpose may well have been misunderstood by later Romans, but we need not doubt that Marseilles and the Gauls were the real contracting parties. Had the Romans intended to create a market for their own produce by legislation, why did they never pass measures affecting Spain, Greece, Africa, and Asia, which were actual rivals in such products?

3. The clause12 in the Macedonian constitutions of 167 forbidding the importation of salt and the exportation of timber has also no reference to Roman commerce. We know from several sources13 that the Macedonian kings had regularly supported a timber monopoly, forbidding all exportation without special consent. Apparently the chief forests, like the mines, were crown lands. Now, when Rome fell heir to these royal forests and mines in 167, the senate was not at once ready to decide what final disposition to make of them. It hesitated to take full possession and place state contractors in charge, since their presence, as a visible indication of overlordship, would cause undue trouble. It therefore permitted the Macedonian contractors to work the iron and copper mines at half the former revenue, closed the other mines for the time being, and simply also for the time being-re-enacted the old royal prohibition on the exportation of timber. In 158, it sent state contractors to open and work the closed mines, and probably at the same time leased the royal timber lands. These lands may well be to Marseilles, not to Rome. Speck (Handelsgeschichte) enumerates similar prohibitions that are mentioned in the late imperial codices, but they cannot be used as evidence for the republic. Neither should he use the testimony of the Plautine comedy which is translated from the Greek. Rome's temporary prohibition of interstate trade in Macedonia and Achaea was imposed in order to break up political unity. As soon as this purpose was accomplished the prohibition was withdrawn. This old practice never had an economic purpose.

22 Livy, XLV. 29. Niese, Geschichte der Griechischen und Makedonischen Staaten, III. 181, says: "Der Sinn dieser Bestimmung ist unklar." Heitland, II. 120, Perhaps it in some way favoured operations of Roman capitalists." Speck has no doubts about the purpose of the prohibition, vol. III., pt. 2, p. 349. 13 Diodorus, XX. 46; Andocides, Return, 11.

This is the meaning of Livy's original, which he, in the spirit of his own time, puts thus (XLV. 18): "Ubi publicanus esset, ibi . . . libertatem sociis nullam esse."

the agri regii mentioned as a part of Rome's property by Cicero15 in 63. The provision against the importation of salt can, in the light of this, only mean that the senate found a royal monopoly of salt also, and, in behalf of the Macedonian state treasuries, reestablished the monopoly and gave it over to the new states. The senate then protected its gift by continuing the stipulation against imports. To be sure, we have no direct reference to a previous monopoly in salt in Macedonia, but the assumption that there was one seems justifiable, since we know that all the other Hellenic powers1 which succeeded Alexander established such monopolies.

4. There is one more regulation which bears, in the view of some authorities, the earmarks of mercantilism. From the fact that Rhodes asked the senate's permission to buy grain in Sicily, we are probably safe in drawing the inference that the senate somehow controlled the Sicilian grain market. Was this supervision undertaken so as to control the import that might flood the markets needed by Roman landlords, or was it undertaken in order to secure shipping for Roman merchants? Both suggestions have been made, but neither is in accord with the senatorial policy of this time. The real purpose of this supervision was political, not commercial, and is best illustrated by Hellenic precedents. When we remember that Rome, when hard pressed for food during the Hannibalic war, was compelled to ask Ptolemy's permission before corn could be bought in Egypt, we can understand where the senate found its precedent and why it adopted the regulation. Ptolemy had accumulated great stores of corn from his tribute and was therefore able by controlling the Egyptian markets not only to secure a market for the royal stores but also to gain a certain amount of political prestige through his power to aid friends and injure enemies. From an inscription we may infer that the Seleucids in Syria pursued the same policy, and we have recently learned that the little republic of Samos bought for public use the semi-public temple-tithes of their island. Of all these practices the senate doubtless had heard, and of others besides concerning which we now know nothing. It could see that a real political power lay in so controlling the corn market that the purchaser must ask the sovereign's permission to buy. It could see that corn production was dwindling in Italy and that the state might be made helpless in times of war unless, like the eastern monarchs, it could control a surplus. In the East the control had 15 Leg. Agr., I. 5.

16 See Rostowzew, "Staatspacht", Philologus, Suppl. 9, p. 411.

17 On Egypt see Rostowzew in Pauly-Wissowa, Reallex., s. v. "Frumentum", VII. 139; on Syria, Köhler, Sitz. Akad. Berlin, 1898, p. 841. The Samian decree is discussed by Wilamowitz in Sitz. Akad. Berlin, 1904, p. 917.

been established partly for the personal profit of the king; when the practice was adopted at Rome, it served a political purpose only, for the state never attempted to sell its grain at a profit.

The tendency to find in this corn regulation a device of the senatorial landlords to protect their own grain market seems to rest upon Mommsen's version of the history of Roman agriculture.18 It was Mommsen's contention that the influx of cheap slave-raised corn. from Sicily after the acquisition of that province ruined the market for the Latin farmer and forced him to abandon grain-raising and turn to wine and oil culture and grazing. It is true of course that the change in the character of agriculture began to be noticeable soon after the acquisition of the first provinces, but if we follow Mommsen's propter hoc literally we shall fail to grasp the real meaning of the change. The fact is that wheat was not and never will be economically the best crop for Latium. Before Rome had become well connected by commerce with foreign parts, it was naturally dependent upon Latian produce. Its great need was wheat of course, and the urban population had to pay the price that would induce cultivation of this cereal. But the land was really better adapted to other things. The vine would thrive excellently in the rich volcanic soil of the Alban hills and on the lower slopes of the Sabine mountains, while the olive could grow where it was too dry for the vine. In favorable localities these crops were sure to displace wheat as soon as the city was ready for a more luxurious diet and the need for wheat could be satisfied from elsewhere. Grazing, similarly, was bound to displace wheat-raising upon the plains. The Latian plain is a gently rolling country with a subsoil of tufa. This tufa does not erode readily enough to make a thick soil, so that when the sod is stripped for agriculture the top soil washes off in the winter rains at a more rapid rate than the tufa beneath will break up. Sod alone can stem this erosion. Hence the land will preserve its value when used as grazing ground, whereas it will not when used for agriculture. But even in those spots where the land is level enough to prevent this erosion, there is a dearth of rain after the middle of June, and the nonconformity of the uneven volcanic plain to the spring-bearing hills beyond makes irrigation impracticable. At best therefore the soil will yield the farmer only the moderate crop that can grow in the short spring season. The grazer, however, is not reduced to the profits of so short a season. For eight months grass will grow for his flocks, and during the dry season he can find cheap mountain pastures in the Sabine hills near-by. We do not believe therefore that the peasant was driven to the wall because

18 Mommsen, Roman History (Eng. transl.), III. 79.