p by the legions enormously incrca-sed its volume.
The armies Tielped trade not only by keeping the
population of a conquered country in subjection, but also by the building of those sjilendid military roads which, constructed for military purposes, benelited trade no less, by the rapidity and the security of movement which they made possible. The requirements of the army itself also Brought trade to remote parts of the Empire. The soldiers were in time of peace citizens accustomed to the use of certain commodities and comforts. Traders, in order to su]iply these, settled at the armed camps and outposts, and the rows of their shops helped to convert the camps into towns. They at the same time served as valuable agents of Romau- ization, and helped the provincials to become Romans, in externals at least, in a very short time. Fifty j'ears after Gallia Narbonensis became a province, all the business done by the provincials was done through the Roman merchants. The vast numbers of these in the rich Roman province of Asia as early as the beginning of the 1st cent. B.C. are revealed by the statistics of the Italians murdered by Mitliradates, variously given as 80,tiOO and 150,000. Later evidence with regard to Asia points the same way. So with regard to Africa in the same century, our authorities show the abundance of Roman merchants, bankers, and commercial companies. In London, about the time of the death of St. Paul, the merchant class was already large, though the province Britain was then new. The importance of such merchants is also seen from the fact that, being Roman citizens, they constituted the aristocracy of every provincial community in which they lived.
i. Inter-provincial trade. — Not only were Italian traders to be found in all parts of the Empire, but provincials from one part are found established in trade in another part. At a place like Aquileia, a Knotenpunkt and distributmg centre of com- merce between the North- East provinces, Italy, the East, and Africa, there was a cosmopolitan population. But the Orientals were the great traders. The great Phoenician and Syrian cities had factories in Italian cities like Puteoli and Rome. Alexandrian commerce found ready markets in the great coast towns of the lilaiU Sea. The officer who had charge of St. Paul found an Alex- andrian trading vessel at Mj-ra in Lycia (.Ac 27°). The graves of Syrian merchants in particular are to be found all over the Roman Empire, and there is abundant evidence of their importance as bankers in the ."ilh and 6tli cent, records of Gaul. There is, strangely, no evidence for commercial settlements of ijews.
S. Coins and bills.— As mediums of exchange coins and bills were in universal use, and the system of banking h.ad reached a very considerable development. The coinage system of the Roman Empire was based on a settlement made between the senate and Augustus (15-11 B.C.). The right of coining gold and silver in Rome was reserved to tlie Emperor, but the senate was authorized to issue copper and brass coins, with the letters SC (:=senatus consulto) stamped on them. The governors of senatorial provinces had the riglit to issue coins, which after A.D. 6 l)ore the portrait, not of the governor, but of a nicinber or members of the Imperial family. The weight of the aureus, or gold coin, was reduced by Augustus from jV of a pound ( = 126 grammes), the weight of Julius Cajsar's, to ^V ( = 120 grammes). The weight of the silver deruirius remained as before, 60 grammes.
602
TRADE AND COMMERCE
TRADE AND COMMERCE
In the senatorial coinage brass (aurichalrum, used to render xaXtoXi/Sdi'if) in certain Latin versions of Kev 2", copper alloyed with 20 per cent of zinc) was used as well as copper. The supervision of the senatorial coinage was nominally under the charge of three conimissionei's of senatorial rank, tres uiri auro argento cere flando feriundo (' for the melting and striking of gold, silver, copper'). The Imperial mint was a branch of the Imperial household, supervised by the a rationibus, or Keeper of the Privy Purse. The coinage from the Roman mint was inadequate to meet the needs of the great Empire, and was supplemented by other issues, which were also legal tender. Settlements of Roman citizens outside Italy (colonice) might, if the Imperial permission were granted, issue bronze coins, a privilege which apparently was withdrawn about A.D. 70. A number of cities and unions of cities (koiv6.) in the Eastern provinces were allowed to issue coins. Syrian Antioch and Caesarea in Cappadocia (now Kaisarieh) issued large numbers of silver coins, and the cistophorus of republican times (cf. Cic. Att. II. xvi. 4) in Asia was replaced by a coin of the value of three Roman denarii. An enormous quantity of bronze was also coined in the East. The needs of the East were further in great part provided for by an Iniperial mint at Alexandria. Besides these, smaller Imperial mints existed throughout the provinces, and the senate had a mint at Syrian Antioch ; Lugudunum (Lyons), for example, served as a mint for the Gallic provinces.
An aureus was equivalent in value to 25 denarii. Under Nero both were reduced in weight, the aureus to :^ ot a, pound, and the denarius to ^^ of a pound ; the quality of the denarius was also debased. The victoriatus (so called because it has Victory crowning a trophy as reverse) deserves mention. It was a silver coin, originally -^^ of a pound in weight, in reality a Greek drachma, adopted by the Romans for purposes of trade with the Greeks of Southern Italy. Half victoriati and one double victoriatus have been found. Its weight was at least twice reduced. The senatorial coins in the baser metals, above mentioned, were the brass sestertius (four asses), brass dupondius (two asses), the copper as, and the copper semis. The original value of the denarius was, as the name indicates, ten asses. The denarius was the standard coin in the Empire, and in it all legal payments were made.