Roman Economic Conditions to the Close of the Republic

the empire. The process was no less sudden than splendid. The promptings of commercial interests, of whose potency Rome herself was only half conscious, brought about the dash with Carthage. Her struggle with Hannibal and her entry upon Eastern politics were brilliant incidents in a career that demanded only thirteen short years from Zama to see the empire of Alexander in her power. Rome's inheritance of the old Mediterranean civilization was too sudden. It yielded a premature and tremendous growth in riches. While she was engaged in her struggle in the peninsula, a primitive simplicity still obtained; and a Curius could prefer his earthen vessels to Samnite gold with the same sincerity that the censor Fabricius condemned for luxurious living the consular Rufinus, the possessor of ten pounds of silver.1 On the eve of the Mediterranean contest, then, Rome's wealth was only moderate.2 But even within half a century a marked difference is observable. Hannibal saw orchards and vineyards planted for pleasure rather than for utility;3 while the plebeian tribune, Caius Oppius, desirous of stemming the growing luxury, enacted, in 215 B.C., that no woman should possess more than half an ounce of gold, or wear a garment of varied colours, or ride in a carriage drawn by horses, except on occasion of a public religious solemnity.4 The proposalto repeal this law twenty years later created a scene unprecedented at Rome. For the matrons beset every street and lane in the c...