Merchant Networks in the Greek World: The Impact of Rome

Abstract

This article suggests that the expansion of maritime commerce in the eastern Mediterranean in the first to second centuries AD was accompanied by the emergence of new networks which facilitated the business of shippers and merchants. Although data are few and scattered, possible patterns can be discerned. Sporadic evidence suggests that agents of the Roman state such as contractors (publicani) for shipping supplies and collecting indirect taxes, soldiers and veterans, and slaves and freedmen of the imperial household, sometimes, perhaps often, engaged in private commercial ventures in which they were helped by their local and empire-wide professional networks. Small independent merchants, who probably carried out the bulk of maritime commerce, were aided by the spread of banks, which increasingly offered a standard range of services, including advice on Roman legal forms, and basically formed a loose but effective network of support.