page_title: Roman economy
section_title: Labour and occupations
hierarchical_section_title: Roman economy / Labour and occupations
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (inv. nr. 9774). Da Pompeii, Fullonica di Veranius Hypsaeus (VI, 2, 31) - Affreschi da un pilastro della fullonica. Pannello con operai al lavoro, uno che spazzola un telo di lana, mentre un altro porta una gabbia di bastoncini disposti a cupola che serve a solforare con fumigazioni le stoffe al fine di sbiancarle. Sulla gabbia è appollaiata una civetta che allude alla dea Atena, protettrice dei lanaiuoli. English: Roman fresco from the fullonica (dyer's shop) of Veranius Hypsaeus in Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples). The man on the left is busy brushing wool cloth. The man on the right, standing beneath a caged dome, is engaged in fabric whitening via sulphurized fumigation. An owl is perched on top of the cage, likely a symbol of Athena, protector of the lanaiuoli (i.e. companies of wool merchants). Deutsch: Links kämmt ein Arbeiter eine Tunika, rechts trägt ein anderer Arbeiter ein Gestell aus Weidengeflecht, über das Stoffe zum Bleichen gelegt werden. Römisches Fresko aus der Fullonica (Walkerei) des Veranius Hypsaeus in Pompeji. Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Neapel)
context_page_description: During the Roman Republic, the Roman economy was largely agrarian, centered on the trading of commodities such as grain and wine. Financial markets were established through such trade, and financial institutions which extended credit for personal use and public infrastructure, were established primarily through inter-family wealth. In times of agricultural and cash shortfall, Roman officials and moneyers tended to respond by coining money; this happened during the prolonged crisis of the First Punic War, and created economic distortion and difficulties. Beginning in the early Roman Empire, the economy, in the sense of using money to express prices and debts, and a basic banking system was formed. Emperors issued coinage stamped with their portraits to disseminate propaganda, to create public goodwill, and to symbolize their wealth and power.
  The Roman Imperial economy was often unstable, inflated in part by Emperors who issued money to fund high-profile imperial projects such as public building works, or costly wars that offered opportunities for propaganda, but little or no material gain.
context_section_description: Inscriptions record 268 different occupations in the city of Rome, and 85 in Pompeii. Professional associations or trade guilds (collegia) are attested for a wide range of occupations, including fishermen (piscatores), salt merchants (salinatores), olive oil dealers (olivarii), entertainers (scaenici), cattle dealers (pecuarii), goldsmiths (aurifices), teamsters (asinarii or muliones), and stonecutters (lapidarii). These are sometimes quite specialized: one collegium at Rome was strictly limited to craftsmen who worked in ivory and citrus wood.
  Work performed by slaves falls into five general categories: domestic, with epitaphs recording at least 55 different household jobs; imperial or public service; urban crafts and services; agriculture; and mining. Convicts provided much of the labour in the mines or quarries, where conditions were notoriously brutal. In practice, there was little division of labour between slave and free, and most workers were illiterate and without special skills. The greatest number of common labourers were employed in agriculture: in the Italian system of industrial farming (latifundia), these may have been mostly slaves, but throughout the Empire, slave farm labour was probably less important than other forms of dependent labour by people who were technically not enslaved.
  Textile and clothing production was a major source of employment. Both textiles and finished garments were traded among the peoples of the Empire, whose products were often named for them or a particular town, rather like a fashion "label". Better ready-to-wear was exported by businessmen (negotiatores or mercatores) who were often well-to-do residents of the production centres. Finished garments might be retailed by their sales agents, who travelled to potential customers, or by vestiarii, clothing dealers who were mostly freedmen; or they might be peddled by itinerant merchants. In Egypt, textile producers could run prosperous small businesses employing apprentices, free workers earning wages, and slaves. The fullers (fullones) and dye workers (coloratores) had their own guilds. Centonarii were guild workers who specialized in textile production and the recycling of old clothes into pieced goods.
caption: Workers at a cloth-processing shop, in a painting from the fullonica of Veranius Hypsaeus in Pompeii
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