Economic Activity: Service Sector

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Economic Activity: Service Sector

Tabellarii. Slaves and freedmen were employed as postal carriers, tabellarii by the Roman state and by private individuals. Publican companies also supplied couriers available for private individuals. Such individuals often wanted to be sure of the security of their personal mail. Tabellarii were known to cover more than sixty Roman miles in a day. Augustus initiated a massive postal communication system for government purposes, which came to be known as the cursus publicus This system depended on a series of stations (the larger mansiones and changing posts, or mutationes) and local provision of animals and supplies. These local provisions proved burdensome, unpopular, and prone to abuse, and there were constant efforts to reform the system.

Restaurants and Bars. In ancient cities, restaurants and bars throve. While wealthier residents with large homes could have a kitchen and kitchen staff at home, and others would hope for a dinner invitation in such a house, most people ate outside the home. The huge portion of the population who lived in apartment complexes had no kitchens, for in antiquity they were dreaded as fire hazards, and apartment buildings were susceptible to fire as it was. Restaurants were everywhere, offering food, hot meals, and drinks. Such establishments would have employed cooks, servers, and other staff. Roman houses did not have front facades, but only small entryways. Often, then, the space around the entrance to a house was rented out for a shop or small tavern, thus providing extra income for a houseowner. It also meant city blocks became an amalgam of residences and businesses.

Cooks and Caterers. Wealthier residents or officials could have held private dinners or even had other meals of the day at home. Cooks and other kitchen staff could have been among the household slaves. Cooks and catering staff could also be hired for special occasions, such as weddings, funerals, meetings, and the like. As with some other professions, although food preparation was crucial for important gatherings such as formal dinners, the cooks themselves were usually slaves, foreigners, and often objects of scorn or mockery.

Grocers. In a world without refrigeration, regular access to grocers was essential. Except on larger farms where the ideal was for the property to be self-sufficient, people shopped for their meals probably on a daily basis. While some crops, especially grains, could be bought and stored, many items such as fruits, vegetables, and meats would be bought and prepared the same day. Even in wealthy residences, the kitchen staff would have to shop for ingredients daily or have them delivered. Restaurant owners would require a regular supply of foodstuffs.

Public Games. Perhaps no image of ancient Rome dominates the imagination like the wild ancient spectacles and games. Many ludi, “games,” were, in origin at least, religious festivals, although even many sacred games became more entertainment than ritual as time went on. Such games involved play acting and shows, as well as the more notorious gladiatorial combats, chariot races, and other spectacles. Such productions cost huge amounts of money and admission was free. The sponsors of the games had to pay and provide for the hundreds of construction workers, trainers, engineers, and other workers to put on such shows. Of course, sellers of snacks, drinks, and memorabilia (for example, mugs with a favorite athlete on them) peddled their stock at the arenas as well. Gambling on the contests was also a thriving industry, as surviving records of bets show.

Hotels and Tourism. Travel in the ancient world could be slow and difficult. The stability of the Roman Empire and the remarkable system of roads made it much easier than at other times and places, but travel could still be expensive and dangerous. Wealthy travelers ideally would stay only with friends on their journeys, but for most travelers, hotels, motels, and inns were a necessity. Such stops did not enjoy a good reputation. They were often simple, dirty, and attracted a rough clientele. A basic inn would consist of bedrooms (guests would be locked into their rooms for security) and a tavern. Romans went on vacation and visited tourist attractions. The supposed site of the Trojan War, for example, remained a popular tourist attraction for centuries. Several coastal cities became resort towns for Romans looking to get away from it all. They provided fine accommodations and the most lavish of accoutrements.

MONEY-CHANGERS

Today, when people travel between different countries which use various forms of currency, there is a fairly secure and standard system for exchanging money. Financial experts maintain and participate in an intricate global system for determining the relative values of the currencies of countries all over the world. In the Roman world, as in many ancient civilizations, exchanging currencies was a more problematic process. Often individual cities issued their own coinage. A traveler needing the coinage of a new city had to go to someone known as a “money-changer.” This individual would compute how much the coin of one city or country was worth in terms of the coin of another city or country. Since the value of coins was determined by the value of the metal used in them, money-changers would weigh the coins and try to compute how much the metal was worth. Such computations could be difficult because coins might be made of several types of metal at once. Governments would sometimes issue coins that were not worth as much as they claimed. They might, for example, put a silver coating around a cheaper metal and claim it was a silver coin. Money-changers would have to keep up with these technicalities. Moreover, money-changers themselves could try to take advantage of the difficulties. Money-changers charged their customers a fee for their services but they might also try to trick their customers and make an extra profit. They could fudge on the exchange rate or distribute poor quality coinage. Money-changers, in fact, had a notorious reputation for cheating people. Because of all these problems, the establishment of government mints and the gradual universal acceptance of Roman coinage made life easier and more secure for many people in the Roman world.

Source: Richard Duncan-Jones, Money and Government in the Roman Empire (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Brothels. Prostitution was legal in the Roman world. In fact, it was a thriving industry. Prostitutes, and especially the procurers who supplied them, had an unsavory reputation. Nonetheless, brothels were not hidden or restricted to marginal parts of a city. They competed openly and frankly for

business. Because many people did not read, businesses often used picture signs for advertisements. A fish shop would have a placard with a fish on it, for example. Brothels also seem to have catered to nonliterate clientele. Appropriate signs or carvings indicated a given building was a brothel. Decorations inside may have suggested available services. Tokens with drawings may have allowed customers to make a selection even if they did not know the language.

Teachers and Schools. The Romans never instituted mandatory public schooling, although by the middle of the third century C.E., primary school was provided all over the empire. Generally, teachers charged fees and attracted what students they could. They did not necessarily have a permanent building or location, but they might rent space or, to save money, simply hold class outside. A lot of education and training probably took the form of apprenticeships. Wealthier Romans could afford tutors or more-expensive schools. Wealthy sponsors could also endow schools to make them more accessible. Under the influence of the Greeks, several types and levels of teachers developed. Full-time pedagogues, basically in-home tutors, might be qualified Greek slaves bought by the family. Elementary teachers seem to have been the most affordable (and conversely least well-paid) instructors, as well as the most plentiful. The grammaticus provided the first formal education, generally with an emphasis on language and literature. A rhetor provided a higher level of training, most especially for those pursuing careers in law or statesmanship. The Emperor Vespasian, toward the end of the first century C.E., provided the first known state sponsorship of education. Quintilian held one of Vespasian’s endowed chairs and wrote an elaborately detailed treatise on educating Roman statesmen, which still survives, called the Institutio oratoria, circa 95 B.C.E.

Doctors. Practitioners of medicine enjoyed an ambivalent reputation in antiquity. While some excellent physicians lived in this period, many doctors evidently did not serve their profession well. Much of what is known of Roman medicine derives from Greek practice, and most doctors seem to have been Greek, but new knowledge is arising about distinctly Roman practices. Doctors pervaded the Roman world, especially in cities and accompanying armies. They were not among the wealthiest in the Roman world and far from the most respectable. The first Greek doctor to come to Rome, Archagathus, earned the nickname carnifex, “butcher.” Cruel

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jokes about the inefficacy and hazards of doctors abounded. The poet Martial joked about a doctor who became a mortician, without changing jobs! Julius Caesar, however, wished to grant citizenship to doctors for their skill and service. By and large, little is known about the many doctors who maintained their practices and offices around the Roman world.

Legacy-Hunting. Especially in the early days of the empire, the Romans recognized the phenomenon of “legacy-hunting.” This referred to befriending and ingratiating oneself with a wealthy person in the hopes of being included in their will. Death, divorce, childlessness, or other difficulties could leave someone with control of an estate and no clear heir. A young man might romance a wealthy widow or a young woman might pursue a wealthy widower, for example, to try to get in on the fortune. Slaves were suspected of flattering their masters in the hopes of being freed and otherwise compensated in their masters’ wills. It became a dark joke that an elderly person with a fortune and a cough (a sign they might be ill and near death) was attractive. Petronius in his novel Satyricon describes Croton as a place where the dominant occupation was legacy-hunting! How much Romans exaggerated the problem of legacy-hunting cannot be known. Wealthy Romans feared legacy-hunting because they generally preferred that wealth be kept within a family and handed down from generation to generation. Thus, some aristocratic Romans probably were somewhat anxious about wealth being passed on to lower classes, slaves, freedmen, or foreigners.