Chapter Dalla parsimonia al profitto: Plauto testimone delle trasformazioni economiche della sua epoca e dell’organizzazione del lavoro

Abstract

Plautus writes his comedies at the age of the Roman expansion in the Mediterranean, when remarkable social and economic transformations rapidly took place in Rome. He complains about the passage from ancestral moral customs to a new ethic of profit. Farms are now intended to produce for the market. A Roman senator is represented as the owner of a suburban villa, whose products are commended to his urban staff in order to be sold. Even more space is reserved to trade. An entire and very complex comedy, Mercator, is devoted to this subject, which is constantly treated and mentioned everywhere. While the Roman economy was growing, there was a similar parallel increase of professional activities, which are abundantly attested by Plautus.