Egnatius: The Roman Merchant

"Get out of here you sons of Mercury, god of thieves and travelers," said Egnatius, a cloth merchant in Rome.

A few teenage boys had come up to his booth. One started to ask questions, others milled around him, while another one started to pick up some silk material hanging up at the other end of the booth. Silk was very hard to get, but he had gotten some with his Persian contacts. He also had two caravan rugs made in Afghanistan, with pictures of camel caravans. Most everything else was sheep or goat wool raised near Rome, but he also carried cotton from Egypt and even some linen from various sources when he could get it.

The year was 81 AD, and the Flavian Amphitheater, later known as the Coliseum had just been completed. Egnatius had a opened air shop in the Forum Cuppedinis, near the Lacus Curtius (Lake of Curtius). His father, grandfather, and even earlier ancestors had the shop there, but it was getting harder to be in business there. Emperor Galba had been murdered near the Lacus Curtius just a few years earlier, taking with him any hope that the emperor would bring a little sanity back to the government after Nero's excesses. Now Titus was emperor after capturing Jerusalem and defeating the fortress at Masada in 72 AD.

Since it was getting late, Egnatius put his wares back into his dwelling, then went to his living room, and sat down in front of his Lararium, to pray for wisdom. The Lararium was a small altar with a roof and contained statuettes representing his ancestors. He also stoked the fire and sacrificed some food to Lar Gamiliaris, the god of the family fire. His wife had died in childbirth along with their first child, and he never did get married again, but he still honored Lar Gamiliaris.

The next day, Egnatius started to set up his booth again. A member of the Praetorian Guard came by telling him he could not set up that day. A member of the Praetorian Guard was about as close to a police officer as you could find in Rome in those days, though there was a night watch. The night watch checked mainly for fires, though they would stop obvious breaks-ins. He was told that the reason he could not set up was because a triumph that the Senate had granted a general coming back from the wars from north of the Pontus Euxinus, or black sea, winning a fight with the Scythians.

This was not true, however; "Emperor Titus has just died." Caius, a fellow merchant, said to Egnatius, "I think they are just spreading the idea of a triumph to keep the people settled down."

"I'm sure you are right. One of my silk traders told me that a certain Greek, Apollonius of, I think, Tyana, predicted Titus would be killed," said Egnatius, "Obviously he was right. I did not say anything because one could be punished severely for gossiping like that."

"Titus did do a lot of good things. One of the things I did not like is that he used women as gladiators. He also went into the arena himself, though I hear it wasn't really a fair fight." Caius told him. "Listen, since we can't open our stalls today, I am going to go down to the new market place, to see if I could rent a place there. Do you want to come with?"

"Sure, why not?" Egnatius said, "Since my wife died I don't really have much to do, if I am not selling."

"Except count your money!" Said Caius.

"Count it for taxes! Someone has to pay for the new Coliseum!"

"Yes, and the corn dole that provides the poor citizens with free seating..."

"Don't even say it. It makes me angry just to think of it," said Egnatius, "Let's go over to look at the new market place, on Esquiline hill."

"You mean by the new baths of Titus? I have not been in that area since Nero had his domus aurea there. That is getting to be quite the area. I remember when I was young they still used part of that area for a garbage dump, and had the puticuli where they buried the poor. I remember they left the bodies of executed criminals for the birds to eat. Then they covered it all over making a park," said Caius.

"Oh, yes, the Horti Maecenatis, Gardens of Maecenas. That was nice until Nero destroyed it with his 'golden house'."

The two men walked over to look at the area. As they were walking, Egnatius asked his companion, "Didn't you have a son? It seems to me years ago I saw you with a young boy. Whatever happened to him?"

"He was in an army of Titus, speaking of the dead. My son died at Masada. Titus won that battle, but my son died," said Caius.

"I am sorry to hear that, I didn't know," said Egnatius.

They were quiet the rest of the way to Esquiline hill, though the traffic was quite heavy. Some of the streets they crossed were very cacophonous, almost vociferous.

When they finally got to the bath area, they went into a large building that was full of vendors selling their products. It was noisy here too, but it was all business. There were food vendors, pottery vendors, metal ware vendors, jewelry vendors. There were vendors of almost every kind, except there were no vendors for large animals. On the far side were some rooms that were offices for renting space.

"Well, I can give you the space you need for 240 denarii per annum, that works out to be only 20 denarii per month, said Fabricius, the building manager.

"What!" Said Egnatius, "I'm paying only four denarii per month now. You want to charge me five times that; you've got to be out of your mind, why should I pay even one more denarius?"

"Well, keep in mind that you have a secure place here, plus I have guards twenty four hours a day watching for anything, and there is no unexpected traffic, just customers come though-And it is out of the weather. Your sales will be more than five times what you sell out there.

"I will have to think about that," said Egnatius.

It turned out that Caius was right; Titus did die. He had died of natural causes. For the next several weeks, Egnatius continued working his booth, in the Forum Cuppedinis; however as time went on, his thoughts were increasingly on moving. Caius had already moved. Even though they had seldom talked or even acknowledged each other, now it seemed to Egnatius that something was missing. Early in the autumn, on a celebration day for Ceres, goddess of agriculture, and the seasons, Egnatius closed shop, and went down to the mall on Esquiline hill. He stopped by a temple to Ceres, on the Aventine Hill in Rome. He had not been to any religious celebration or even any religious meeting in some time.

They had a play about her in the temple, how that Pluto captured Proserpina, Ceres' daughter, when she was out gathering flowers. Ceres became frustrated trying to find her, looking over the whole world without success, taking refuge in a cave. Because Ceres was hiding in a cave the world experienced a terrible famine. Jupiter, worried by the situation, asked Pluto, his brother, to bring Proserpina back to her mother. He agreed on the condition that Proserpina could not eat anything while on her trip. Proserpina gave in to temptation and was seen eating some pomegranate seeds. Proserpina was condemned to stay with Pluto in the realm of darkness for six months of the year, giving us fall and winter. Ceres got her daughter back in the spring, waking all of nature, and staying for the summer, giving the fruits of nature.

Egnatius had never heard the whole story before, and it gave him a lot to think of on his way over to Esquiline Hill. When he got there, Fabricius, the manager, said, "The rents have gone up."

"Gone UP!" exclaimed Egnatius, "By Jupiter. One can barely turn about without prices going up."

"Well, the Emperor has cut the amount of silver in the denarii from 85% to 80%. He's trying to cover his budget without raising taxes," said Fabricius. "He's getting away with it paying the legions, but it doesn't cut ice with me. Besides, you can charge more too."

Egnatius stroked his beard. "What are the terms?"

"You can pay for a full year, or you can pay quarterly with a ten percent fee, but there is a ten percent down, which is not credited until you are paying in full, usually at the end of the third quarter."

"I will pay you a year at a time, but I get my pick of the open booths."

"Done!" Said Fabricius shaking hands with Egnatius.

During the following week, Egnatius rented a cart and oxen to move his goods, and settle into his new surroundings. He was three booths away from Caius. They would occasionally have lunch together, Caius often telling of son's exploits in foreign lands that he had written about and sent home.

Next to Egnatius was a Felix the tailor. Felix had four sons. The third son, named Tertius, helped Egnatius occasionally. They got along quite well. After a couple years, Egnatius started to have chest pains. A physician advised him to retire, so Egnatius talked to Felix about selling the business to Tertius.

"I have a cousin just south of the city that would let me live there, though I think I would rather just live close by. I was thinking perhaps Tertius could buy my business, you probably would have to finance it, but I think he would do well, Egnatius said to Felix.

"I will talk to Tertius and then get back to you," said Felix.

"I could come in, perhaps once a month or so to help him," said Egnatius, "On the other hand, sometimes that can be a frustrating thing to do: An old man who left the business, seeing how a new person is doing things, sometimes does not work out so well. Just get back to me, and we will work out any details, if you decide to take me up."

A few days later, when Egnatius was closing down, Felix and Tertius came by to see Egnatius.

"Hail, Egnatius," said Tertius.

Hail, to you too, Tertius; what can I do for you today?" Said Egnatius.

"My partner has agreed to lend me the money to buy your place, so I came over to sign papers."

"Not so fast, young one. You need to learn a little more about the business end of things. There are contracts with local fabric mills, and some in Asia Minor, even some in Gaul. These contracts will have to be honored until you can negotiate new ones. I will not let you not do this. Tomorrow, in the afternoon if it is slow, we will do this. We could do it tonight, but we will need good light to see everything, at least I, myself, will need the light."

The next afternoon, as soon as Tertius got back from eating lunch at his parents place, Egnatius closed shop and they sat down, going over papers Fabricius had gotten out the night before. It was early evening before they were though.

"I will write letters to all these people, with an explanation of what is happening, and an introduction to you. I expect you to have a letter written to each of these people also. While we are waiting for responses to those letters, I can show you all the ropes of the business end. I don't think I need to teach you anything about the fabrics we have, but if you have any questions this is the time to ask them," Egnatius told his protégé.

Tertius did have some questions about how to layout the fabrics, and the timing of some of the sales. He also asked about some of the details of the business itself.

Finally, Egnatius said, "I think we have covered more than enough for one evening. Go home, and come back early in the morning ready to go to it. Every time there is a slow period, we will cover parts of all this in detail."

Early the next year, Egnatius told Tertius, "It is time. It is time that you take over, and time for me to move on."

By that time, Tertius had already been running the store by himself, with very little help from Egnatius. Egnatius knew Tertius would do a good job, and he could just leave. Tertius and Egnatius went to a money handler, as much of a bank as they had it those days, exchanging money between accounts. Afterwards, Egnatius went over to see Caius.

"Well, my old friend, I am off to the south." Egnatius said to Caius.

"So where are you going to live?" Caius asked.

"I have a cousin that has an estate south of Rome. He has a very nice villa, but there is a large hill top above it. On that hill top is a small house, that has a view of the sea, and way to the south of that one can see Mount Vesuvius; you know, the one that blew it's top a hundred years ago or so." Said Egnatius.

"Are you not afraid it will blow up again?"

"No. It did not do any damage there at that time, and never did badly affect the area, so I am not at all worried."