Passenger fares seem to us to have been very low. Passengers however appear to have been responsible for their own sustenance, the quarters were probably far from luxurious and of course loss of life by shipwreck unlike loss of freight entailed no financial loss to the carrier. -from "Chapter XVI: Commerce" In this classic work-an expansion of an earlier 1920 edition-a respected classical scholar sketches the economic life of the Roman culture through the republican period and into the fourth century of the empire. Though later books unfairly supplanted it, this volume remains an excellent introduction to the capital, commerce, labor, and industry of the immediate forerunner of modern civilization. In clear, readable language, Frank explores: . agriculture in early Latium . the rise of the peasantry . Roman coinage . finance and politics . the "plebs urbana" . the beginnings of serfdom . and much more. American historian TENNEY FRANK (1876-1939) was professor of Latin at Bryn Mawr College and Johns Hopkins University, and also wrote Roman Imperialism (1914) and A History of Rome (1923).