earlier emperors the
vigilance of the Roman magistrates and the spirit of the Roman
government gave every possible security to commerce and prevented for a
time the rise of monopoly. Nowhere was national union so complete or
commercial intercourse so perfect as in the Roman empire. The
intelligence and the power of Rome stimulated and regulated the industry
of her people and permitted them to enjoy the fruits of their efforts
without public or private restrictions.

We have seen that the intercourse of Rome and her provinces was
facilitated by the construction of roads and the establishment of
imperial posts. During the decline of the empire the maintenance of
these posts led, however, to a grave abuse. We are informed by Gibbon in
his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire":

"But these beneficial establishments were accidentally connected with a
pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents or
messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the
offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls and the edicts or
victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of
reporting whatever they could observe of the conduct either of the
magistrates or private citizens, and were soon considered as the eyes of
the monarch and the scourge of the people. Under the warm influence of a
feeble reign they multiplied to the incredible number of ten thousand,
disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws, and
exercised in the profitable management of the posts a rapacious and
insolent oppression. These official spies, who regularly corresponded
with the palace, were encouraged by favor and reward anxiously to watch
the progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
symptoms of disaffection to the actual preparation of an open revolt.
Their careless or criminal violation of truth was covered by the
consecrated mask of zeal; and they might securely aim their poisoned
arrows at the breast either of the guilty or the innocent, who had
provoked their resentment."

After the downfall of the Romans, commerce remained paralyzed during the
period of Gothic ignorance and barbarism. The crusades for the recovery
of the Holy Land from the Saracens, in the eleventh and following
centuries, opened again communication between the east and the west by
leading multitudes from every European country into Asia; and though the
object of these expeditions was conquest, and no