e agricultural and industrial products
of Italy, consumed in the capital. Consequently the middle classes and
many cities grew rich, especially the cities of the Campania, Pompeii,
Herculaneum, Naples, Pozzuoli, through which passed all the trade
between Italy and Egypt. In addition, Italy found an abundant source
of income in the exportation of wine and oil.

In short, having at last emerged from revolution, the peoples of Italy
rallied around Rome and the imperial power, united and relatively
content. At the same time, the provinces began among themselves, about
Italy, a great interchange of merchandise, men, ideas, customs,
across the Mediterranean. Rome and Italy were invaded by a crowd
of Orientals, slaves, freedmen, merchants, artisans, _litterati_,
artists, acrobats, poets, adventurers; and contemporaneously with Rome
and Italy, the agricultural provinces of the West, especially those
along the Danube. Rome did not conquer the barbarous provinces of
Europe for itself alone; it conquered them also for the East, which,
in Mesia, Dalmatia, Pannonia, among those barbarians growing civilised
and eager to live in cities, found customers for their industries in
articles of luxury, for their artists, teachers of literature, and
propagandists of religion.

We are therefore able to explain to ourselves why, beginning from the
time of Augustus, all the industrial cities of the Orient--Pergamon,
Laodicea, Ephesus, Ierapolis, Tyre, Sidon, Alexandria--entered upon
an era of new and refulgent prosperity. Finally, we add the singular
enriching of two nations, whose names return anew united for the last
time, Egypt and Gaul. To all the numerous sources of Gallic wealth
there is to be added yet another, the importance of which is easier
to understand after what I have said on the development of the
Empire. Pliny tells us that all Gaul wove linen sails. The progress of
navigation, a consequence of the progress of commerce, much increased
the demand for linen sail-cloth, something that explains the spread of
flax cultivation in Gaul and the profit derived from it.

As to Egypt, it not only found in the pacified empire new outlets for
its old industries, but also succeeded in engaging a large part of the
new commerce with the extreme Orient, which was at this time greatly
on the increase. From India and China were imported pearls, diamonds,
silk fabrics; for the use of these wares gained largely during
this century, as it has done