Roman Traders As a Factor of Romanization in Noricum and in the Eastern Transalpine Region

chapter 13 Roman Traders as a Factor of Romanization in Noricum and in the Eastern Transalpine Region

Leonardo Gregoratti

Introduction

In 181 BC, according to Livy,1 the triumviri Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, Gaius Flaminius, and Lucius Manlius Acidinus founded the Latin colony of Aquileia, following a major incursion of large contingents of Transalpine Gauls, Galli transgressi in Venetiam.2 Very soon the strategic position of the settlement and its role in the Roman network system proved themselves instrumental in the emergence of Aquileia’s commercial function. The colony marked the limit of the area under Republican control, but it also became the starting point for any trade and commercial enterprise east and north of the Alps and for any attempt to extend Roman political and economic influence in Noricum and Pannonia. Strabo’s words are a particularly clear illustration of this: ‘Aquileia has been given over as an emporium for those tribes of the Illyrians that live near the Ister (Danube); the latter load on wagons and carry inland the products of the sea, and wine stored in wooden jars, and also olive-oil, whereas the former get in exchange slaves, cattle, and hides.’3 Strabo’s words show clearly the dual nature of the Roman settlement: Aquileia was both a military outpost and an emporion, a trade centre looking towards the regions east and north of the Alps. Already from the end of the second century BC, merchants and business- men from all Italy began to settle in the city lured by the possibilities of profit provided by the increasing demand for Italic products by those transalpine regions which were gradually entering the Roman sphere of influence. The period of the late Republic, especially the first century BC, witnessed a

* This paper presents the part of the results of a post-doctoral grant funded by the research project PRIN 2009 ‘Ancient Rome and the Transpadana’, sponsored by the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research, http://www.unive.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=119902. 1 Liv. 39.54–5, 40.34. 2 Liv. 39.22; see Sartori (1960). 3 Strabo 5.1.8. See Panciera (1976, 153–4); Bandelli (2009).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004294554_015 240 gregoratti substantial increase in the movement of goods between Aquileia and the regions north-east of the Alps. The situation had in that time radically changed from the scenario depicted by Strabo. Instead of waiting to meet foreign tradesmen in Aquileia, Roman merchants began to move along the well-known ancient transalpine routes. They were in search of new, unexploited markets for their products and new and cheaper sources of raw materials for their manufacturing activities. This paper will investigate the trade relationships between Northern Italy and the Regnum Norici, an Alpine kingdom, friend and ally of the Romans, which controlled the mountainous region lying just north of the Italic X Regio, as well as with the Eastern transalpine region. It will investigate how trade relations and cultural interaction between Italians and locals changed the economy and culture of the regions involved.

Trade in the Second and First Centuries BC

Several inscriptions attest the presence outside the Alps of Roman tradesmen or commercial agents, members of prominent Aquileian or north-Italic gentes, and servi or liberti closely connected to them. The Celtic settlement on the Magdalensberg, close to today’s Klagenfurt, was the most important trading station of the Regnum Norici.4 Here Italic merchants were certainly active from the middle of the first century BC, but several finds of Roman coins prove that the indigenous population was entertaining a commercial relationship with the Roman colonists of Aquileia already in the second century BC, prob- ably by crossing the mountain ranges and entering the Roman territory, as nar- rated by Strabo. After 88 BC, when an international crisis affected the main Mediterranean emporion at Delos, Italic and Aquileian families began to orga- nize a more stable commercial presence on the Magdalensberg. The archaeological excavations on the site revealed a substantial amount of Italic pottery. Ceramic vessels, lamps, olive oil and Lamboglia 2 and Dressel 6a amphorae containing wine reaching the settlement on the Magdalensberg, were taken in the several storehouses or immediately traded in the many tab- ernae in order to obtain amber, slaves, beasts, or the famous ferrum Noricum, which was brought to Aquileia and reworked into metal products. Some of these products later returned to Noricum by the same route. Many Aquileian

4 Winkler (1977, 195); Piccottini (1977, 292–3). Piccottin (1987, 292); Šasel Kos (1997, 30); Dolenz et al. (2009); Gleirscher (2009). Bruck (1961); Panciera (1976, 156); Pavan (1987, 21).