When one harkens back to Rome one is usually met with consistent comparisons to political ideals, military glory or the decadence and immorality of the upper classes in the late republican and imperial periods. Very rarely, however, is the focus on the economy that made the wealth of the Roman Republic possible in the third century BC.
Rome is traditionally said to have been founded approximately in 753 BC by Romulus, its first king. It was essentially a collection of farmers …
