To these sources of gain fell to be added the wholesale traffic.

The exports and imports of Italy were very considerable.

The former consisted chiefly of wine and oil, with which Italy and Greece almost exclusively--for the production of wine in the Massiliot and Turdetanian territories can at that time have been but small-- supplied the whole region of the Mediterranean; Italian wine was sent in considerable quantities to the Balearic islands and Celtiberia, to Africa, which was merely a corn and pasture country, to Narbo and into the interior of Gaul.

Still more considerable was the import to Italy, where at that time all luxury was concentrated, and whither most articles of luxury for food, drink, or clothing, ornaments, books, household furniture, works of art were imported by sea.

The traffic in slaves, above all, received through the ever-increasing demand of the Roman merchants an impetus to which no parallel had been known in the region of the Mediterranean, and which stood in the closest connection with the flourishing of piracy.