class. We shall soon see that the companies which were formed for
undertaking the state-contracts probably permitted shares to be held by
individuals who never appeared in the registered list of partners at
all, and we know that to hold a share in a great public concern was
considered one of the methods of business which did not subject the
participant to the taint of a vulgar commercialism.[105] And, if the
senator chose to indulge more directly in the profits of transmarine
commerce, to what extent was he really hindered by the provisions of the
law? He might not own a ship of burden, but his freedmen might sail to
any port on the largest vessels, and who could object if the returns
which the dependant owed his lord were drawn from the profits of
commerce? Again there was no prohibition against loans on bottomry, and
Cato had increased his wealth by becoming through his freedman a member
of a maritime company, each partner in which had but a limited liability
and the prospect of enormous gains.[106] The example of this energetic
money-getter also illustrates many ways in which the nobleman of
business tastes could increase his profits without extending his
enterprises far from the capital. It was possible to exploit the growing
taste in country villas, in streams and lakes and natural woods; to buy
a likely spot for a small price, let it at a good rental, or sell it at
a larger price. The ownership of house property within the town, which
grew eventually into the monopoly of whole blocks and streets by such a
man as Crassus,[107] was in every way consistent with the possession of
senatorial rank. It was even possible to be a slave-dealer without loss
of dignity, at least if one transacted the sordid details of the
business through a slave. The young and promising boy required but a
year's training in the arts to enable the careful buyer to make a large
profit by his sale.[108] Yet such methods must have been regarded by the
nobility as a whole as merely subsidiary means of increasing their
patrimony: and, in spite of the fact that Cato took the view that