The Wealth of the Roman Empire

The Roman Empire in the second century, under Trajan and Hadrian, that this was the wealthiest economy prior to the emergence of modern capitalism. This does sound a little bit like what we live in today, in that it's a semi-globalised free market. But there are people who see in this wealth evidence of Rome's monstrosity. The greatest and most influential anti-imperial text ever written is the book of Revelation with its vision of the Hall of Babylon. Tacitus' understanding is that all the greatness of the empire is simply sapping and destroying everything that originally had made the Romans great.