The business life of Rome flows in many channels, but in general the Eternal City does not compete with Alexandria, or even with certain smaller Græco-Levantine cities, as an industrial or distributing center. Rome _receives_ much. The great incomes from investments in the provinces and from the expenditure in the city of the imperial revenues, make it possible to pay for enormous quantities of luxuries for which no corresponding articles are exported in return. There are many petty industries but they exist mainly for local needs. Rome exports legions and law-givers, so her inhabitants assert proudly,--is it not right, therefore, that she should wax fat upon the tributes of the world, when she can repay them with the blessed _pax Romana_?[121] =197. Multiplicity of Shops. The Great Shopping Districts.=--But if the industrial life of the city is relatively weak, never before has there been such a “wilderness of shops” as spreads itself along the streets of Rome. A certain type of shops can be found everywhere; hardly a street but has grocers’ stalls; the terra cotta plaque with a goat, the sign of a milk dealer; the stone relief of two men tugging a great jar slung up on a pole, the sign of a wine shop, and the like. There are nevertheless certain great retail quarters to visit if you are seeking for articles of _vertu_ and price. The fashionable fish-mongers have their odoriferous stalls under the great porticoes and basilicas by the fora; the fruit sellers are along the ascent from the Old Forum to the top of the Velia (a spur of the Palatine flung out toward the Esquiline); while the jewelers, goldsmiths, and makers of musical instruments as well as the great bankers have their headquarters directly along the Sacred Way itself. The perfumers’ shops in turn are well concentrated under the south-east brow of the Capitoline. In addition to these, however, there exist two grand shopping districts for Rome outside the Fora themselves: for the cheap trade, where elbowing plebeians struggle for bargains, we find that the little shops are wedged all along the swarming Tuscan Street (_Vicus Tuscus_) going south from the Old Forum toward the Circus Maximus and the adjacent cross streets; but for the more select purchases high-born ladies and gentlemen order their litters to take them northward along “Broadway” (_Via Lata_), where by the Sæpta Julia and the vast series of porticoes adjoining or opposite are the finest retail shops in the entire world. [Illustration: TRADESMEN’S SCALES AND BALANCES.]