The economic changes in this period can be traced only with difficulty and uncertainty; but they must have been important. The multiplication of slaves, which was a feature of the ages of the post-Alexandrian empires, the Roman conquest, and the Cilician pirate state, would necessarily be checked at a certain stage, both in town and country, by the continued shrinkage of the rich class. Agriculture in Greece, as in Italy, could not compete with that of Egypt; and slave-farming, save in special cultures, would not be worth carrying on. In the towns, again, the manufactures carried on by means of slaves had also dwindled greatly; and the small wealthy class could not and would not maintain more than a certain number of slaves for household purposes. The records of the religious associations, too, as we shall see, seem to prove that men who were slaves in status had practical freedom of life, and the power of disposing of part of their earnings; whence it may be inferred that many owners virtually liberated their slaves, though retaining a legal claim over them. In this state of things population would gradually recover ground, albeit on a low plane. The type of poor semi-Greek now produced would live at a lower standard of comfort than had latterly been set for themselves by the more educated, who would largely drift elsewhere; and a home-staying population living mainly on olives and fish could relatively flourish, both in town and country. On that basis, in turn, commerce could to some extent revive, especially when Nero granted to the Greeks immunity from taxation.[283] We are prepared then, in the second century, under propitious rulers like Hadrian and the Antonines, to find Greek life materially improved.[284] The expenditure of Hadrian on public works, and the new endowments of the philosophic schools at Athens by the Antonines, would stimulate such a revival; and the Greek cities would further regain ground as Italy lost it, with the growth of cosmopolitanism throughout the Empire. While domestic slavery would still abound, the industries in Athens under the imperial rule would tend to be carried on by freedmen.