Les negotiatores du Haut-Empire, le stockage et les entrepôts

Résumé Fr En

L’activité du mercator et celle du negotiator n’étaient identiques ni sous la République ni au Haut-Empire. Le présent article concerne les negotiatores du Haut-Empire ; leurs inscriptions présentent beaucoup d’indications géographiques, beaucoup plus que celles des mercatores. Certaines indications concernent le lieu où travaillait le negotiator, car son activité se menait à partir d’une cité précise. Il était mobile, mais pas autant que le mercator. D’autres indications de lieux désignent l’origine des marchandises dont il s’occupait. Sa spécialité était certes l’acheminement de marchandises vers la place commerciale où il exerçait son commerce mais il s’occupait surtout de décharger et de stocker ces marchandises, pour ensuite les redistribuer dans la région ou les réexpédier vers d’autres directions. Ces negotiatores entretenaient donc des rapports privilégiés avec les entrepôts.

In the period including the Republic and the Principate, there were always differences between the role of the mercator and that of the negotiator. This paper is about the negotiatores at the time of the Principate : their inscriptions contain many locational references, far more than those of the mercatores. Some references are connected with the place from which the negotiator managed his business – there would always be one city which was the base for his operations. The negotiator did travel, but much less than did the mercator. Other locational references relate to the places of origin of the goods he was buying and selling. Of course, his function required him to route his goods through the centre from which he managed his activities. But his business essentially involved taking delivery of and stocking goods, then distributing them either within his own region or further afield. This required the negotiatores to work extremely closely with those in the entrepot or warehousing business.