imperial Rome, no doubt scores of unknown slaves knew how to make better olive presses, better watermills and better wool looms, while scores of plutocrats knew how to save, invest and consume. But the two lived miles apart, separated by venal middlemen who had no desire to bring them together. A telling anecdote about glass repeated by several Roman authors rather drives home the point. A man demonstrates to the emperor Tiberius his invention of an unbreakable form of glass, hoping for a reward. Tiberius asks if anybody else knows his secret and is assured nobody does. So Tiberius beheads the
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