Ricerc@Sapienza

The current study investigates the relationship that connects the commercial
enterprises to the cities and their territory. The cities (not only Rome, but also
municipalities and colonies) tended to operate controls on the entrepreneurial activity
carried out in the urban territory, both through specific regulation and through the
administration of the necessary tools for carrying out these activities. This trend had its
roots in the republican period, but found their highest and articulate expressions in the
imperial period, in the constant pursuit of the more general ‘principle’ of the control of
the territory, intended as, therefore, not only from the military and political points of
view, but also productive and, in the widest sense, environmental. The analysis of the
cases and of the sources shows the propensity to concrete realization of ‘sustainability’,
principle that is progressively establishing itself in modern territorial contexts.