Produzione e commercio del pane lievitato in Roma antica, tra società, economia e diritto.

[Machine translation] The essay is dedicated to the appearance, spread and trade of leavened bread in ancient Rome. According to Pliny the Elder, this happened after the arrival in Rome of enslaved Greek bakers after the end of the Third Punic War (Battle of Pydna,168 AD). Thanks to them, the processing of bread, which until then had been carried out in the family environment by women, begins to be a direct production for the market. The production and sale of numerous types of bread and the variety of services offered to customers determined the rapid social rise of the pistors, whose role also became important from a political point of view with the establishment of the imperial service of the annona by Augustus. The commercial activity of the Pistors consisted of the conclusion of purchase, sale and lease and management contracts. The company they owned could have different organizational structures: in addition to the direct management model, in which it was the same owner who oversaw the various phases of processing, the sources in our possession attest to the use of representatives who were qualified as institutes and to children and especially to slaves equipped with peculiums.