But the
widespreading possessions of a Roman landowner are for the most part
let to a speculator, who is termed a "mercante di campagna." The
commercial operations engaged in by these "merchants of the country"
are often very extensive, and many of them become very wealthy men. It
is hardly necessary to say that neither they nor their families live
on, or indeed in most cases near, the land from which they draw their
wealth. They are absentees, with a paramount excuse for being so. For
the vast plains over which their herds and flocks and droves wander
are for the most part scourged by the malaria to such an extent that
human life, or at all events human health, is incompatible with a
residence on them. The wealthy _mercante di campagna_ lives in Rome
therefore, and his wife and family take the lead in the rich, but not
in the aristocratic, circles of the society of the capital. One of
these men may be seen perhaps at a "meet" of the Roman hunt, mounted
on the best and most showy horse in the field, attended probably by a
smart groom leading a second (very needless) horse for his master's
use, or holding in readiness an elegant equipage for him to drive
himself back to the city at the termination of the day's sport.
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