/lit/ - Literature

So I got this book and started going through it. It follows the typical roman historian schema:
> village/tribe -> clan -> city-state
> Shit all over Titus Livius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus for no reason
> defensive wars
> etc etc
There were a couple things that I thought odd tho. Like when it said that the rich as fuck aristocracy, despite dominating nearly all the trade in the internum mare, were poor merchants and didnt care about trade at all

What the hell is this shit?
Anybody else read this? What did you think?
Why is it that roman historians always neglect to tell the economic side of the story