Roman Economic History

The economic theory of international trade strives to understand why countries export and import the goods and services they do. If all trade were of the sort in which countries exported goods only they could produce or extract and imported similarly unique goods from other countries, there would be little for economics to explain. When different countries are capable of producing essentially the same goods, yet some of them choose to import part of their consumption of some of those goods and produce other goods in volumes that exceed domestic consumption, selling abroad what is not consumed locally, there are some resource allocation choices to be explained. Even countries with unique resources, or at least resources that are not present in every country, are apt to import quantities of some goods they also produce domestically. Bronze Age Cyprus, with its famous copper deposits, is an example, importing olive oil from foreign lands to supplement its own oil production. Trade theory offers considerably more information than an explanation of trade patterns. Concomitant with the explanations of trade patterns are predictions of a number of consequences of trade. Trade models are general equilibrium models, and commodity prices, factor prices, and the welfare of various members of society are determined along with trade patterns. This part of trade theory generally abstracts from the use of money, and the problems associated with different moneys circulating among countries; it is called the "real" theory of trade, sometimes the "pure" theory. Most of this chapter will deal with topics in the real theory of trade although we will introduce some topics in international monetary economics toward the end. This is appropriate to the generally limited flexibility of money in the economies of this period as I currently understand them. The models of trade begin with the simple exchange model, which abstracts from production. We introduced this model in Chapter 5. We use it here to demonstrate the simplest case of the gains from trade. One of the important goals of trade theory has been to demonstrate how trade permits a country to achieve a higher level of well-being ("welfare") than it could attain in autarky (production and consumption in isolation). Additionally, we discuss the issue of stability of international (general) equilibrium, a topic slighted in the earlier discussion. We return to it here, despite the empirical evidence that the conditions for stability generally are satisfied in contemporary international trade, because the behavior of the economies of ancient Mediterranean world may occasionally have provided the conditions for counterintuitive responses of trade volumes to commodity prices. These models run counter to the model of trade occasionally encountered in discussions of ancient economic activity, to the effect that people exchanged their surpluses: no surplus, no trade. The models of international trade theory nowhere rely on the concept of a surplus.

The Eastern Commercial Revenue Model is a reconstruction of Roman finances in the first three centuries CE.  It represents a major departure from established academic narratives that sought to marginalise eastern trade. This document outlines source evidence for the construction of a different commercial model for the Imperial economy, by evidencing that trade conducted through the Indian Ocean generated approximately a third of Roman Revenues during the early imperial period.  It was constructed by using ancient evidence and making quantitative deductions from source testimony and archaeological remains. It has incorporated evidence for port facilities, naval technology, sailing schedules, trade networks, commodity exchanges, diplomatic relations, cultural contacts, and the use and consumption of foreign goods in ancient societies. The impact of this model as a framework for recent studies is then briefly reviewed.

Lead pollution in Arctic ice reflects mid-latitude emissions from ancient
lead-silver mining and smelting. The few reported measurements
have been extrapolated to infer the performance of ancient
economies, including comparisons of economic productivity and
growth during the Roman Republican and Imperial periods. These
studies were based on sparse sampling and inaccurate dating,
limiting understanding of trends and specific linkages. Here we
show, using a precisely dated record of estimated lead emissions
between 1100 B.C.E. and 800 C.E. derived from sub-annually resolved
measurements in Greenland ice and detailed atmospheric
transport modeling, that annual European lead emissions closely
varied with historical events including imperial expansion, wars,
and major plagues. Emissions rose coeval with Phoenician expansion,
accelerated during expanded Carthaginian and Roman
mining primarily in the Iberian Peninsula, and reached a maximum
under the Roman Empire. Emissions fluctuated synchronously with
wars and political instability particularly during the Roman Republic,
and plunged coincident with two major plagues in the 2nd
and 3rd centuries, remaining low for >500 years. Bullion in silver
coinage declined in parallel, reflecting the importance of leadsilver
mining in ancient economies. Our results indicate sustained
economic growth during the first two centuries of the Roman
Empire, terminated by the 2nd-century Antonine plague.

Questa ricerca, presentata in occasione del convegno "Ruri. Abitare nel territorio. La Regio VIII dall'età romana all'alto medioevo" (Bologna. 22-23 marzo 2017), coinvolge alcune interessanti iscrizioni emiliane di età romana che ricordano l'esercizio di funzioni e mestieri in ambito rurale. Le fonti esaminate consentono ad esempio di riflettere su questioni come il possesso, la custodia e l'amministrazione degli spazi rurali, ma anche su attività come l'allevamento e la lavorazione dei prodotti secondari.
Il dato più significativo che emerge dall'indagine, tuttavia, è forse l'orgoglio con cui gli antichi vilici, i dispensatores e altri professionisti vollero trasmettere attraverso l'epigrafia monumentale il ricordo della propria occupazione.

L'articolo è dedicato allo studio del raro gentilizio Purpurarius, noto agli epigrafisti dalla metà degli anni '80 del secolo scorso. Tale gentilizio risulta attestato finora nell'onomastica di 5 individui, tre uomini e due donne, menzionati in due diverse iscrizioni su stele funerarie provenienti da Mutina. Il presente contributo rappresenta anche l'occasione per confermare, a partire dalle indicazioni di Albino Garzetti, l'origine modenese della stele di Ti. Purpurarius Saturninus, che fu segnalata per la prima volta a Ossimo Inferiore nel secolo scorso ed è oggi conservata nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividate Camuno.

Il presente lavoro, che ha come tematiche di fondo la storia sociale e la storia del lavoro nel mondo romano, si propone di ricostruire, attraverso l'epigrafia monumentale, l'identità e il profilo socio-economico di alcuni individui vissuti a Mutina o nel suo ager in età tardorepubblicana e altoimperiale. Si tratta di alcuni uomini e una donna di cui viene ricordata la professione: un aurifex, un copo,  un medicus, un negotians lanarius, un praeceptor, un tonsor, diversi vestiarii, un vicesimarius, un probabile unctor e una vilica. Nel testo si formulano inoltre alcune ipotesi in merito alle funzioni esercitate in ambito domestico dai cosiddetti "delicia" o "pueri delicati"; vengono infine analizzati tre gentilizi di derivazione professionale attestati nel Modenese: Aerarius, Aurarius e Purpurarius. Quest'ultimo nome, in particolare, fino a oggi sembrerebbe attestato esclusivamente nella colonia emiliana.

The Marble Stoa at Hierapolis was a representative marble portico, which was funded by a local elite family in the middle of the 1st century AD. The aim of this paper is to assess the socio-economic dimensions of this building project by a tentative reconstruction of its logistics, schedule and labour force. Pre-industrial construction techniques and the management of building materials and human resources are put into perspective by the comparison with data derived from 19th century building manuals. The
construction effort is estimated in man-hours and man-days. Based on this estimate, a model for the organization of the building site, the most probable duration of the building project and the seasonal demands for unskilled and skilled workers are elaborated. This estimate is finally translated into hypothetical building costs by drawing upon the evidence for wages and prices under the early Empire. The results of this analysis do not only add to our understanding of wider socio-economic processes, but also to a more differentiated assessment of local euergetism in Roman Asia Minor.

A flood in 2009 in the Kayıkbaşı (Üçburgu)-Gökçebey/Tefen district where is nearly on the southern border of Tios, allowed the remains of a construction to come to light that calls to mind a customs warehouse along with the Filyos (Billaios) River where it meets with the Devrek (Ladon) River. As a result of the surface surveys and the archaeological excavations that were conducted in the area between 2010-2015, a great deal of potteries, amphora handles, coins and lead weigths came to light. Six Roman lead weights has been found in this area since 2010 and eight are known from the auction and epigraphic catalogues (without the findspot) which have the same features in terms of shape but different in size. These Roman weights of Tios bear the depictions of the busts of “Zeus and Dionysos”, “Zeus and Hermes”, “kerykeion and axe”, “bell and scales” or “weights and steelyard?” on their each side which are clearly the symbols of the trade. In addition to the names of “boule and demos of Tios”, it is also possible to read the titles and the names of the officials on some of the readable weights. All these lead weights presents us a clue about the function of the construction and the river, land and maritime trade of Tios.

"The reign of Nero was momentous in the numismatic history of the Roman Empire, and it is key to understanding the nature of Roman coinage and its relationship with the Roman state. Since the time of Theodor Mommsen, scholars have recognized a change in the circulation patterns of denarii indicating a Neronian debasement and subsequent recoinage of the denarius.... Building on these observations [of various scholars] and recognizing the methodological deficiencies in Walker’s x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses of silver coins, Butcher and Matthew Ponting embarked on a campaign of new metallurgical analyses of the denarius and eastern tetradrachm coinages. In the recent publication of their results, they clarify the Neronian changes, convincingly argue against a fiscal interpretation, and offer a new monetary interpretation. They argue that the debasement of the denarius in 64 resulted in harmonisation with the eastern coinages. The denarius could, it seemed to them, be interpreted as a Roman drachm. I agree with Butcher and Ponting’s analysis of the numismatic evidence, but I disagree with them about the inspiration and motivation for, significance of, and implications of the new Neronian silver standards and circulation patterns. In this article, I offer an overview of the Neronian numismatic changes, and a new monetary interpretation which suggests that the silver standards were established in order to reflect fixed exchange rates among the empire’s coinages and eliminate the production of the Tyrian shekel. The article will end by comparing my position with that of Butcher and Ponting." (p. 107)

Il saggio è dedicato ad alcune figure professionali del mondo romano legate alla lavorazione e alla vendita dell'oro e di manufatti realizzati con questo metallo prezioso. Nel testo si analizzano in particolare le testimonianze epigrafiche di Roma e quelle di Mutina nel cui territorio, secondo un'antica tradizione popolare, sarebbe stato possibile estrarre masse aurifere.

This interdisciplinary volume presents eighteen papers by Roman historians and archaeologists, discussing trade in the Roman empire in the period c. 100 BC to AD 350, and in particular the role of the Roman state, in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the empire, in taxing that trade, and in intervening in the markets to ensure the supply of particular commodities, especially for the city of Rome and for the army.

An introductory chapter by the editors sets the scene within the context of scholarly debate over the scale, nature and importance of Roman trade since the mid twentieth centuries. The chapters in this volume address facets of the subject on the basis of widely different sources of evidence—historical, papyrological and archaeological—and are grouped in three sections. Many of the major institutional factors are discussed in the first section: taxation by Alan Bowman (chapter 2); the legal structures by Boudewijn Sirks (chapter 3); market regulation and transaction costs by Elio Lo Cascio (chapter 4); Republican financial institutions by Philip Kay (chapter 5). A picture begins to emerge of heavy state involvement in establishing institutional frameworks conducive to trade, including provision of transport infrastructure, and, notably, interventions in the market to distort flows of particular goods, whether staples such as grain or olive oil, or luxuries such as marble, to particular concentrations of demands, principally Rome and the army garrisons. But this seems to have been done by the engagement of private contractors, in a way which stimulated private trade on the back of it: Colin Adams’ chapter on Nile transport (chapter 6) points out the incentives or subsidies carrying a private cargo as a supplement to a state cargo, and thus how the imbrication of state and private transport subsidised private trade.

The second and third sections concentrate on internal and external (long-distance) trade, respectively. Among the underlying questions of economic performance, we include: how widely available were different kinds of goods, and what determined differences in availability? How successfully did transport infrastructure provision enable goods to be moved, or did high transport costs deter long-distance land movement? The (predominantly archaeological) evidence reviewed in Part II gives the impression that access to resources via long-distance trade corrected some imbalances in natural reserves, for example in timber (chapter 7), and that traded goods (glass, chapter 9; pottery, chapters 10–12; and metals) were widely and effectively distributed. In normal circumstances, the transport systems, institutional framework, market concentrations of demand, worked pretty well for a preindustrial society. But there is anecdotal evidence of famines which could not be alleviated in time, given the slow transport and communication speeds of a preindustrial world. Although much of the evidence for the scale and reach of Roman trade comes from pottery, since that is one of the most archaeologically durable and traceable commodities, a particularly important feature of this volume is that several papers show what can be done with other goods: timber (William Harris, chapter 7), glass (Daniele Foy, chapter 9), stone (Ben Russell, chapter 8), and even the service industry in cleaning textiles (Ivan Radman, chapter 13). A chapter by Emanuele Papi (ch. 14)  examines a particular province, Mauretania Tingitana, and demonstrates how recent archaeological work and a synthesis of what is known about amphorae production sites radically alter the perception of that province as largely isolated from Mediterranean trading networks.

The third and final section deals with trade beyond the boundaries of the empire, especially with India and the far East, a topic on which a mass of new data has become available in the last decade, largely as a result of archaeological excavations. David Graf provides a magisterial survey of the evidence for the development, extent and nature of trade via the so-called ‘Silk Roads’ (chapter 15) The Silk Road trade at the Chinese end originated epiphenomenally on the practice of state tribute and diplomatic embassies, as tribute in kind and diplomatic gifts were resold by their enterprising recipients. As trade developed along the routes westward and gained its own momentum, its value was harnessed by the Chinese and Roman states in the form of heavy customs dues.
Roberta Tomber and Dario Nappo argue, on the basis of ceramic and numismatic evidence respectively, that contrary to a widespread view trade between the Roman world and India had not declined by the mid second century, but remained buoyant at least until the Antonine period. Barbara Davidde’s paper illustrates the role that Arabian ports played in this trade with India and also with the products of Arabia. Qana’ was receiving Campanian, Laodicaean and Egyptian wine, and even wine from Spain and the Black Sea. Some of this was clearly traded in return for frankincense from the interior of Yemen; but some will have been bought for onward shipment to the ports of northern India, and Indian goods would have gone the other way.

Overall, the papers suggest a mixed picture of the development of patterns of trade across the empire, especially in the third and fourth centuries, and no definitive or widely applicable conclusion about ‘economic collapse’. Rome’s external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance to the fisc. But in the eastern part of the empire at least, the state appears, in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth, to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation, both direct and indirect, to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration which was in effect a fiscal partnership, in slightly different forms in east and west, in the longer term fundamentally changed the political character of the empire.

L'epigramma III, 59 di Marziale offre lo spunto per riflettere sul ruolo delle categorie sociali subalterne nelle città romane, con particolare riferimento a Bononia e a Mutina, dove un ciabattino e un lavandaio, dice il poeta, offrirono spettacoli di gladiatori alle rispettive comunità. Marziale potrebbe avere citato due categorie professionali particolarmente umili (sutor e fullo) per evidenziare lo scandalo, tuttavia, è anche possibile che queste citazioni nascondano precisi riferimenti all'economia e alla storia sociale delle due città.

To understand the roman economy in the 2nd century B.C. is something that is not possible without being aware of the process how the Mediterranean World fused into a political whole, first under the influence and later under the rule of the Roman State. Constructing the economic history of this period is not possible without considering the globalisation that occurred in the Mediterranean political realm as well as the major changes in the social and economic spheres taking place in the Italian Peninsula. This context makes possible to lay down, first a relationship between the conquering process and the changes that came about in the field of the land property and its cultivation. A second relationship may still be established between the deep changes that occurred in the distribution of urban and rural populations on the one side, and, on the other side, the consumption structure, the origin of supplies and, in general, the changes in the economic tissue. Further consideration is given to the economic significance of the proceeds coming from the war along with the revenues that roman ruling officials and economic agents obtained while administering the imperial domain. The appetite for luxury goods that resulted from this process led in particular to the building of wealthy houses where fine mosaic pavements tended to be a common feature.