Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems PDF
Preview Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems
OXFORD STUDIES ON THE ROMAN ECONOMY GeneralEditors Alan Bowman Andrew Wilson OXFORD STUDIES ON THE ROMAN ECONOMY This innovative monograph series reXects a vigorous revival of interest in the ancient economy, focusing on the Mediterranean world under Roman rule (c.100 bc to ad 350). Carefully quantiWed archaeological and documentary data will be integrated to help ancient historians, economic historians, and archaeologists think about economic behaviour collectively rather than from separate perspectives. The volumes will include a substantial comparative element and thus be of interest to historians of other periods and places. Quantifying the Roman Economy Methods and Problems Editedby ALAN BOWMAN and ANDREW WILSON 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto WithoYcesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #OxfordUniversityPress2009 Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2009 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperbythe MPGBooksGroupintheUK ISBN 978–0–19–956259–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Preface This volume is the Wrst of a series of monographs to be published under the general title OxfordStudies on the Roman Economy. Ithas itsorigininaresearchprogrammedirectedbytheSeriesEditorsand funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for Wve years (2005–10).Thisproject,entitledTheEconomyoftheRomanEmpire: Integration, Growth and Decline, starts from the realization that further debate on the Roman economy needs to be grounded in a better understanding of the evidence and that despite the lack of statistics in ancient written sources there is nevertheless a vast mass of archaeological and documentary (chieXy but not exclusively papyrological)dataawaitingsynthesiswhichcouldprovideillumin- ating pointers. The project will attempt a detailed analysis of major areasoftheeconomywherequantiWablebodiesofarchaeologicaland documentary data can be identiWed and compared. It will focus therefore on population and urbanization, agriculture, trade and commerce, and mining and coinage, examining for each a series of performanceindicatorswhichcouldtrackvariationacrossspaceand time, and might enable a comparison of performance against the economiesofotherperiodsandcultures.Geographicallytheproject willdrawonmaterialfromacrosstheentireempire,althoughEgypt (becauseofthepapyrologicalevidence)willbeaparticularfocusfor the documentary record. Chronologically we will cover the period 100bctoc.ad350,aimingtotestandquantify thegeneralimpres- sionofeconomicgrowthtoc.ad200,andassesstowhatextentthe thirdcenturymighthavebeenmarkedbystagnation,contraction,or decline;andhowfartheremayhavebeensomesortofrecoveryinthe earlyfourthcentury. Besides assessing the rate and volume of economic growth and subsequent contraction we will also consider how far the Roman economy may have been integrated across the whole empire rather than acting as a set of loosely linked regional economies; and the interactionbetweenstatemechanismsofeconomiccontrolandlocal ‘free market’ behaviour. Were the two part of a coherent economic vi Preface ‘system’? These general questions need to be approached through severalunderlyingissueswhichinclude:thedriversandsymptomsof ancient economic growth; levels of rationality in ancient economic behaviour; and the appropriateness of applying recent analysis of economicinstitutionsandbehaviourtotheRomaneconomy.These will be examined through the analysis of a limited number of sig- niWcant bodies of published direct and proxy data, archaeological anddocumentary (particularly Greek papyri), within thefour main diagnostic areas. SpeciWcally, we will consider the intensity of agri- cultural and manufacturing production, levels of supply and de- mand, the movement of goods over distance, the distribution of population and the eVects of urbanization, scale of the metal and money supply in relation to the behaviour of currency and prices, institutional control and free markets, and the application of devel- opmentsinancienttechnology. Thesetopicswillbediscussedmoreexhaustivelyinfuturevolumes which will be generated by a series of annual conferences, including four on the main diagnostic areas of analysis (population and ur- banization; agriculture; trade and commerce; and mining and metal supply);thiselementiscrucialbecauseitallowsustoinvolveamuch widerrangeofperspectivesandexpertise,andprovidesopportunities fortestingandfeedbackonourapproaches.Astheresearchprogresses, we intend to make available on our website (http://oxrep.class.ox.ac. uk)aseriesofworkingpapers,andeventuallyalsothedatasetswhich weandtheprojectResearchAssistants,DrMyrtoMalouta,DrAnnalisa Marzano,DrDarioNappo,andDrHannahFriedman,havecollated,or which have been oVered by collaborators. As part of the project a doctoralstudent,BenjaminRussell,iswritinghisD.Phil.thesisonthe economyofstonesculpture,focusingonquarrying,architecturalpro- duction,sarcophagi,andhonoriWcportraitstatues.TheWnalobjective ofthisprogrammeisavolumeinwhichwewillattempttosummarize andsynthesizetheresultsoftheresearch. Asapreliminary,itisobviouslyessentialtoframethekeyconcepts and questions carefully and precisely, and to consider issues of approach and methodology. This is what the present volume sets out to do both at a general level and by illustrative analysis of material drawn from the four diagnostic areas. The contributions ofthevariousauthorsoriginally tooktheformofpresentationsata Preface vii colloquiumheldattheAshmoleanMuseumandtheClassicsCentre inOxfordinSeptember2006.Theprogrammeconsistedofanumber ofmainpapers,towhichbriefresponsesweremade.Followingthis, therewereextendeddiscussionsoneachofthekeyareas.Thisformat explains the shape and content of the present volume, inwhich the mainpresentations(LoCascio,Fentress,Bowman,Wilson,Ponting, Rathbone)andmostoftheresponsesandtheprefacestothediscus- sions (by Bagnall, Jongman, Mattingly, Fulford, Harris, Hitchner, Howgego, and Scheidel) are all represented. Some of the other respondents and discussants did not feel able to make a substantive written contribution to the volume but have kindly allowed us to integrate their observations or comments where appropriate. We hopethatthisstrategyhasgiventhevolumeaclearfocusandmade itmorethanadisparateconglomerationofconferencepapers. We are grateful to the AHRC for its Wnancial support of the project, to the staV at the Classics Centre and the Ashmolean Mu- seum, Oxford, for their assistance with arrangements for the collo- quium out of which this volume arises, and to the various contributors to the colloquium, both speakers and members of the audiencewhocontributedpointsindiscussionatthetimeorsubse- quently gave us feedback, especially Chris Wickham, Michael McCormick, A. J. Parker, and Ben Russell. Catherine Hardman of the Archaeology Data Service and Damian Robinson both gave valuable advice on IT and data archiving matters at the planning stage of the project, while Mark Austin has constructed the website, with initial input from Neil Leeder and Ben Chad. Julia Strauss kindly made available to us the data on Eastern Mediterranean shipwrecks she had collected in the course of her doctoral thesis at University College, London. Neither the organization of the confer- ence nor the preparation of this volume could have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of the project’s Research Assistants,atthetimeMyrtoMaloutaandAnnalisaMarzano. A.K.B. A.I.W. December2007 Contents ListofContributors xi ListofFigures xv ListofTables xviii INTRODUCTION: APPROACHES 1. Quantifying theRomanEconomy:Integration, Growth,Decline? 3 AlanBowmanandAndrewWilson I URBANIZATION 2. UrbanizationasaProxyofDemographicand EconomicGrowth 87 ElioLoCascio 3. ResponsetoElioLoCascio 107 RogerBagnall II FIELD SURVEYAND DEMOGRAPHY 4. Archaeology,Demography,andRomanEconomicGrowth 115 WillemJongman 5. PeoplingtheCountryside:RomanDemography in theAlbegnaValleyandJerba 127 ElizabethFentress 6. PeoplingAncientLandscapes:PotentialandProblems 163 DavidMattingly Contents ix III AGRICULTURE 7. QuantifyingEgyptianAgriculture 177 AlanBowman 8. ResponsetoAlanBowman 205 RogerBagnall IV TRADE 9. ApproachestoQuantifying RomanTrade 213 AndrewWilson 10. ApproachestoQuantifyingRomanTrade:Response 250 MichaelFulford 11. ACommentonAndrewWilson:‘Approachesto QuantifyingRomanTrade’ 259 WilliamHarris V COINAGE 12. RomanSilverCoinage:Mints,Metallurgy,and Production 269 MatthewPonting 13. CoinageandMetalSupply 281 BruceHitchner 14. SomeNumismaticApproachestoQuantifying theRomanEconomy 287 ChristopherHowgego VI PRICES, EARNINGS, AND STANDARDS OF LIVING 15. EarningsandCosts:LivingStandardsand theRomanEconomy 299 DominicRathbone
The list of books you might like
