E-Book Overview
The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity.
Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century.
The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.
E-Book Content
The Roman Market Economy
The Princeton Economic History of the Western World Joel Mokyr, Series Editor A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book.
The Roman Market Economy Peter Temin
Princeton University Press Princeton & Oxford
Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket art: Detail of cargo ship from road to market with trade symbols in mosaic. Roman, Ostia Antica near Rome Italy. Photo © Gianni Dagli Orti. Courtesy of Art Resource, NY. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Temin, Peter. The Roman market economy / Peter Temin. p. cm. — (The Princeton economic history of the Western world) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-14768-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Rome—Economic conditions. 2. Rome—Economic policy. 3. Rome—Commerce. I. Title. HC39.T46 2013 330.937—dc23 2012012347 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe Caslon Pro Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix 1. Economics and Ancient History 1 Part I: Prices Introduction: Data and Hypothesis Tests 27 2. Wheat Prices and Trade in the Early Roman Empire 29 3. Price Behavior in Hellenistic Babylon 53 Appendix to Chapter 3 66 4. Price Behavior in the Roman Empire 70 Part II: Markets in the Roman Empire Introduction: Roman Microeconomics 95 5. The Grain Trade 97 6. The Labor Market 114 7. Land Ownership 139 8. Financial Intermediation 157 Part III: The Roman Economy Introduction: Roman Macroeconomics 193 9. Growth Theory for Ancient Economies 195 10. Economic Growth in a Malthusian Empire 220 Appendix to Chapter 10 240 11. Per Capita GDP in the Early Roman Empire 243 References 263 Index 289
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Preface and Acknowledgments
T
his book presents a progress report in the process of understanding the nature of ancient economies. I am an economic historian who spent most of his academic career writing about modern and early-modern economies and teachi