Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

Edited by Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman

Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy

Focuses on methods of combining documentary and archaeological evidence as part of a novel interdisciplinary approach, opening up new insights and possible avenues of research
Presents and analyses cutting-edge new data for ancient economic history
Situates the evidence and discussion within the broader perspective of economic history and analytical methods
Includes a wide geographical range of comparative regional studies covering the ancient Mediterranean and beyond

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

Edited by Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman

Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy

Description

This volume presents eighteen papers by leading Roman historians and archaeologists discussing trade in the Roman Empire during the period c.100 BC to AD 350. It focuses especially on 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.

As part of a novel interdisciplinary approach to the subject, the chapters address its myriad facets on the basis of broadly different sources of evidence: historical, papyrological, and archaeological. They are grouped into three sections, covering institutional factors (taxation, legal structures, market regulation, financial institutions); evidence for long-distance trade within the empire in wood, stone, glass, and pottery; and trade beyond the frontiers, with the east (as far as China), India, Arabia, the Red Sea, and the Sahara. Rome's external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance, but it is in the eastern part of the empire itself where the state appears to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration, which was in effect a fiscal partnership, ultimately led in the longer term in slightly different forms in the east and the west to a fundamental change in the political character of the empire.

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

Edited by Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman

Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy

Frontmatter
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
1. Introduction: Trade, Commerce, and the State, Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman
I. Institutions and the State
2. The State and the Economy: Fiscality and Taxation, Alan Bowman
3. Law, Commerce, and Finance in the Roman Empire, Boudewijn Sirks
4. Market Regulation and Transaction Costs in the Roman Empire, Elio Lo Cascio
5. Financial Institutions and Structures in the Last Century of the Roman Republic, Philip Kay
6. Nile River Transport under the Romans, Colin Adams
II. Trade within the Empire
7. The Indispensable Commodity: Notes on the Economy of Wood in the Roman Mediterranean, W. V. Harris
8. Stone-Use and the Economy: Demand, Distribution, and the State, Ben Russell
9. An Overview of the Circulation of Glass in Antiquity, Daniele Foy
10. Procurators' Business? Gallo-Roman Sigillata in Britain in the Second and Third Centuries AD, Michael Fulford
11. The Distribution of African Pottery under the Roman Empire: Evidence vs Interpretation, Michel Bonifay
12. The Supply Networks of the Roman East and West: Interaction, Fragmentation, and the Origins of the Byzantine Economy, Paul Reynolds
13. Prices and Costs in the Textile Industry in the Light of the Lead Tags from Siscia, Ivan Radman-Livaja
14. Exports and Imports in Mauretania Tingitana: The Evidence from Thamusida, Emanuele Papi
III. Trade beyond the Frontiers
15. The Silk Road between Syria and China, David F. Graf
16. Egypt and Eastern Commerce during the Second Century AD and Later, Roberta Tomber
17. Money and Flows of Coinage in the Red Sea Trade, Dario Nappo
18. The Port of Qana', a Junction between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea: The Underwater Evidence, Barbara Davidde
19. Trade across Rome's Southern Frontier: The Sahara and the Garamantes, Andrew Wilson
Endmatter
Index

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

Edited by Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman

Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy

Author Information

Andrew Wilson, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire, University of Oxford,Alan Bowman, Emeritus Camden Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford

Andrew Wilson is Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at the University of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and former Chairman of the Society for Libyan Studies. His research interests include the economy of the Roman Empire, ancient technology, ancient water supply and usage, Roman North Africa, and archaeological field survey. He is the author of numerous articles on these subjects and has directed excavations in Italy, Tunisia, and Libya.

Alan Bowman is Vice-President and Fellow of the British Academy, Emeritus Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford, and former Principal of Brasenose College, as well as a former President of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. In addition to his work on the Roman economy, current research projects include further work on the Vindolanda Writing-Tablets and on the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, image-enhancement of damaged documents, and the development of Digital Humanities.

Contributors:

Colin Adams, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Liverpool

Michel Bonifay, Researcher at the Centre Camille Jullian, Aix Marseille Université

Alan Bowman, Camden Professor Emeritus of Ancient History at the University of Oxford

Barbara Davidde, Director of the Nucleo per gli Interventi di Archeologia Subacquea at the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, Rome

Danièle Foy, Research Director at the Centre Camille Jullian, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence

Michael Fulford, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading

David F. Graf, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Miami

William V. Harris, Shepherd Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University

Philip Kay, Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford

Elio Lo Cascio, Professor of Roman History at Università di Roma 'La Sapienza'

Dario Nappo, Post-doctoral researcher, Departament de Ciències de l'Antiguitat i de l'Edat Mitjana at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Emanuele Papi, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Siena

Ivan Radman-Livaja, Senior Curator at the Greek and Roman Department of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb

Paul Reynolds, ICREA Research Professor, ERAUB, Department of Prehistory, History and Archaeology at the University of Barcelona

Ben Russell, Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh

Boudewijn Sirks, Regius Professor of Civil Law, Emeritus, at the University of Oxford

Roberta Tomber, Visiting Researcher in the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum

Andrew Wilson, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at the University of Oxford

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

Edited by Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman

Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy

Reviews and Awards

"Like its predecessors from OxREP, this volume contains a wealth of valuable interventions in debates about the Roman economy. The synthesis of recently discovered or compiled archaeological material, often by scholars responsible for its initial production, makes this book invaluable to economic historians. The inclusion of materials that are usually marginalized and the insistence on the importance of extra-imperial trade are themselves important steps forward as well. Any collection of scholarship on the Roman economy should contain this book." --BMCR