Roman Economy (Classics)

Introduction

As in other preindustrial societies, the economy of the Roman Empire was based on agriculture, which employed the vast majority of the empire’s population. At the same time, one of the most striking characteristics of the Roman Empire is that it achieved a level of urbanization that would only be matched in early modern Europe. The relationship between Rome’s rural economy and the development of cities has thus been a focal point of scholarship. Scholars have been concerned to investigate how the rural economy supported the empire’s urban population and whether the process of urbanization and the changes it necessitated in the rural economy led to economic growth. Population was a key factor in any preindustrial economy, and to a large extent, increases in the gross domestic product (GDP) for the Roman Empire as a whole were largely the result of population growth. This situation would not be favorable to the bulk of the farming population, which would find itself in increasing competition for land; as population increased, real wages would decline, and the carrying capacity of the land would eventually be exhausted. One basic issue is whether the Roman Empire ever escaped Malthusian constraints on the economy, with its population enjoying an improving standard of living resulting from increases in the productivity of workers. In terms of periodization, scholars tend to divide Roman economic history into three major periods: the later Republic (202 BCE to 31 BCE), the principate (31 BCE to 284 CE), and the later empire (the 4th century CE and later). In the Republic the most important economic changes were those fueled by the increasing wealth of the aristocracy and the growth of the city of Rome. Under the principate it is possible to consider economic developments not only in Roman Italy but also in the provinces as well as to analyze how the Roman Empire functioned as an economic system. The economy of the later empire was characterized by increasing intervention on the part of the state, largely to assure itself of tax revenues, but there is much continuity between the economy of the principate and that of the 4th century.

Historical Perspective

Scholarship on the Roman economy must be understood as part of a broader debate about the nature of the ancient economy. The terms of this debate have been largely set by M. I. Finley (see Finley 1999), who differentiated ancient economies from modern ones and argued that economic activity in the ancient world was largely influenced by social values and practices. Finley’s views have provoked a strong reaction, as in Frederiksen 1975, among many works. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Scheidel, et al. 2007) seeks to establish new terms for the debate by presenting studies of production, consumption, and distribution in the Greek and Roman worlds, and many of the contributors apply to their analysis of the ancient economy theoretical approaches drawn from other fields. Horden and Purcell 2000 sets the Roman (and Greek) economies in a broader perspective of Mediterranean history. Duncan-Jones 1982 is a pioneering work in drawing conclusions about the Roman economy from the few quantitative data available to modern historians. Duncan-Jones 1990 applies much the same methodology to ask additional questions about the Roman economy, such as the distribution of land. Bowman and Wilson 2009 is the first in a series of studies using quantifiable evidence to come to a better understanding of basic issues in the Roman economy, such as wages and standards of living.

Bowman, A., and A. Wilson, eds. 2009. Quantifying the Roman economy: Methods and problems. Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The first volume of the Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy project, this book applies quantitative approaches to issues surrounding Roman standards of living.
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Duncan-Jones, R. P. 1982. The economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative studies. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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This book uses a pioneering quantitative approach to investigate many aspects of the Roman Empire, such as the amount of wealth over which people disposed and the costs associated with many institutions important to the Roman economy.
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Duncan-Jones, R. P. 1990. Structure and scale in the Roman economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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This book provides additional studies of the Roman economy based on quantitative analysis of ancient evidence.
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Finley, M. I. 1999. The ancient economy. 3d ed. Sather Classical Lectures 43. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A new edition of Finley’s pioneering work originally published in 1973. It includes an introduction by Ian Morris that addresses Finley’s contribution to the debate about the ancient economy.
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Frederiksen, M. W. 1975. Theory, evidence, and the ancient economy. Journal of Roman Studies 65:164–171.
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A critical review of Finley 1999; suggests some of the many areas of debate that Finley’s work has inspired.
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Horden, P., and N. Purcell. 2000. The corrupting sea: A study of Mediterranean history. Oxford: Blackwell.
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A wide-ranging series of studies of Mediterranean history focusing in particular on the influence of the climate and the ecology on the economic history of the Mediterranean world.
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Scheidel, W., I. Morris, and R. Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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The twenty-eight chapters of this book cover production, consumption, and distribution in the economies in the Mediterranean world from the Bronze Age through the early Roman Empire, with additional chapters on ecology, demography, household and gender, law and economic institutions, technology, the passage to Late Antiquity, and the economies of the Roman provinces.
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Population and Gross Domestic Product

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries Roman historians have been concerned with analyzing the economy in quantitative terms so as to develop a clearer picture of how the Roman economy can be compared with preindustrial economies of later, better-documented periods. This effort involves estimating the Roman Empire’s population and, on this basis, deriving estimates for its gross domestic product (GDP). Frier 2000 remains the most authoritative discussion of the likely population of the Roman Empire as a whole. For the population of Roman Italy, Brunt 1971 offers very conservative estimates that have been challenged by some sources, most notably Lo Cascio 1994, which offers much higher population estimates (see Morley 2001 and Launaro 2011, both cited under the Roman Republic). Scheidel 2007 explores the constraints that the ancient world’s demographic conditions imposed on the economy. Goldsmith 1987 is a pioneering work in estimating the Roman Empire’s GDP by comparing the Roman economy with those of other premodern states. Hopkins 2002 and Temin 2006 offer different estimates of the empire’s GDP using different methodologies. Temin 2001 presents an argument that the Roman Empire was a genuine market economy.

Brunt, P. A. 1971. Italian manpower, 225 B.C.–A.D. 14. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A comprehensive discussion of the evidence for the population of Roman Italy with important implications for the Roman economy.
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Frier, B. W. 2000. Demography. In The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 11, The high empire, A.D. 70–192. 2d ed. Edited by A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and D. Rathbone, 787–816. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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This essay uses the pioneering demographic work of K. J. Beloch to estimate the population of the Roman Empire and the likely age structure of the population. Some scholars argue for a higher overall population for the empire than Frier.
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Goldsmith, R. W. 1987. Premodern financial systems: A historical comparative study. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Goldsmith, an economist, develops a methodology to estimate the GDP of the Roman Empire and then discusses the financial resources of Rome in a comparative study of a variety of preindustrial states.
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Hopkins, K. 2002. Rome, taxes, rents, and trade. In The ancient economy. Edited by W. Scheidel and S. von Reden, 190–230. New York: Routledge.
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Hopkins, in a reworking of his important earlier article, “Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.–A.D. 400),” Journal of Roman Studies 70 (1980): 101–125, estimates the empire’s GDP and discusses how taxes encouraged trade and greater production.
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Lo Cascio, Elio. 1994. The size of the Roman population: Beloch and the meaning of the Augustan census figures. Journal of Roman Studies 84:23–40.
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On the basis of a reinterpretation of census figures, Lo Cascio argues for a much higher population for Roman Italy than many other scholars.
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Scheidel, W. 2007. Demography. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 38–86. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A study of the basic characteristics of populations in the ancient world. It focuses in detail on the likely constraints that the frequent early mortality in the ancient world placed on the possibilities for economic growth.
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Temin, P. 2001. A market economy in the early Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Studies 91:169–181.
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This is a paper written by an economist on the nature of markets in the Roman Empire. It argues strongly for the existence of a market economy subject to the same principles as modern market economies.
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Temin, P. 2006. Estimating GDP in the early Roman Empire. In Innovazione tecnica e progresso economico nel mondo romano: Atti degli Incontri capresi di storia dell’economica antica (Capri, 13–16 aprile 2003). Edited by Elio Lo Cascio, 31–54. Pragmateiai 10. Bari, Italy: Edipuglia.
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An effort to estimate the Roman Empire’s GDP in a collection of essays from an international conference on the role of technology in the Roman economy.
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Economic Growth

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries one of the major areas of debate in ancient economic history is the degree to which ancient economies could experience economic growth. This debate is especially important for the Roman Empire, which had a highly developed urban culture, a strong legal system to protect property rights, and a great deal of interregional commerce as well as relatively peaceful conditions for long periods of time. The essential question is whether these conditions helped the Roman economy overcome Malthusian constraints, so that as population grew it would also be possible for standards of living to improve as well. A related issue, and of fundamental importance for understanding the Roman economy, is the distribution of wealth. Saller 2002 discusses factors that impeded growth in the Roman Empire and places its relatively modest growth in a broader perspective. Scheidel 2009 and Wilson 2009 explore the circumstances that could have led to economic growth and seek to determine how such growth could be detected by modern historians. Hitchner 2005 also makes the case for sustained economic growth in the Roman Empire. Scheidel and Friesen 2009 refines estimates for the Roman Empire’s gross domestic product (GDP) and uses this as a starting point to discuss the distribution of wealth across society.

Hitchner, R. Bruce. 2005. “The advantages of wealth and luxury”: The case for economic growth in the Roman Empire. In The ancient economy: Evidence and models. Edited by J. G. Manning and I. Morris, 207–222. Social Science History. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
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Discusses the possibilities for economic growth using the production of olive oil as a cash crop as an indicator of increased levels of wealth in the Roman Empire.
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Saller, R. 2002. Framing the debate over growth in the ancient economy. In The ancient economy. Edited by W. Scheidel and S. von Reden, 251–269. New York: Routledge.
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Questions the usefulness of analyzing the ancient economy in terms of economic growth, arguing that economic growth in the ancient world was very slight in comparison with modern economies.
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Scheidel, W. 2009. In search of Roman economic growth. Journal of Roman Archaeology 22.1: 46–70.
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Emphasizes the constraints limiting the possibilities for economic growth in the Roman world and suggests circumstances under which substantial growth might have been possible.
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Scheidel, W., and S. J. Friesen. 2009. The size of the economy and the distribution of income in the Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Studies 99:61–91.
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Scheidel and Friesen develop a methodology for estimating the distribution of wealth among various classes in the Roman Empire.
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Wilson, A. I. 2009. Indicators for Roman economic growth: A response to Walter Scheidel. Journal of Roman Archaeology 22.1: 71–82.
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Makes a strong case for the possibilities of economic growth in the Roman Empire, focusing on urbanization as the clearest indicator of that growth.
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Wages and Living Standards

Closely connected with the debate about gross domestic product (GDP) and economic growth in the Roman Empire is the issue of wages and living standards. In essence, the question revolves around the same issue raised in connection with economic growth: whether workers in the Roman Empire were ever able to overcome Malthusian constraints and achieve a higher standard of living as a result of increased productivity. It is very difficult to measure the incomes of small farmers, who represented the bulk of the empire’s free population. Scholars have tried to work around this difficulty by measuring the wages of hired workers. Allen 2009 seeks to determine the prosperity of Roman workers by examining their purchasing power and comparing it with workers from later economies. Rathbone 2009 focuses on Egypt and the apparent change in wages and prices that resulted from the Antonine plague in 165 CE. Bagnall 1992 studies the distribution of land in Egyptian agriculture to gain a better understanding of the distribution of wealth between city and countryside. Kron 2005 argues for much greater productivity in ancient agriculture than many scholars assume and consequently for a much higher standard of living. Any discussion of living standards must also address the degree of poverty in Roman society. Harris 2011 offers a broad discussion of the issue and takes a more pessimistic position than many other historians of the Roman economy, notably Geoffrey Kron. Prell 1997 discusses poverty in the Roman world, focusing primarily on Italy. Atkins and Osborne 2006 provides a guide to understanding poverty as a social phenomenon in the Roman world.

Allen, R. C. 2009. How prosperous were the Romans? Evidence from Diocletian’s price edict (AD 301). In Quantifying the Roman economy: Methods and problems. Edited by A. Bowman and A. Wilson, 327–345. Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Using Diocletian’s price edict as a starting point, Allen calculates a basket of goods that a Roman worker would be able to purchase and compares this measure of living standards with workers from later preindustrial economies.
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Atkins, E. M., and R. Osborne, eds. 2006. Poverty in the Roman world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A collection of essays addressing a variety of issues surrounding poverty, from defining it to understanding pagan and Christian reactions to it.
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Bagnall, R. S. 1992. Landholding in late Roman Egypt: The distribution of wealth. Journal of Roman Studies 82:128–149.
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Examines the distribution of land in villages in 4th-century Egypt to come to a better understanding of the distribution of wealth.
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Harris, W. V. 2011. Poverty and destitution in the Roman Empire. In Rome’s imperial economy: Twelve essays. By W. V. Harris, 27–54. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Offers a broad discussion of the factors leading to poverty and destitution in the Roman Empire, especially the cost of food and shelter, wages, taxes, inheritance, and labor markets.
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Kron, Geoffrey. 2005. Anthropometry, physical anthropology, and the reconstruction of ancient health, nutrition, and living standards. Historia 54:68–83.
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Using comparative evidence from physical anthropology, Kron argues that people in the Greek and Roman worlds enjoyed a much higher standard of living than most ancient historians assume.
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Prell, M. 1997. Sozialökonomische Untersuchungen zur Armut im antiken Rom: Von den Gracchen bis Kaiser Diokletian. Beiträge zur Wirtschafts und Sozialgeschichte 77. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
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This is a pioneering survey of the factors affecting poverty, including costs of living, and ancient attitudes toward poverty. Prell also discusses how people escaped poverty.
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Rathbone, D. 2009. Earnings and costs: Living standards and the Roman economy. In Quantifying the Roman economy: Methods and problems. Edited by A. Bowman and A. Wilson, 299–326. Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Focusing on Egypt, Rathbone traces the history of wages and their purchasing power in the early Roman Empire.
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Scheidel, W. 2010. Real wages in early economies: Evidence for living standards from 1800 BCE to 1300 CE. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53.3: 425–462.
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Adopting a methodology similar to that in Allen 2009, Scheidel traces wages and their purchasing power across the ancient world, arguing that population was the most important factor in determining wages.
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Legal Institutions

Although population and technology imposed basic constraints on the Roman economy, legal and social institutions could have an important effect on economic performance. Such institutions could influence the distribution of wealth across society and the economic relationship between cities in the Roman world and the rural economy that supported them. Frier and Kehoe 2007 seeks to show how methodologies drawn from the contemporary debate among legal scholars and economists about the relationship between law and the economy, particularly in the fields of law and economics and new institutional economics, can be applied to the ancient world. Kehoe 2007 uses such approaches as a starting point for examining the agrarian economy of the Roman Empire. Verboven 2002, by contrast, is an important study of the role that informal social institutions might play in the economy. Bang 2009 is a review article that assesses the usefulness of an institutional approach in analyzing the Roman economy. Frier 1979 is a pioneering work analyzing the law of farm tenancy, also discussed in Management and Labor on Estates (Tenancy), in terms of its significance for the Roman economy.

Bang, P. F. 2009. The ancient economy and new institutional economics. Journal of Roman Studies 99:194–206.
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A review of The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Scheidel, et al. 2007, cited under Historical Perspective) that focuses on the importance of examining economic institutions and on the difficulties involved in doing so.
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Frier, B. W. 1979. Law, technology, and social change: The equipping of Italian farm tenancies. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (Romanistiche Abteilung) 96:204–228.
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A detailed discussion of the law of Roman farm tenancy focusing on the allocation of capital in the lease that was normative in Roman law.
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Frier, B. W., and D. P. Kehoe 2007. Law and economic institutions. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman World. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 113–143. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Provides a discussion of some of the most useful elements of the debate in the fields of new institutional economics and law and economics and applies them to selected historical examples from the Greek and Roman world.
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Kehoe, D. P. 2007. Law and the rural economy in the Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Uses methodologies drawn from law and economics and new institutional economics to examine how various forms of land tenure in the Roman Empire affected the possibilities for economic growth.
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Verboven, K. 2002. The economy of friends: Economic aspects of amicitia and patronage in the late Republic. Collection Latomus 269. Brussels: Latomus.
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Investigates the role of personal relationships among the elite in commercial and financial transactions in the late Roman Republic based primarily on literary evidence.
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Technology

There is substantial debate about the degree of technological progress during the Roman Empire, which would have been essential to increase the productivity of labor and standards of living. Oleson 2008 provides a useful guide to various types of technologies, whereas Schneider 2007 investigates the degree to which technological change influenced economic change. Greene 1986 and Greene 2000 treat technology in the Roman economy and respond to views going back to Finley 1999 (cited under Historical Perspective) that were skeptical about the degree of technological progress in ancient Rome. Wilson 2002 ascribes entrepreneurship to Roman property owners and on this basis argues that they invested in technological advances.

Greene, K. 1986. The archaeology of the Roman economy. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A survey of the archaeological evidence for the Roman economy.
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Greene, K. 2000. Technological innovation and economic progress in the ancient world: M. I. Finley re-considered. Economic History Review 53.1: 29–59.
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Argues strongly for substantial technological progress in the ancient world.
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Oleson, J. P., ed. 2008. The Oxford handbook of engineering and technology in the classical world. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A guide to ancient technologies with valuable studies of water technology and other technological issues important for the Roman economy.
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Schneider, H. 2007. Technology. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 144–171. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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An assessment of technology in the ancient world in relationship to the broader themes of The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World.
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Wilson, A. 2002. Machines, power, and the ancient economy. Journal of Roman Studies 92:1–32.
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Argues for substantial entrepreneurship on the part of Roman property owners, especially in their willingness to adopt new technologies.
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Money

The nature of Roman money and its uses has inspired a lively debate among ancient economic historians. The main issues concern to what extent the Roman economy, which relied on coinage, was monetized, whether the Roman money supply exceeded the supply of coinage, and whether on this basis Romans could engage in complex financial transactions not requiring the direct exchange of cash. Harl 1996 provides a basic survey of Roman coinage. Howgego 1992 and Howgego 1994 analyze the degree to which the Roman economy was monetized and the circulation of money. Duncan-Jones 1994 addresses the Roman government’s role in providing money, including its policy in minting coins and collecting taxes, which is also addressed in Lo Cascio 2007. Lo Cascio 2003 is a valuable collection of essays on money and credit markets in the Roman Empire. Harris 2006 argues that Romans added to the money supply through credit and that Roman financial instruments facilitated complex business arrangements over great distances. Hollander 2007 studies the coinage and money supply of the Roman Republic. Harris 2008 is a collection of essays addressing basic issues for understanding the use of money in the Greek and Roman worlds.

Duncan-Jones, R. P. 1994. Money and government in the Roman Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A series of studies on Roman money supply, minting, state expenditures, and taxation.
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Harl, K. W. 1996. Coinage in the Roman economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. Ancient Society and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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A broad and detailed account of coinage in Rome.
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Harris, W. V. 2006. A revisionist view of Roman money. Journal of Roman Studies 96:1–24.
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Argues that the Roman use of money was more sophisticated than has been generally assumed. Harris discusses how Romans used credit to increase the money supply, as in modern economies, and he argues that the Romans were capable of complex financial arrangements that involved the transfer of funds but not coins over long distances. Reprinted in W. V. Harris, Rome’s Imperial Economy: Twelve Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 223–254.
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Harris, W. V., ed. 2008. The monetary systems of the Greeks and Romans. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A collection of essays addressing how coins functioned as money in the Greek and Roman worlds.
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Hollander, D. 2007. Money in the late Roman Republic. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 29. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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A study of money and coins in the late Republic, when Rome experienced several financial crises.
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Howgego, C. 1992. The supply and use of money in the Roman world, 200 B.C. to A.D. 300. Journal of Roman Studies 82:1–31.
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Studies the changing use of money in the Roman Empire and the limits to the monetization of the Roman economy.
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Howgego, C. 1994. Coin circulation and the integration of the Roman economy. Journal of Roman Archaeology 7:5–21.
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Examines the circulation of coinage to draw conclusions about the integration of the Roman economy.
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Lo Cascio, Elio. 2007. The early Roman Empire: The state and the economy. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 619–647. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A general assessment of the role of the state in the Roman economy with discussion about the Roman government’s monetary policies.
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Lo Cascio, Elio, ed. 2003. Credito e moneta nel mondo romano: Atti degli Incontri capresi di storia dell’economia antica, Capri, 12–14 ottobre 2000. Pragmateiai 8. Bari, Italy: Edipuglia.
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A series of essays from an international conference on the role of coinage and credit in the Roman economy.
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The Roman Agrarian Economy

The economy of the Roman Empire was dominated by agriculture, and as a result analyzing systems of land tenure and the organization of labor are essential to understanding the Roman economy and the possibilities for economic growth. Many studies focus on Roman Italy, but they are complemented by studies of the agrarian economy in various Roman provinces. This section is divided among particular topics connected with forms of land tenure and geographic locations. In terms of more general studies, Erdkamp 2005 provides a valuable overview of the issues surrounding agricultural production in the Roman Empire and the difficulty of integrating markets for agricultural goods. One area of debate has concerned the economic mentality of Roman landowners, whether they pursued a strategy to maximize profits or they were much more cautious in their approach to investment in agriculture, seeking above all financial stability. This issue has important implications for the management of estates and the organization of labor. Rathbone 1991 sees landowners as risk taking and entrepreneurial, as does Wilson 2002, whereas Kehoe 1997 argues that Roman landowners were more cautious.

Erdkamp, P. 2005. The grain market in the Roman Empire: A social, political, and economic study. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A detailed study of grain production in the Roman Empire with discussion of the organization of labor, productivity, and markets.
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Kehoe, D. P. 1997. Investment, profit, and tenancy: The jurists and the Roman agrarian economy. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Examines how upper-class Romans pursued financial security by investigating how, in developing rules for areas of the law impinging on the agrarian economy, the classical Roman jurists understood investment and profit in agriculture.
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Rathbone, D. 1991. Economic rationalism and rural society in third-century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus estate. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A groundbreaking study of the Heroninos Archive, a collection of hundreds of documents connected with the management of an estate in 3rd-century Egypt. The archive reveals a great deal about the organization and management of a large estate as well as its role in collecting taxes and organizing liturgical services in the surrounding region.
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Wilson, A. 2002. Machines, power, and the ancient economy. Journal of Roman Studies 92:1–32.
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Argues for substantial entrepreneurship on the part of Roman property owners, especially in their willingness to adopt new technologies.
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Agricultural Methods

The methods used in agriculture in the Roman world varied from one region to another, but there were certain basic commonalities. Horden and Purcell 2000 offers a great deal of information on Mediterranean agriculture. Sallares 2007 is a broad discussion of agricultural techniques in the ancient world. Spurr 1986 is a valuable discussion of agricultural methods in Roman Italy with comparative material about crop yields from medieval Italy. Halstead 1987 discusses the strategies Greek peasants used to protect themselves against risk and to adapt their farming techniques in response to changing needs; its findings are also informative for the Roman world. Pleket 1993 sets Roman agriculture in a broad historical perspective. Lirb 1993 studies how small-scale farmers might pool scarce resources, such as draft animals, to save costs and protect themselves against risk. Kron 2000 discusses the role of livestock raising in the Roman economy, and several of the essays in Whittaker 1988 deal with this subject.

Halstead, P. 1987. Traditional and ancient rural economy in Mediterranean Europe: Plus ça change? Journal of Hellenic Studies 107:77–87.
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Argues that Greek agriculture on occasion adopted more intensive forms of agriculture than traditional Mediterranean dry farming, often incorporating livestock raising into farming.
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Horden, P., and N. Purcell. 2000. The corrupting sea: A study of Mediterranean history. Oxford: Blackwell.
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A wide-ranging series of studies of Mediterranean history focusing in particular on the influence of the climate and the ecology on the economic history of the Mediterranean world.
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Kron, Geoffrey. 2000. Roman ley-farming. Journal of Roman Archaeology 13:277–287.
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Argues that Roman agriculture incorporated livestock raising into agriculture to a much greater degree than conventionally envisioned by scholars.
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Lirb, H. J. 1993. Partners in agriculture: The pooling of resources in rural societates in Roman Italy. In De agricultura: In memoriam Pieter Willem de Neeve. Edited by H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, R. J. van der Spek, H. C. Teitler, and H. T. Wallinga, 263–295. Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 10. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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Examines how peasant families could pool resources to increase the amount of land they could cultivate and thereby achieve greater economic security.
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Pleket, H. W. 1993. Agriculture in the Roman Empire in comparative perspective. In De agricultura: In memoriam Pieter Willem de Neeve. Edited by H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, R. J. van der Spek, H. C. Teitler, and H. T. Wallinga, 317–343. Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 10. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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Seeks to assess the productivity of agriculture in the Roman world, particularly as it might be affected by various forms of land tenure.
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Sallares, R. 2007. Ecology. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 15–37. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521780537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines ancient agriculture in terms of geographic factors affecting it and of climate change.
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Spurr, M. S. 1986. Arable cultivation in Roman Italy: c. 200 B.C.–c. A.D. 100. Journal of Roman Studies Monographs 3. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.
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A detailed discussion of methods of farming grain in Roman Italy, including likely labor requirements and yields.
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Whittaker, C. R., ed. 1988. Pastoral economies in classical Antiquity. Papers presented at the Ninth International Economic History Congress, Bern, Switzerland, August 1986. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society.
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A collection of essays on pastoralism, including several dealing with the Roman world.
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Water

Water was a scarce commodity in the Mediterranean world, and allocating its use was crucial to agriculture, in particular in the more arid regions of the Roman world, such as North Africa and Egypt. Hermon 2008 includes papers from a symposium on the uses of water in the ancient world. For Egypt, Bonneau 1993 is the basic discussion of the Nile flood and Egyptian agriculture. Shaw 1982 and Shaw 1984 are groundbreaking articles on irrigation in North Africa. Beltrán Lloris 2006 is a study of how the Roman imperial government adjudicated disputes over water rights. Bannon 2009 examines the economic and social factors surrounding water rights in Italy. Wilson 1999 and Wilson 2008 are important studies of irrigation technologies.

Bannon, C. J. 2009. Gardens and neighbors: Private water rights in Roman Italy. Law and Society in the Ancient World. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Traces the origins of servitudes for water use and addresses how systems for sharing water were developed in Roman Italy.
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Beltrán Lloris, F. 2006. An irrigation decree from Roman Spain: The Lex Rivi Hiberiensis. Journal of Roman Studies 96:147–197.
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Publication of a decree by a Roman provincial official that provides a valuable discussion of how water was shared for irrigation on a water course in Spain; it also indicates how the Roman legal authorities sought to resolve disputes, in this case between two towns sharing the water.
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Bonneau, D. 1993. Le régime administratif de l’eau du Nil dans l’Égypte grecque, romaine et byzantine. Probleme der Ägyptologie 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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A basic study of the Nile flood and efforts to regulate it and use its waters during the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine periods in Egypt.
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Hermon, E., ed. 2008. Vers une gestion integrée de l’eau dans l’empire romain: Actes du Colloque International, Université Laval, octobre 2006. Atlante Tematico di Topografia Antica 16. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
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These are papers from an international conference on water usage in ancient and more recent economies. The first volume is dedicated to the Roman world and the second to later periods of history.
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Shaw, B. D. 1982. Lamasba: An ancient irrigation community. Antiquités Africaines 18.1: 61–103.
DOI: 10.3406/antaf.1982.1085Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of a 3rd-century CE decree from a town in Numidia in North Africa. The purpose of the decree was to allocate water from a spring that was used for agriculture, in particular for the cultivation of olive trees.
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Shaw, B. D. 1984. Water and society in the ancient Maghrib: Technology, property, and development. Antiquités Africaines 20.1: 121–173.
DOI: 10.3406/antaf.1984.1103Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines methods to capture water in more arid regions of North Africa, such as terrace agriculture, and argues that they were used before Roman rule.
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Wilson, A. I. 1999. Deliveries extra urbem: Aqueducts and the countryside. Journal of Roman Archaeology 12:314–329.
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Argues that aqueducts providing water for cities in the Roman Empire were also on occasion designed to provide water for irrigation outside cities.
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Wilson, A. I. 2008. Hydraulic engineering and water supply. In The Oxford handbook of engineering and technology in the classical world. Edited by J. P. Oleson, 285–318. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A broad study of the water supply in the ancient world that includes discussion of irrigation methods.
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The Roman Republic

The principal issue for the Roman Republic is the development of the villa economy, which involved the intensive production of cash crops, especially wine and olive oil, for growing markets in Rome and in other cities in Italy and overseas, particularly in southern Gaul. One of the basic issues involves the number of slaves brought into Roman society. Scheidel 2005 provides a thorough treatment of this issue, estimating the numbers of slaves in terms of the likely needs of Roman society. Harris 2007 provides an overview of the economy of the late Republic. Morley 1996 examines the development of the Italian economy in response to the growth of Rome. Carandini 1989 is a basic discussion of the villa staffed with slave labor. Marzano 2007 provides an important discussion of this issue with attention to the use of both slave and free labor. With these one should read Rathbone 1981, which shows the reliance of larger estates on occasional labor provided by independent farmers in the region. Morley 2001 and Launaro 2011 address the issue of population, suggesting that Italy could have supported a much higher population than generally recognized; their findings are based on the work of Elio Lo Cascio and discuss tenancy alongside slave labor as methods of organizing labor. Scheidel 2005 provides a much lower estimate of the population of Roman Italy. Rosenstein 2008 addresses the sources of wealth of upper-class Romans in the late Republic.

Carandini, A. 1989. La villa romana e la piantagione schiavistica. In Storia di Roma. Vol. 4, Caratteri e morfologie. Edited by A. Momigliano and A. Schiavone, 101–200. Turin, Italy: Giulio Einaudi.
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A basic discussion of the villa economy in Roman Italy with emphasis on the archaeological evidence for the use of slaves in agriculture.
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Harris, W. V. 2007. The late Republic. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 511–539. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521780537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A survey of the economy of the late Roman Republic that addresses the basic issues debated by scholars of the Roman economy.
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Launaro, A. 2011. Peasants and slaves: The rural population of Roman Italy (200 BC to AD 100). Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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On the basis of rural surveys, Launaro investigates the agrarian economy of Roman Italy, examining the role of both slave labor and tenancy. Launaro focuses on the role of population, examining how the “high count” of Roman Italy’s population would have affected agricultural development.
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Marzano, A. 2007. Roman villas in central Italy: A social and economic history. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 30. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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A survey of the villa economy in Italy based to a large extent on archaeological evidence. It also includes discussion of the use of slave labor and tenancy. A survey of the Roman economy during the early and middle Republican periods.
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Morley, N. 1996. Metropolis and hinterland: The city of Rome and the Italian economy, 200 BC–AD 200. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511518584Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of the economic transformations in Italy that resulted from the growth of Rome into the Roman world’s major urban center.
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Morley, N. 2001. The transformation of Italy, 225–28 BC. Journal of Roman Studies 91:50–62.
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Examines the likely economic changes in Italy in the late Republic based on a “high-count” estimate of the population of Roman Italy.
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Rathbone, D. 1981. The development of agriculture in the “Ager Cosanus” during the Roman Republic: Problems of evidence and interpretation. Journal of Roman Studies 71:10–23.
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Using the excavation of the villa at Cosa in coastal Etruria as a starting point, Rathbone examines the relationship between villas and the agrarian economy of the surrounding countryside.
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Rosenstein, N. 2008. Aristocrats and agriculture in the middle and late Republic. Journal of Roman Studies 98:1–26.
DOI: 10.3815/007543508786239238Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Rosenstein is skeptical whether agriculture could have provided the bulk of upper-class incomes in the late Republic, as is generally believed, and argues instead that a major source of income for the Roman elite was investment in urban real estate.
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Scheidel, W. 2005. Human mobility in Roman Italy, II: The slave population. Journal of Roman Studies 95:64–79.
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A broad study of the use of slavery in Roman Italy with calculations of the likely number of slaves used in the Roman economy, their demographic profile, and the numbers of slaves imported into Italy.
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Management and Labor on Estates (Tenancy)

The organization of labor on estates has been the focal point of many studies of the Roman agrarian economy. A great deal of debate focuses on farm tenancy, which was a basic form of land tenure in the Roman Empire. The issues concern the relative importance of farm tenancy and other forms of labor, including slave labor and wage labor, and the relationship between landowners and tenants, especially the degree to which tenants were economically dependent on landowners. De Neeve 1984 seeks to trace the beginnings of farm tenancy in the commercial agriculture of the late Roman Republic, whereas de Ligt 2000 argues that it has a much earlier origin. Launaro 2011 (cited under the Roman Republic) examines the factors affecting the choice of landowners in late Republican Italy to employ slaves or tenants. Foxhall 1990 studies the factors that led to dependency of tenants on their landowners. Capogrossi Colognesi 1986 and Lo Cascio 2009 are broad overviews of the development of tenancy in the Roman Empire. Kehoe 1997 addresses the law of farm tenancy, as does Johne, et al. 1983, a broad discussion of tenancy across the Roman Empire. Kehoe 1988 and de Neeve 1990 focus on the relationships between the senatorial landowner Pliny the Younger and his tenants.

Capogrossi Colognesi, L. 1986. Grandi proprietari, contadini e coloni nell’Italia Romana (I–III d.C.). In Società romana e impero tardo-antico. Vol. 1, Istituzioni, ceti, economie. Edited by A. Giardina, 326–365. Collezione Storica. Rome: Laterza.
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A pioneering study examining the relationship between the legal institution of farm tenancy and its role in the Roman economy.
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de Ligt, L. 2000. Studies in legal and agrarian history II: Tenancy under the Republic. Athenaeum 88:377–392.
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Argues that farm tenancy is basic to preindustrial societies and dates the origins of Roman farm tenancy much earlier than does de Neeve 1984. De Ligt also discusses the development of tenancy as a legal institution.
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de Neeve, P. W. 1984. Colonus: Private farm-tenancy in Roman Italy during the Republic and the early principate. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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Traces the origins of farm tenancy, arguing that tenancy took form as an institution in Roman law in the 2nd century BCE as Roman estate owners engaged in commercial agriculture.
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de Neeve, P. W. 1990. A Roman landowner and his estates: Pliny the Younger. Athenaeum 78:363–402.
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A broad survey of Pliny’s management of his estates, which provides important evidence for the way farm tenancy functioned in Roman Italy.
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Foxhall, L. 1990. The dependent tenant: Land leasing and labour in Italy and Greece. Journal of Roman Studies 80:97–114.
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Uses comparative material to determine under what conditions farm tenants in the ancient world would be economically dependent on their landlords.
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Johne, K.-P., J. Köhn, and V. Weber. 1983. Die Kolonen in Italien und den westlichen Provinzen des Römischen Reiches: Eine Untersuchung der literarischen, juristischen und epigraphischen Quellen vom 2. Jahrhundert v.u.Z. bis zu den Severern. Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur der Antike 21. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
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Three major studies of farm tenancy by Johne primarily on tenancy in Italy, by Köhn on the legal institution of tenancy, and by Weber on farm tenancy on North African imperial estates.
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Kehoe, D. P. 1988. Allocation of risk and investment on the estates of Pliny the Younger. Chiron 18:15–42.
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Investigates Pliny’s management of his estates to examine how upper-class Romans used farm tenancy as part of their strategy to profit from their investments in agriculture.
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Kehoe, D. P. 1997. Investment, profit, and tenancy: The jurists and the Roman agrarian economy. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Examines the legal forms of farm tenancy to analyse how Roman landowners sought to manage this institution to serve their long-term economic goals.
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Lo Cascio, Elio. 2009. Considerazioni sulla struttura e sulla dinamica dell’affitto agraria in età imperial. In Crescita e declino: Studi di storia dell’economia romana. Edited by Elio Lo Cascio, 91–113. Atti del Centro Studio e Documentazione sull’Antichità Classica 32. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
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A broad analysis of tenancy in the Roman world and scholarly discussions of it. An earlier version was published in H. Sancisi Weerdenburg, De Agricultura: In Memoriam Pieter Willem de Neeve (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1993), pp. 296–316.
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The Provinces

An increasingly important focus in Roman economic history is the agrarian economy in the provinces. In particular, scholars have focused on the degree to which Roman rule transformed provincial economies and generated wealth for particular groups. This is an especially important theme for parts of the empire that exported food to Rome, such as North Africa, Egypt, and Spain. For North Africa, Mattingly and Hitchner 1995 offers an archaeological survey with much attention to economic conditions. Kehoe 1988 offers a detailed study of a series of inscriptions from North Africa that document the land tenure system on imperial estates. Hoffmann-Salz 2011 compares the influence of Roman rule on the economic development of Spain, Africa, and Syria. In Egypt, documentary papyri provide many details about the management of estates and other aspects of land tenure. Rathbone 1991 studies in detail the management of an estate documented in greater detail than any other enterprise in the early Roman Empire. Kehoe 1992 examines the various methods landowners in Egypt used to exploit their estates. Rowlandson 1996 is an important study of landholding in the Oxyrhynchite nome, one of the major sources of documentary papyri. Haley 2003 is a study of the Baetica, the wealthiest region of Roman Spain. Although the focus of this book is on Late Antiquity, Decker 2009 is a valuable study of agrarian change in the Roman East.

Decker, M. 2009. Tilling the hateful earth: Agricultural production and trade in the late antique East. Oxford Studies in Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The focus of this book is on Late Antiquity, but it offers a detailed discussion of land tenure and the cultivation of various crops that is valuable for understanding economic conditions in the early empire.
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Haley, E. W. 2003. Baetica felix: People and prosperity in southern Spain from Caesar to Septimius Severus. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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Investigates the agrarian economy in the province of Baetica in Spain, a wealthy province that exported a great deal of wine and olive oil to Rome.
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Hoffmann-Salz, J. 2011. Die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen der römsichen Eroberung: Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Provinzen Hispania Tarraconensis, Africa Proconsualris und Syria. Historia Einzelschriften 218. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
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A comparative investigation of the changes in production and land tenure in the agrarian economies of Spain, North Africa, and Syria that resulted from Roman rule.
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Kehoe, D. P. 1988. The economics of agriculture on Roman imperial estates in North Africa. Hypomnemata 89. Göttingen, West Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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A study of the economic factors surrounding the land tenure on imperial estates in North Africa.
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Kehoe, D. P. 1992. Management and investment on estates in Roman Egypt in the early empire. Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 40. Bonn, Germany: Habelt.
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Examines the ways landowners in Egypt used a variety of systems of management to exploit their estates.
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Mattingly, David J., and R. Bruce Hitchner. 1995. Roman Africa: An archaeological review. Journal of Roman Studies 85:165–213.
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An overview of urban and rural archaeology in North Africa; the focus of the authors is on economic and social change resulting from Roman rule.
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Rathbone, D. 1991. Economic rationalism and rural society in third-century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos archive and the Appianus estate. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Investigates the details of estate management on the best-documented estate from the early Roman Empire. This study provides a great deal of information about the organization of production and labor.
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Rowlandson, J. 1996. Landowners and tenants in Roman Egypt: The social relations of agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite nome. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A study of landholding in one of the best-documented regions of the Roman Empire. It provides important insights into the wealth of landowners and the role of farm tenancy in Egypt’s agrarian economy.
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Wine and Olive Oil

In addition to the study of land tenure in Italy and the provinces, scholars have also focused on the production of cash crops, such as wine and olive oil, which, since they were sold in urban markets, were important sources of wealth for members of the Roman elite. Purcell 1985 and Tchernia 1986 discuss the production and consumption of wine in Roman Italy. Ruffing 1999 provides the most detailed discussion of wine production in Roman Egypt, whereas Jakab 2009 examines how Roman law developed legal institutions to facilitate the production and marketing of wine. Olive oil was a major source of wealth in the provinces. David J. Mattingly has written many studies of the production of olive oil (e.g., Mattingly 1988). Among the most valuable are his studies of large olive presses in North Africa, which indicate the commercial production of oil on a large scale. Mattingly 1994 discusses the role of olive production in Tripolitanian economy. De Vos 2007 examines one region of the province of Africa to calculate its likely production of oil. Reynolds 2010 examines production and export of agricultural goods from Spain.

de Vos, M. 2007. Olio d’oliva per Roma e per il mercato intraregionale. In Supplying Rome and the empire: The proceedings of an international seminar held at Siena-Certosa di Pontignano on May 2–4, 2004, on Rome, the provinces, production, and distribution. Edited by E. Papi, 43–58. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplements 69. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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Presents some results from the author’s archaeological survey of the region around Dougga (ancient Thugga) in Tunisia, focusing on the area’s capacity to produce olive oil.
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Jakab, E. 2009. Risikomanagement beim Weinkauf: Periculum und Praxis im Imperium Romanum. Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 99. Munich: Beck.
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Examines the relationship between Roman private law and the Roman economy, focusing on sales of wine, which provided a major source of income to the Roman elite and other producers.
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Mattingly, David J. 1988. Oil for export? A comparison of Libyan, Spanish, and Tunisian olive oil production in the Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Archaeology 1:33–56.
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Surveys the variations in olive oil production in the Roman Empire with a focus on the production of olive oil as a cash crop.
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Mattingly, David J. 1994. Tripolitania. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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A broad study of ancient Libya with a discussion of how the production of olive oil on a large scale could be a major source of wealth in a Roman province.
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Purcell, N. 1985. Wine and wealth in ancient Italy. Journal of Roman Studies 75:1–19.
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A pioneering study of the consumption of wine in Roman Italy and its production as a source of wealth.
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Reynolds, P. 2010. Hispania and the Roman Mediterranean AD 100–700: Ceramics and trade. London: Duckworth.
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Treats exports of olive oil, wine, and fish sauce from Spain on the basis of amphora evidence.
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Ruffing K. 1999. Weinbau im römischen Ägypten. Pharos 12. St. Katherinen, Germany: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag.
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A detailed investigation of the production of wine in Roman Egypt.
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Tchernia, A. 1986. Le vin de l’Italie romaine: Essai d’histoire économique d’après les amphores. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 261. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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The major work on the production and consumption of wine in Italy linking both to changing economic conditions.
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Rural Markets

Rural markets, often held periodically on a fixed schedule, played an important role in the commercial side of agriculture, since these often provided the settings in which small farmers sold their produce so as to obtain the money they needed for rent and taxes. Because of their connection to rural production, rural markets could influence the relationship between city and countryside. De Ligt 1993 provides a discussion of rural markets in a comparative perspective. De Ligt 1991 addresses in greater detail the purchasing habits of small farmers in the Roman world. Shaw 1981 analyzes the markets in North Africa in terms of Rome’s imperial policy. Lo Cascio 2000 is a collection of essays on many aspects of markets in Rome and the provinces.

de Ligt, L. 1991. The Roman peasantry: Demand, supply, and distribution between town and countryside, Part 1. Münsterische Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 9.2: 24–56.
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Continued in Part 2, Münsterische Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 10.1: 33–77. This article addresses the purchasing habits of peasants in the Roman world, including the markets peasants used and the suppliers of the goods they purchased.
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de Ligt, L. 1993. Fairs and markets in the Roman Empire: Economic and social aspects of periodic trade in a pre-industrial society. Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 11. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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A study of periodic markets in the Roman Empire with comparative evidence from medieval Europe.
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Lo Cascio, Elio, ed. 2000. Mercati permanenti e mercati periodici nel mondo romano: Atti degli Incontri capresi di storia dell’economia antica, Capri, 13–15 ottobre 1997. Pragmateiai 2. Bari, Italy: Edipuglia.
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Papers from an international conference on many aspects of markets in Republican and imperial Italy and the provinces.
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Shaw, B. D. 1981. Rural markets in North Africa and the political economy of the Roman Empire. Antiquités Africaines 17: 37–83.
DOI: 10.3406/antaf.1981.1072Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of inscriptions recording laws granting landowners the rights to hold markets on their estates. The Roman policy toward rural markets has important implications for understanding Rome’s policy toward elite landowners.
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Slavery

It is widely recognized that Rome was a genuine slave society in the sense that slavery played a fundamental role in its economy. Still, there is a great deal of debate about the numbers of slaves in Roman Italy and more broadly in the Roman Empire, the sources from which they were obtained, and the ways they were employed. Bradley and Cartledge 2011 is a collection of essays addressing many aspects of slavery in the Greek and Roman world. Scheidel 2005 is a basic study of the numbers of slaves in Roman Italy that further argues that the ratio between male and female slaves tended to become even over time, so that the slave population was able to reproduce itself. Harris 1999 takes a very different view, arguing that male slaves outnumbered female slaves considerably, so that the empire was dependent on continued large-scale importation of slaves. Roth 2007, building on Scheidel 2005, traces the role of female slaves in the villa economy of Italy. Vera 1992–1993 discusses the continuity of methods of exploitation from the principate to Late Antiquity and examines the use of slaves in agriculture. There have been many studies of the role of freedmen in the Roman economy; Mouritsen 2011 provides a review of earlier literature and offers a new interpretation. Harper 2011 provides a thorough study of slavery in Late Antiquity with discussion of its uses in agriculture and commerce. Carlsen 1995 provides a complete discussion of estate managers, who were often slaves.

Bradley, Keith, and Paul Cartledge, eds. 2011. The Cambridge world history of slavery. Vol. 1, The ancient Mediterranean world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521840668Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This volume includes essays that examine slavery from many angles, including in connection with the Roman economy, slavery under the Republic and the principate, the supply of slaves, slave labor, and the role of slaves in the Roman family.
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Carlsen, J. 1995. Vilici and Roman estate managers until AD 284. Analecta Romana Instituti Danici Supplements 24. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
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An investigation of vilici, or bailiffs who managed estates in Italy and in the empire.
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Harper, K. 2011. Slavery in the late Roman world, AD 275–425. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A broad study of the conditions surrounding slavery in Late Antiquity. Harper argues that there was a great deal of continuity with the early Roman Empire, especially in the use of slaves in agriculture.
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Harris, W. V. 1999. Demography, geography, and the sources of Roman slaves. Journal of Roman Studies 89:62–75.
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Argues that male slaves far outnumbered female slaves in Roman Italy and on this basis draws conclusions about the nature of the Roman slave trade.
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Mouritsen, H. 2011. The freedman in the Roman world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511975639Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines manumission as a social and economic institution in the Roman world, arguing that freed people often remained closely connected with the households of their former masters after manumission.
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Roth, U. 2007. Thinking tools: Agricultural slavery between evidence and models. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplements 92. London: Institute of Classical Studies.
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Using comparative evidence from the US South before the Civil War, Roth argues that female slaves are likely to have played an important role in the Roman villa economy by combining weaving with the raising of children.
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Scheidel, W. 2005. Human mobility in Roman Italy, II: The slave population. Journal of Roman Studies 95:64–79.
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A fundamental study of the use of slavery in Roman Italy with calculations of the likely number of slaves used in the Roman economy, their demographic profile, and the numbers of slaves imported into Italy.
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Vera, D. 1992–1993. Schiavitù rurale e colonato nell’Italia imperiale. Scienze dell’antichità, Storia, Archeologia, Antropologia 6–7:291–339.
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Examines the continuity between the rural economy of the early empire and Late Antiquity with a focus on the use of slavery alongside coloni in Late Antiquity.
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Free Labor

Even if slaves played a crucial role in the Roman economy, the majority of workers were of free status. Many of course were small farmers, either owner-cultivators or tenants, but there were also free laborers in Roman cities. Scheidel 2004 examines the scale of movement of free people in Roman Italy, including their migration within Italy and overseas to the provinces. One important use to which free laborers might be put is construction, as Brunt 1980 argues. Some forms of free labor involved social dependence, a theme of Garnsey 1980. Free labor was essential to agriculture not only as tenants and occasional labor hired at the harvest but also as workers employed on a long-term basis. This is documented primarily in Roman Egypt, and the phenomenon is studied in Rathbone 1991 and for Late Antiquity in Banaji 2001. The wages of free laborers are addressed under Wages and Living Standards. Jördens 1990 is an important study of labor contracts in Egypt focusing on Late Antiquity, when they are most extensively documented.

Banaji, J. 2001. Agrarian change in Late Antiquity: Gold, labour, and aristocratic dominance. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Examines the processes by which great estates in Late Antique Egypt, including those of the Flavii Apiones in 6th-century Oxyrhynchus, were built up and their management.
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Brunt, P. A. 1980. Free labour and public works at Rome. Journal of Roman Studies 70:81–100.
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Examines the role of free labor in Rome and argues that public works sponsored by the Roman state were an important source of employment.
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Garnsey, P., ed. 1980. Non-slave labour in the Greco-Roman world. Cambridge Philological Society Supplements 6. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A collection of essays addressing the use of nonslave labor, adopting this title to indicate that many forms of free labor involved social dependence.
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Jördens, A. 1990. Vertragliche Regelungen von Arbeiten im späten griechischsprachigen Ägypten. Veröffentlichungen aus der Heidelberger Papyrus-Sammlung 6. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter Verlag.
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An investigation of labor contracts, in particular those connected with viticulture, in Late Antique Egypt.
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Rathbone, D. 1991. Economic rationalism and rural society in third-century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus estate. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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The estate of Appianus relied to a large extent on a permanent free labor force housed within the estate, which Rathbone examines in detail.
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Scheidel, W. 2004. Human mobility in Roman Italy, I: The free population. Journal of Roman Studies 94:9–26.
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The mobility of the free population in Roman Italy was an essential if disguised feature of the Roman economy.
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Cities

Cities played a substantial role in the economy of the Roman Empire both as consumers of products from the countryside and as producers of goods and services. The model that has dominated scholars’ understanding of the economic role of cities is that of the consumer city, as discussed in Erdkamp 2001. In this model cities were dependent on incomes generated in their agricultural hinterland. Jongman 1988 adopts the consumer-city model to analyze the economy of Pompeii; Engels 1990 emphasizes the importance of services in the urban economy. Parkins 1997 is a collection of essays that seek to move beyond the consumer-city model to examine other aspects of Roman life. Whittaker 1990 emphasizes the importance of rural villages for artisanal production. From a very different perspective, Tacoma 2006 examines the distribution of wealth in a provincial city and demographic factors affecting the elite. The most complete archaeological study of the economy of a provincial city is Stone, et al. 2011 on Leptiminus in Africa. Bowman and Wilson 2011 is a collection of essays addressing the connection between urbanization and the Roman economy.

Bowman, Alan K., and Andrew Wilson, eds. 2011. Settlement, urbanization, and population. Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602353.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The connection between urbanization and the Roman economy is explored in these essays.
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Engels, D. 1990. Roman Corinth: An alternative model for the classical city. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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Emphasizes the role of services in the economy of Roman Corinth, which was an important port city.
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Erdkamp, P. 2001. Beyond the limits of the “consumer city”: A model of the urban and rural economy in the Roman world. Historia 50.3: 332–356.
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Provides a thorough discussion of the consumer-city model and its usefulness for analyzing the economies of cities in the Roman Empire.
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Jongman, W. 1988. The economy and society of Pompeii. Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 4. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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Examines the role of agriculture and urban production in the economy of Pompeii.
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Parkins, H. M., ed. 1997. Roman urbanism: Beyond the consumer city. London: Routledge.
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A collection of essays on economic and social aspects of cities in the Roman Empire.
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Stone, David L., David J. Mattingly, and Nejib Ben Lazreg. 2011. Leptiminus (Lamta) report no. 3: The field survey. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplements 87. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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Including contributions by a number of other authors, this volume is a report on the field survey of the area around Leptiminus in modern-day Tunisia with a detailed discussion of the economy of the city that examines the archaeological evidence in terms of broad debates about the Roman economy.
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Tacoma, L. E. 2006. Fragile hierarchies: The urban elites of third-century Roman Egypt. Mnemosyne: Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplements 271. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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Using the city of Hermopolis as a starting point, Tacoma investigates the distribution of wealth among the urban elite and demographic factors that would affect their economic fortunes.
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Whittaker, C. R. 1990. The consumer city revisited: The vicus and the city. Journal of Roman Archaeology 3:110–118.
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Argues that much production generally associated with cities in the empire actually took place in rural villages. Reprinted in C. R. Whittaker, Land, City, and Trade in the Roman Empire (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1993).
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Rome

As the largest city in the ancient world, Rome was a consumer city on a grand scale. Its economy depended on subsidies provided by the state and the wealth that Roman senators, equestrians, and other members of the elite brought to it. In addition, it drew its population from Italy and from around the empire. Morley 1996 examines how the growth of the city of Rome affected economic development in Italy; to this discussion one should add Witcher 2005, which analyzes the economic significance of Rome’s suburbs. Purcell 2000 examines the role of the Roman aristocracy in the economy of Rome, arguing that Roman landowners used patronage networks within the city to market their agricultural products, especially wine. State subsidies for the importation of grain and other foodstuffs had important economic consequences for the economy of Rome; for the early empire the basic study of the annona remains Rickman 1980. One of the important sources of employment in Rome was the construction industry, for which Brunt 1980 provides the basic discussion. DeLaine 1997 offers a detailed analysis of the scale of employment involved in the construction of the monumental Baths of Caracalla. Joshel 1992 provides a good guide to the economic contribution of slaves and freed people to Rome’s economy, and Dubouloz 2011 provides a very detailed discussion of urban real estate in Italy. Holleran 2012 is a study of retail trade in the city of Rome.

Brunt, P. A. 1980. Free labour and public works at Rome. Journal of Roman Studies 70:81–100.
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A broad study of the role of construction in providing employment to free laborers in Rome.
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DeLaine, J. 1997. The Baths of Caracalla: A study in the design, construction, and economics of large-scale building projects in imperial Rome. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplements 25. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
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Using the construction of the Baths of Caracalla as a starting point, this is a study of the economic impact of monumental construction projects for the city of Rome.
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Dubouloz, J. 2011. La propriété immobilière à Rome et en Italie (Ier–Ve siècles): Organization et transmission des praedia urbana. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 343. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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A detailed legal study of legal aspects surrounding the ownership and bequest of urban property in Rome and Roman Italy.
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Holleran, C. 2012. Shopping in ancient Rome: Retail trade in the late Republic and the principate. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The first comprehensive study of retail trade in the city of Rome.
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Joshel, S. R. 1992. Work, identity, and legal status at Rome: A study of the occupational inscriptions. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 11. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
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An analysis of the values that slaves and freed people attached to their work based on inscriptions, especially epitaphs, documenting their lives.
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Morley, N. 1996. Metropolis and hinterland: The city of Rome and the Italian economy, 200 B.C.–A.D. 200. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511518584Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Although focused on the economic changes that the growth of Rome fostered in Italy, Morley’s study is essential for understanding the economy of the city of Rome.
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Purcell, N. 2000. Rome and Italy. In The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 11, The high empire, A.D. 70–192. 2d ed. Edited by A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and D. Rathbone, 405–443. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521263351Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A survey of the relationship between Rome and Italy during the early empire; includes much discussion of Rome’s economy.
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Rickman, G. 1980. The corn supply of ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The standard treatment of the importation of grain into Rome, including for the annona, from the Republic through the early imperial period.
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Witcher, R. 2005. The extended metropolis: Urbs, suburbium, and population. Journal of Roman Archaeology 18:120–138.
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The suburbs of Rome may have had as much as half again the population of Rome, so they must be considered integral to the economy of Rome and Rome’s relationship with the broader imperial economy.
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Commerce

One of the major debates about the Roman economy concerns the degree to which markets in the Roman world were integrated. Ceramic evidence, in particular amphorae, make it possible to trace trading patterns in agricultural goods, and it seems likely that other goods that are not so easily detectible in the archaeological record were traded alongside agricultural goods. Peacock and Williams 1986 provides a basic introduction to the study of amphorae as evidence for trading patterns. Garnsey, et al. 1983 provides a survey of Roman commerce. Hopkins 1983 discusses how Roman policies fostered medium- and long-distance trade. For trade beyond the borders of the empire, Sidebotham 2011 offers an authoritative discussion. Two major issues in the debate about Roman commerce are its organization and the role of elite investment in it. In terms of organization, Aubert 1994 discusses legal and economic issues surrounding business managers (see also Slavery). D’Arms 1981 argues for an indirect but significant elite role in commerce. Pleket 1983 argues that the commercial interests of the elite were limited. For a broader perspective on Roman commerce, Hopkins 1983 argues that the volume of Roman shipping required elite involvement. Bang 2008 investigates the role of commerce in Rome as a “tributary empire.” Although it is usually studied as a social phenomenon, prostitution was a major part of commerce in Roman cities; McGinn 2004 investigates this subject.

Aubert, J.-J. 1994. Business managers in ancient Rome: A social and economic study of institores, 200 B.C.–A.D. 250. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 21. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
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A study of managers of businesses, especially as revealed by the ceramic industry.
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Bang, P. 2008. The Roman bazaar: A comparative study of trade and markets in a tributary empire. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Compares the Roman Empire as a “tributary empire” with Mughal India to argue that trade was subject to severe constraints imposed by Rome’s fiscal needs.
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D’Arms, J. H. 1981. Commerce and social standing in ancient Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Argues that the Roman elite was involved in commerce in spite of social strictures against this; elite involvement was generally indirect, through agents, including freed people.
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Garnsey, P., K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker, eds. 1983. Trade in the ancient economy. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A collection of essays on commerce in the ancient economy, several of which focus on Rome and the provinces.
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Hopkins, K. 1983. Models, ships, and staples. In Trade and famine in classical Antiquity. Edited by P. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker, 84–109. Cambridge Philological Society Supplements 8. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society.
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On the basis of his analysis of shipbuilding methods in the Roman Empire, Hopkins argues that elite involvement was needed to make seaborne commerce feasible. Roman policies tended to promote middle- and long-distance trade.
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McGinn, T. A. J. 2004. The economy of prostitution in the Roman world: A study of social history and the brothel. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Addresses the economic impact of prostitution in the Roman Empire, focusing especially on the profits that members of the upper classes derived from leasing properties to serve as brothels.
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Peacock, D. P. S., and D. F. Williams. 1986. Amphorae and the Roman economy: An introductory guide. Longman Archaeology Series. London: Longman.
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An introduction to the use of amphorae as evidence for economic history; the evidence provided by amphorae has become indispensable for understanding long-distance trade in the Roman world.
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Pleket, H. W. 1983. Urban elites and businesses in the Greek part of the Roman Empire. In Trade in the ancient economy. Edited by P. Garnsey, K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker, 131–144. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Examines the place of commerce and agriculture in the finances of local elites in cities in the Greek East of the Roman Empire.
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Sidebotham, S. E. 2011. Berenike and the ancient maritime spice route. California World History Library 18. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520244306.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A book on trade with the East over the Red Sea.
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Banking

It is controversial to what degree banks and other financial institutions played a role in the development of commerce in the Roman Empire. With banks, the issue concerns whether they merely held deposits for people and facilitated transfers of money or they also extended credit for commercial ventures (see also Money). From a broad perspective, Temin 2004 argues that the financial institutions of the Roman Empire compare favorably with those of early modern Europe. The work of Jean Andreau is fundamental for the world of finance and banking in the Roman Empire. Andreau 1974 is a study of the financial affairs of a banker who financed purchases at auctions at Pompeii. Andreau 1999 is a broader study of banking and financial institutions in the Roman Empire.

Andreau, Jean. 1974. Les affaires de Monsieur Jucundus. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 19. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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A detailed study of L. Caecilius Iucundus, a businessperson whose affairs are documented in writing tablets from Pompeii.
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Andreau, Jean. 1999. Banking and business in the Roman world. Translated by J. Lloyd. Key Themes in Ancient History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A broad introduction to the types of banks in the Roman world and the functions they fulfilled in the Roman economy.
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Temin, P. 2004. Financial intermediation in the early Roman Empire. Journal of Economic History 64.3: 705–733.
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A study of Roman financial institutions in a comparative perspective focusing on how Roman financial institutions compared with those of early modern Europe.
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Industry and Mining

Although the economy of the Roman Empire was largely agrarian, industry was clearly important, and the crucial questions concerning industry are similar to those connected with commerce, namely, the scale of operations, the organization of industry, and the role of elite investment in it. The best-documented industries are those involving ceramics and bricks, which survive, but clothing was certainly an important industrial product. Fülle 1997 offers an important analysis of the production of fine pottery, which was organized around individual artisans managing their own workshops. Harris 1993 includes essays on the production of household goods. The likelihood that many towns had some textile industry, which could be organized on a very small scale, is suggested in Wilson 2001. Van Minnen 1987 examines small-scale artisans in Roman Egypt with a focus on the role guilds played in regulating production. Mining was crucially important to the Roman economy, and Roman silver production was only matched in early modern Europe. Domergue 1990 is a basic study of Roman mining focusing on Spain. For the administration of mines, Hirt 2010 offers an exhaustive survey.

Domergue, C. 1990. Les mines de la péninsule ibérique dans l’antiquité romaine. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 127. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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A detailed study of the organization and operation of mines in Roman Spain that played a crucial role in supplying silver to the Roman Empire.
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Fülle, G. 1997. The internal organization of the Arretine terra sigillata industry: Problems of evidence and interpretation. Journal of Roman Studies 87:111–155.
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Analyzes the organization of an industry operated on a small scale. This article provides important insights into the ways other industries in the Roman world were organized.
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Harris, W. V., ed. 1993. The inscribed economy: Production and distribution in the Roman Empire in the light of instrumentum domesticum; The proceedings of a conference held at the American Academy in Rome on 10–11 January, 1992. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplements 6. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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A collection of essays focusing on what can be learned about production in the Roman economy from household goods documented through inscriptions.
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Hirt, A. M. 2010. Imperial mines and quarries in the Roman world: Organizational aspects, 27 BC–AD 235. Oxford Classical Monograph Series. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572878.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed survey of the administration of mines and quarries covering all parts of the Roman Empire.
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Van Minnen, P. 1987. Urban craftsmen in Roman Egypt. Münsterische Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 6.1: 31–88.
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A study of urban craft production in Roman Egypt focusing on the roles of guilds in promoting business and regulating production.
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Wilson, A. 2001. Timgad and textile production. In Economies beyond agriculture in the classical world. Edited by David J. Mattingly and John Salmon, 271–296. Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 9. London: Routledge.
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A study of textile production that suggests how widespread this industry was in the Roman Empire.
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Transition to Late Antiquity

The economy of the later Roman Empire, beginning in the 4th century, was in many respects different from that of the principate, although the same fundamental factors affected economic performance. The major change was the relationship between the state and the economy: in the later empire the state intervened more directly in the economy to gain stable tax revenues and to ensure that important public services, such as shipping grain to Rome and Constantinople, were carried out. A major part of the state’s intervention involved tying people to the professions they inherited from their fathers. The debate on this issue concerns whether the state was overly intrusive in the economy, relentlessly imposing increasing taxes on an empire with limited resources and as a result choking the economy. Duncan-Jones 1994 (cited under Money) views the tax burden in the empire as excessive. The fiscal system of the Roman Empire was complicated by substantial inflation in the late 3rd century followed by a coinage reform that led to a greater reliance on gold currency alongside silver in the 4th century. These changes are discussed in Banaji 2001, Corbier 2005a, and Corbier 2005b; the latter two also provide a broad overview of taxation in the 4th century. Kelly 2004 discusses the role of the imperial government in the administration of justice with important implications for the rule of law in the economy. Patronage was another important issue, as the imperial government competed for control over the economic resources of the countryside with locally powerful landowners who might offer some protection against taxation in exchange for greater control of the land, as discussed in Krause 1987. As Whittaker and Garnsey 1998 argues, cities remained important centers of production and consumption. Peña 1999 discusses the urban economy of Rome in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. One important aspect of the urban economies of both Constantinople and Rome involved managing the importation of grain and other foodstuffs, which is addressed in Durliat 1990 (cited under Supplying Rome and Constantinople). Giardina 2007 offers a broad overview of the economic changes that Late Antiquity brought to the Roman world. Reynolds 2010 uses the evidence of amphorae to trace changing trading patterns between Spain and the rest of the Roman world.

Banaji, J. 2001. Agrarian change in Late Antiquity: Gold, labour, and aristocratic dominance. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Studies how estate owners in Late Antique Egypt took advantage of changes in the currency and their role in collecting taxes to amass great wealth.
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Corbier, M. 2005a. Coinage and taxation: The state’s point of view, A.D. 193–337. In The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 12, The crisis of empire, A.D. 193–337. Edited by A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and A. Cameron, 327–392. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521301992Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A survey of the changes in coinage and related changes in taxation in the 3rd and early 4th centuries CE.
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Corbier, M. 2005b. Coinage, society, and economy. In The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 12, The crisis of empire, A.D. 193–337. Edited by A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and A. Cameron, 393–439. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521301992Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A broad survey of economic conditions in the Roman Empire during the 3rd and early 4th centuries CE.
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Giardina, A. 2007. The transition to Late Antiquity. In The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. Edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris, and R. Saller, 743–768. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521780537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A compelling overview of the essential features of the late imperial economy and their roots in the economy of the late principate.
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Kelly, C. 2004. Ruling the later Roman Empire. Revealing Antiquity 15. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Starting from an analysis of the career of the 6th-century figure John Lydus, this book examines the workings of government and the administration of justice in Late Antiquity.
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Krause, J.-U. 1987. Spätantike Patronatsformen im Westen des Römischen Reiches. Vestigia 38. Munich: Beck.
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A thorough discussion of the phenomenon of patronage, including rural patronage, in the later Roman Empire.
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Peña, J. T. 1999. The urban economy during the early dominate: Pottery evidence from the Palatine Hill. BAR International Series 784. Oxford: Archaeopress.
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Using a pottery deposit on the Palatine as a starting point, the monograph offers an analysis of the economy of Rome during the late 3rd and early 4th centuries CE.
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Reynolds, P. 2010. Hispania and the late Roman Mediterranean, AD 100–700: Ceramics and trade. London: Duckworth.
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Its treatment of trade based on amphora evidence is important for reconstructing trading patterns in Late Antiquity.
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Whittaker, C. R., and P. Garnsey. 1998. Trade, industry, and the urban economy. In The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 13, The late empire, A.D. 337–425. Edited by A. Cameron and P. Garnsey, 312–337. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521302005Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A broad study of the changes in the urban economy that emerged in the Roman economy in Late Antiquity.
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Late Antique Agriculture

Since the early empire, farmers, at least in some parts of the empire, were required to remain in their villages of origin, where they were registered in the censuses and fulfilled their tax liabilities. Some farmers who were not registered in the censuses as landowners could be registered on estates where they cultivated land for a larger landowner. Such tenants, or coloni, were bound to the land, and their landlords took on increasing responsibility for the collection of taxes. The nature of the Roman colonate is a subject of continuing scholarly controversy, whether it signaled the long-term social and economic dependence of small farmers or was rather the result of Rome’s fiscal concerns and had little in and of itself to do with the economic status of the farmers involved. There is considerable literature on this topic. The leading proponent of the fiscal element of the late Roman “colonate” is Jean-Michel Carrié. See Carrié 1997 and Lo Cascio 1997; the latter volume presents a series of essays, including that of Carrié, dealing with the continuity and change between the early Roman and late Roman agrarian regimes. Whittaker and Garnsey 1998 provides a broad overview of the Late Antique rural world. Vera 1995 traces continuities between the rural economies of the earlier and later empires. For discussion of the most important texts connected with the colonate, Rosafio 2002 is valuable. Grey 2007 offers a new interpretation of the concept of the village of origin. Thonemann 2007 and Harper 2008 study Greek census inscriptions, which suggest the distribution of land in the 4th century and are also useful for this issue in the early empire.

Carrié, Jean-Michel. 1997. “Colonato del Basso Impero”: La resistenza del mito. In Terre, proprietari e contadini dell’impero romano: Dall’affitto agrario al colonato tardoantico. Edited by Elio Lo Cascio, 75–150. Ricerche 15. Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.
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A discussion of the origins of the Late Antique colonate emphasizing its fiscal rather than economic origins.
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Grey, C. 2007. Contextualizing colonatus: The origo of the late Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Studies 97:155–175.
DOI: 10.3815/000000007784016089Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analyzes the colonate in the context of agricultural practices in Late Antiquity.
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Harper, K. 2008. The Greek census inscriptions of Late Antiquity. Journal of Roman Studies 98:83–119.
DOI: 10.3815/007543508786239661Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Reconstructs the distribution of land and the use of slaves in communities in the Greek East on the basis of 4th-century inscriptions.
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Lo Cascio, Elio, ed. 1997. Terre, proprietari e contadini dell’impero romano: Dall’affitto agrario al colonato tardoantico. Ricerche 15. Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.
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A series of essays on the transition in the Roman agrarian economy from the early empire to Late Antiquity.
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Rosafio, P. 2002. Studi sul colonato. Documenti e studi: Collana del Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità dell’Università di Bari, Sezione Storica 32. Bari, Italy: Edipuglia.
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Carefully analyzes the laws relating to the colonate to trace the development of the institution.
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Thonemann, P. 2007. Estates and the land in late Roman Asia Minor. Chiron 37:435–478.
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A study of census inscriptions from 4th-century Asia Minor with a view to their importance for the size of estates.
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Vera, D. 1995. Dalla “villa perfecta” alla villa di Palladio: Sulle trasformazioni del sistema agrario in Italia fra principato e dominato. Athenaeum 83.1: 189–211.
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Continued in Part 2, Athenaeum 83.2: 331–356. A study of the rural economy in Italy in the early empire and Late Antiquity.
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Whittaker, C. R., and P. Garnsey. 1998. Rural life in the later Roman Empire. In The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 13, The late empire, A.D. 337–425. Edited by A. Cameron and P. Garnsey, 277–311. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521302005Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides a broad discussion of the social and economic factors affecting rural life in the later Roman Empire.
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Supplying Rome and Constantinople

Maintaining the food supply for Rome and in the later empire for Constantinople was a continuing preoccupation of the Roman government. Both imperial capitals depended on food imported from the provinces, much of it as tax or rents from imperial estates, and the Roman government contracted with private shippers to important grain, olive oil, and other foodstuffs. Rickman 1980 remains the standard treatment of the annona for the early empire. Virlouvet 2009 is an important study of the issue. For the food supply in the later empire, see especially Durliat 1990 and Sirks 1991. One of the major issues concerns the role of the private market in securing the food supply; Lo Cascio 2009 argues for a considerable role for the private food market in Late Antique Rome.

Durliat, J. 1990. De la ville antique à la ville byzantine: Le problème des subsistances. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 136. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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Covers food supply in the later empire.
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Lo Cascio, Elio. 2009. Mercato libero e “commercio amministrato” in età tardonantica. In Crescita e declina: Studi di storia dell’economia romana. Edited by Elio Lo Cascio, 273–285. Atti del Centro Studio e Documentazione sull’Antichità Classica 32. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
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Examines the degree to which a free market for foodstuffs functioned in Late Antiquity alongside the state’s management of the food supply for Rome.
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Rickman, G. 1980. The corn supply of ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The standard treatment of the importation of grain into Rome, including for the annona, from the Republic through the early imperial period.
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Sirks, B. 1991. Food for Rome: The legal structure of the transportation and processing of supplies for the imperial distributions in Rome and Constantinople. Studia Amstelodamensia ad Epigraphicam, Ius Antiquum et Papyrologicam Pertinentia 31. Amsterdam: Gieben.
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A basic study of the state’s role in supplying Rome and Constantinople with food focusing on the issues raised by legal texts.
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Virlouvet, C. 2009. La plèbe frumentaire dans les témoignages épigraphiques: Essai d’histoire sociale et administrative du peuple de Rome antique. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 414. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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A study of grain distributions in Rome based on epigraphic evidence.
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