BMCR 2009.04.74: Katsari on Scheidel, The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World

Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, Richard P. Saller (ed.), The Cambridge
Economic History of the Greco-Roman World.  Cambridge/New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007.  Pp. xiv, 942.  ISBN 9780521780537.
$225.00.

Reviewed by Constantina Katsari, University of Leicester ([email protected])
Word count:  4045 words
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Table of Contents
(http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0810/2008297220-t.html)

Preview (http://books.google.com/books?id=uug6VvJrxVYC)

This is certainly an extraordinary book on the Ancient Mediterranean
economies that ought to be read and quoted by all historians who work
in the field of pre-industrial economics. This excellent project was
brought to completion by its 3 editors and 27 contributors over the
span of a decade. Although this is a Cambridge volume, we should also
give ample credit to Stanford University, in which the editors work.
According to the editors the goals of this volume are two-fold: 1) to
summarize the existing scholarship on the Greco-Roman economy and 2) to
shape future research. (p. 1) The chronological and geographical span
of time and space extend far beyond what traditionally has been
considered the Greco-Roman world. Apart from the Classical, Hellenistic
and Roman worlds, it includes prehistoric societies in the
Mediterranean and part of the Near Eastern civilizations. This
expansion could allow for comparisons between different economic
systems across the Mediterranean and, in some cases, may also clarify
concepts that were otherwise obscure. In this review, I intend to
assess the achievements of this collaboration and the fulfilment of the
initial targets.

During the last three decades ancient historians focused on the debate
between modernists on one side (with Rostovtzeff as the main
representative of this school) and substantivists on the other (with
Finley as the undisputed leader). In fact, whenever an ancient
historian writes a book or an article on the ancient economy, s/he is
expected to place herself/himself within the spectrum ranging from
modernism to substantivism. During the seventies and the eighties, the
polarization between the two schools of thought was complete and the
debate was fierce. For the past two decades, though, researchers have
been trying to establish a middle ground or attempted to break away
from the stifling atmosphere. The editors of the CEH belong to the new
generation of ancient economic historians who lead the way in the
writing of ancient economic histories. Their initial intention was to
focus on growth and some of the main parameters that affected it, such
as institutions, demography, ecology, gender and technology. Most
contributors attempted to analyse these economic factors and managed to
construct new perspectives of the ancient economies.Especially in the
first part, the chapters, which describe the economic determinants in
the ancient world, set the tone for the rest of the book.
However, in some cases the authors of this volume follow closely the
editors' structure which focuses predominately on the production,
distribution and eventual consumption of the products across the
Mediterranean. These are fundamental parts of the economy and, hence,
seem to have been studied in conjunction with the law, governmental
regulations and political processes, possibly because of the limitation
of other types of evidence. However, such a choice eventually limits
somewhat the scope of the editors, since at least a few authors
concentrate on the political economy of antiquity. Indeed, the study of
political factors is essential for the analysis of any economic system
and Political economics encompasses several alternatives to
Neoclassical economics. However, the systematic exclusion or
undervaluation of the study of market forces could lead scholars to the
de facto acceptance that substantivism may be the only way to interpret
the ancient economies. Despite the shortcomings, most authors explore
the production, distribution and consumption of some ancient societies
not as independent factors but in conjunction with the demography,
technology, political structures of those societies and above all, the
growth of the economy. Without emphasizing the limitations of the
ancient economies, they describe the continuity and change of the
Mediterranean economic systems. In accordance, probably, with the
vision of the editors, in some aspects of the ancient economy, several
authors attempt to move away from Political as well as Neoclassical
economics into the sphere of Institutional economics.

The editors also hoped that they would develop "general theoretical
models of ancient economic behavior" and they will put them "in a
global, comparative context". (p. 12) The first part of the volume, on
the determinants of economic performance, is one of the best scholarly
examples of the study of the ancient Mediterranean in comparative
perspective. Sallares, Scheidel, Saller, Frier and Schneider compare
the regions surrounding the Mediterranean to each other, while they try
to assess the economic conditions diachronically, from antiquity to
modern times. Braudel's The Mediterranean in the Ancient World (English
translation 2001) and the recent publications of Horden and
Purcell[[1]] and the contrasting views of Harris,[[2]] renewed the
interest in the study of the Mediterranean Sea as unifying entity and
dealt with new aspects of the topic. Similarly, in this volume the
editors managed to bring together varied views on the function of the
Mediterranean economy. The main factors that affect ancient economies,
according to the editors, seem to be 1) the ecology, 2) demography, 3)
household and gender, 4) law and economic institutions and last but not
least 5) technology. Sallares explores the effect of mostly non-human
related conditions on the economy and focuses on the impact of
geography, climatic conditions and the natural environment on the
development of agriculture. He supports the idea that, although over
the centuries a few regions remained unaltered, others changed
radically. Although agriculture is connected to environmental issues
and certainly had a substantial impact on the subsistence economy,
Sallares does not expand on other, equally important matters, such as
the environmental changes caused by the expansion of urban centres,
industrial pollution (especially from the mines), or the technological
developments in the agricultural sector.

Scheidel, using mortality and fertility rates from the epigraphic
material and papyri (?), estimates the size of the population in
specific regions and in the entire Mediterranean. Once he forms a rough
idea of the numbers of people in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, he
explores the impact of increases or decreases on population sizes,
living standards, subsistence rates, and growth of the ancient
economies by comparison to Medieval and Early Modern societies. He
eventually comes to the conclusion that demographic conditions changed
radically in certain areas, e.g. the western provinces of the Roman
world, once the empire was firmly established. However, the overall
growth of the population across the Mediterranean, even though it
continued until the Middle Ages, was slow. The ancient economies seem
to have been locked in "a low equilibrium trap", in which "limited
increases in output will raise surpluses less than population size and
the latter will eventually offset intermittent productivity gains" (p.
55). Saller compares and contrasts two different models of management
of the household's assets in Classical Athens and in the Roman Empire.
His results give us new insights on the contribution of women and
children in the production of the household, two social groups that are
usually ignored in economic studies. Although in his conclusions, he
splendidly attempts to integrate the households into the wider
economies of Athens and Rome, he fails to take into consideration the
size of these political entities. On the one hand, Athens was a
hegemonic power with several colonies in the Mediteranean and away from
the Greek mainland, while Rome created an empire that dominated the
Mediterranean. The scale of the two economies was such that it would
have certainly affected the impact of the household production and
consumption.

Frier and Kehoe focus on the economy of the Roman world and evaluate
the application of modern economic theories in explaining ancient
economic phenomena. Early on, they reject Neoclassical Economic
doctrines, since these theories may be applied only to free market
economies, such as modern capitalism. As an alternative, they favour
the application of New Institutional economics, since the ancient
markets were closely regulated by the imperial and the civic
authorities. In order to prove their case, they emphasize "agency" as
an economic institution. According to the authors, a principal
delegates some rights to an agent, "who is bound by a (formal or
informal) contract to represent the principal's interests in return for
payments of some kind".[[3]] Whether these agents were freedmen, slaves
or husbands, they facilitated transactions, they cut the costs and they
overcame the problem of asymmetrical information. Unlike the previous
authors, Schneider restricts himself to the description of specific
Roman innovations -- such as the grain mill, oil and wine presses, the
production of ceramics and glass, building techniques, transportation
over land and sea, and the use of water-lifting equipment -- and seems
to be dangerously close to the original ideas that Finley presented in
1965.[[4]]  If we take the articles of the first  part as a whole, the
readers may be able to build a new theoretical model that is based on
the comparative development of the ancient economies across time in the
Mediterranean and clearly moves beyond the substantivist/modernist
model.

In the second part of the book five authors -- Bennet, Morris, Dietler,
Osborne and Bedford -- explore the Early Mediterranean Economies and
the Near East. The first four describe a Mediterranean economy that was
based on strong palatial control during the Mycenaean period. However,
this control was eroded with the decline of the economy and in its
place we find the emergence of aristocratic families that become major
economic forces in new urban centres. By the end of the Iron Age, the
focus shifted towards trading activities across the Mediterranean Sea.
These activities were promoted through colonization, a process that did
not polarize indigenous and intruding populations but, instead, created
multiple, interconnected spheres of economic activities. New economic
factors, such as the invention of money, improved communications, the
advancing knowledge of economic laws and new political institutions
changed the economic foundations of Mediterranean societies, which now
focused on the promotion of trade. Unfortunately the authors, apart
from Morris, do not provide adequate evidence on the change of living
standards, a fact that inhibits us from detecting changes on the daily
lives of the inhabitants. The last article by Bedford on the economy of
the Near East differs, while he puts special emphasis on the
similarities of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian economies. He
creates a substantivist model in order to explain the limited
urbanization processes, the restricted growth and the strict political
control of the economy. This stale environment, though, may be
explained if we assume that the Near East was not an integral part of
the Mediterranean.

The next part includes three chapters on production, distribution and
consumption in Classical Greece, written by Davies, Moeller and von
Reden respectively. The impression that these chapters give is of an
underdeveloped (though not primitive) economy, with minimal growth and
market exchange, in a true Finleyan sense.[[5]] Davies rightly speaks
of the fragmentation of the Greek world in smaller regions or
city-states that develop according to different rhythms. However, he
does not take this flexibility as a force of economic growth (even at
the expense of the less developed regions). Instead, he thinks that
agricultural production was stagnant, labour structures were defined by
issues of morality and status, while the role of capital (given the
lack of evidence) was restricted to the building of large projects of
infrastructure (water supplies, harbours, bridges etc); thus, it was
controlled by the state. This overwhelming focus on the role of the
city-state is evident also in Moeller's work. With the exception of the
knowledgeable merchant, who had basic accounting skills and invested
borrowed capital to buy goods, Moeller takes a pessimistic view of the
practical issues of trade. Although she acknowledges that the volume of
traded goods probably increased, she justifies it by emphasizing the
impact of civic institutions, which redistributed goods for the glory
of the city and the comfort of its citizens. Along the same lines, von
Reden prefers to explore the symbolic character of consumption and
comes to the conclusion that the city-states and religious
organizations stimulated public and private consumption, through
payments, public works, benefits, sacrifices, festivals, handouts. In
the end, though, surprisingly faithful to the doctrines of Adam Smith,
she admits that democracy encouraged also a turn to a free market (open
exchange) oriented commodity consumption.

In the fourth part of this volume Van der Spek, Manning and Reger
explore the economies of the Hellenistic Near East, Egypt, Greece and
Asia Minor respectively. The division of the chapters point towards the
existence of separate regional economies in the Eastern Mediterranean,
in accordance to the ideas presented by John Davies and others in the
edited volume on the Hellenistic Economies.[[6]] In this part we
observe that the authors describe different levels of economic
centralisation, with Egypt being the most centralized and Greece and
Asia Minor the least. Even if the Ptolemies in Egypt administered the
largest part of the economy, we start observing for the first time
interplay of the fiscal aims of the state with private incentives. At
the same time, the kings brought innovations to the fiscal system and
promoted the use of money (the economy seemed to be monetized also in
the rural countryside). Even if these changes were not radical, we may
acknowledge the systematic organization of the economy and a tendency
towards decentralization. Despite the dominance of the State on the
Ptolemaic economy, Manning resists describing Egypt as an
underdeveloped system as Van der Spek and Reger do. Especially Van der
Spek undervalues consistently the significance of the monetary economy,
which could have been the motor of commerce in the Seleucid empire.
Despite the carefully controlled weight standards, the influx of cash
during the reign of Alexander the Great, the wide circulation of silver
coins, their use as units of account, the increasing use of bronze
(small change) in the markets and the popularity of coins as fiduciary
money or even bank notes, he insists that the use of silver decreased
and that the monetary system burdened the empire with transaction costs
for millennia to come! Reger, on the other hand, may notice the
"underdeveloped" nature of the economy in Greece and Asia Minor but he
measures his evidence more carefully. He rightly notices that the
economy at the time was in fiscal crisis and this may have affected the
overall growth. In my view, though, the system was not as centralised
as in other areas of the eastern Mediterranean; hence, the private
economy may have played a more important role in driving growth.
Specifically agricultural innovations and the increase in long-distance
trade probably contributed to growth, despite the persistent stagnation
of population levels.

In the next part, Morel and Harris in two chapters attempt to
reconstruct the economic history of Early Rome and the Late Roman
Republic respectively. Morel describes the Roman economy from the
eighth until the second century BC. Probably because of the large
chronological span, he does not manage to provide separate economic
models for each period or region. Instead, he asserts the previous held
theories that agriculture remained the most important aspect of the
economy, with minor variations. Harris, on the other hand, starts with
the assumption that the economy of Rome at that time received positive
benefits from its direct contact with Carthage and the Hellenistic
kingdoms of the east, especially in advancing its financial system. The
era is characterized by a substantial increase of the population of
Rome, the more efficient regulation of commerce, the expanding use of
credit, organized villas and large estates becoming part of the rural
landscape, the increased consumption of olive oil and wine that
probably promoted monoculture and trade, and improvement in
communications, all of which promoted growth, even if this growth does
not come close to the one we encounter in capitalist societies.

The next two parts deal with the economy of the Roman empire: Part 6
focuses on the economy of Italy and other regions during the Early
Empire, while the chapters of Part 7 are divided geographically and
cover the Roman Principate until the third century. In Part 6 the
contributors -- Kehoe, Morley, Jongman and Lo Cascio -- divided their
pieces according to production, distribution, consumption with the
addition of one chapter on the State economy respectively, which
indicates a turn towards Institutional economics. And yet, almost all
authors move beyond the constraints imposed by the structure and
explore the theme of growth. In the next two chapters on the production
and distribution of goods in the Roman Empire Kehoe and Morley do not
confirm the expectations of Harris that growth would have increased
after the death of Caesar. Instead, Kehoe describes an agriculturally
based economic system, in which only 'middle class' Romans made
substantial profits from trade. On the other hand, the upper classes,
although they were indirectly involved in commercial activities,
focused their efforts mainly on the increase of agricultural
production. Despite the economy's shortcomings, Kehoe acknowledges that
the urban centres promoted the production of ceramics, building
materials and textiles, while parts of agriculture were commercialized.
Similarly, Morley blames the limited integration of the Roman empire on
the domination of the distribution by the State and the elite. However,
he also admits that this intervention may actually have promoted
growth, while no part of the empire remained a self-sufficient cell.
These two authors seem to have moved slightly away from their previous
ideas on the function of the Roman economy, which can be explained if
we take into consideration the general shift in historiography from a
substantivist viewpoint towards a more balanced economic model. In the
next article, Jongman claims that the population increased during the
empire, while the per capita income was higher. At the same time the
living conditions and the diet of the inhabitants became better. In
fact, for the first time in history we notice unprecedented levels of
prosperity. In this case, Jongman does not disagree radically with the
previous two authors. The only difference is that he compares the Roman
Empire with other pre-industrial economies, while Kehoe and Morley seem
to compare it with early Industrial systems. Last but not least, Lo
Cascio assesses the intervention of central institutions in the
development of the economy. Using Hopkins' model of "taxes and trade,"
he comes to the conclusion that, while the economy of Italy reached its
highest limit and then stagnated, the provincial economies flourished
through the export of their products. This piece is in clear contrast
to the view expressed by Morley who believes in the existence of a
strong centre, Rome, and a large number of self-sufficient peripheries.

In Part 7 the editors divided the Empire geographically into four
zones: the East, the West, Egypt and frontiers. The economic models the
authors present range according to the individual characteristics of
the region and/or according to their own beliefs on how the ancient
world operated. The most conservative approach comes from Cherry who
attempts to reconstruct the economies of the northern European, eastern
and north African frontier zones. His article focuses almost
exclusively on the influence of the army on the local economy
(especially on local markets), following closely Michael Crawford's
theories on the subject. Leveau, on the other hand, adopts the
well-known core-periphery economic model in order to explain the
relationship between Rome and its western provinces. In effect, this
model insinuates the dependence of these regions on Rome and their
comparatively inferior economic status; an inferiority that is
accentuated, when compared with the eastern provinces. According to
Leveau, even if the Romans (in their attempt to Romanize the area)
organized the countryside around villas and vici, the role of these
predominately agricultural units was to serve the developing "consumer
cities". The weaknesses of the economies in the western provinces (as
he suggests), may shift the opinions of scholars who used to believe
that growth there remained strong, while in the eastern provinces it
was limited. Similarly, according to Alcock, indicators such as
population increases, the expansion of rural settlements, denser trade
networks, higher per capita income that increased demand and
consumption, and improved living standards, all point towards
accelerated growth in the east. The annexation of the eastern provinces
to the Empire undoubtedly changed the parameters and probably
facilitated the expansion of regional economies. Evidence of maritime
trade presented by Alcock confirms wide patterns of regional and
interregional distribution. However, the extent of these developments
and their impact on the economy cannot be projected with any accuracy.
And in my view, even if growth was less than estimated, this happened
because the East was already in an advantageous position by comparison
with the west.

The article that breaks with current scholarship is the one written by
Rathbone, who places Egypt firmly within the Roman economic system and,
at the same time, moves away from a state-centric economic model.
Although he admits that the state stimulated both consumption and
production, while it regulated the economy, he emphasizes the inflow of
wealth from trade with the east. In this case also, the unifying
Mediterranean market and the urban demands in other provinces became
the main forces of growth. A boom in urbanization during the second
century probably allowed the urban population to create more wealth by
exports to Alexandria or sales to the villages. Simultaneously, the
privatisation of land, labour mobility and the monetization of
transactions were attributes of a free-market economy that stimulated
growth even further. And of course, as in all economies, we observe
periods of affluence and poverty (before and after the Antonine
plague).

As is appropriate the volume finishes with a chapter by Giardina on
"The Transition to Late Antiquity." Here the author assumes that free
trade is the obvious characteristic of modernization and that it is
lacking from late antique society. Instead, we observe that the state's
grip on the economy probably increased from the reign of Diocletian
onward. This change was the result of conditions in the third-century:
a decrease in population, a decrease in cultivated lands, monetary,
political and military crises. Also, the initial co-existence of unfree
labour systems -- the colonus and slavery -- seems to have been
replaced by the regression of the slave mode of production (at least in
the Italian peninsula). Existing evidence cannot prove whether or not
this situation led to an overall economic growth. It is interesting,
though, to note that Giardina's chapter reflects the thought of editors
and the majority of the contributors; emphasizing, in a true
Neoclassical fashion, the importance of free trade for the realization
of growth and the modernization of the economy. According to this
economic school, imperial regulation could only impede 'free' economic
activities that otherwise would have lead to the prosperity of the
population. Bearing in mind, though, the current global economic
crisis, which was triggered by the excessive deregulation of the
private economy, the reader would allow me to remain skeptical.

Table of Contents

1. Ian Morris, Richard P. Saller, W. Scheidel, "Introduction" 1

PART I: DETERMINANTS OF ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE
2. Robert Sallares, "Ecology" 15
3. Walter Scheidel, "Demography" 38
4. Richard P. Saller, "Household and Gender" 87
5. Bruce W. Frier, Dennis P. Kehoe, "Law and Economic Institutions" 113
6. Helmuth Schneider, "Technology" 144

PART II: EARLY MEDITERRANEAN ECONOMIES AND THE NEAR EAST
7. John Bennet, "The Aegean Bronze Age" 175
8. Ian Morris, "Early Iron Age" 211
9. Michael Dietler, "The Iron Age in the Western Mediterranean" 242
10. Robin Osborne, "Archaic Greece" 277
11. Peter R. Bedford, "The Persian Near East" 302

PART III: CLASSICAL GREECE
12. John K. Davies, "Classical Greece: Production" 333
13. Astrid Moeller, "Classical Greece: Distribution" 362
14. Sitta von Reden, "Classical Greece: Consumption" 385

PART IV: THE HELLENISTIC STATES
15. Robartus J. van der Spek, "The Hellenistic Near East" 409
16. Joseph G. Manning, "Hellenistic Egypt" 434
17. Gary Reger, "Hellenistic Greece and western Asia Minor" 460

PART V: EARLY ITALY AND THE ROMAN REPUBLIC
18. Jean Paul Morel, "Early Rome and Italy" 487
19. William V. Harris, "The Late Republic" 511

PART VI: THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE
20. Dennis P. Kehoe, "The Early Roman Empire: Production" 543
21. Neville Morley, "The Early Roman Empire: Distribution" 570
22. Willem M. Jongman, "The Early Roman Empire: Consumption" 592
23. Elio Lo Cascio, "The Early Roman Empire: The State and the Economy"
619

PART VII: REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
24. Philippe Leveau, "The Western Provinces" 651
25. Susan E. Alcock, "The Eastern Mediterranean" 671
26. Dominic W. Rathbone, "Roman Egypt" 698
27. David Cherry, "The Frontier Zones" 720

PART VIII: EPILOGUE
28. Andrea Giardina, "The Transition to Late Antiquity" 743
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Notes:


1.   Horden, P. and Purcell, N., The Corrupting Sea: A Study of
Mediterranean History, London: Blackwell 2000.

2.   Harris, W. (ed.), Rethinking the Mediterranean, Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2005. In the book pay particular attention to Harris's
introduction "The Mediterranean and ancient history".

3.   Eggertsson, T., "The role of transaction costs and property rights
in economic analysis", European Economic Review 24.2 (1990), pp. 40-41.

4.   Finley, M. I., "Technical innovation and economic progress in the
ancient world", The Economic History Review 18.1 (1965), pp. 29-45. For
a revision of this article see Greene, K., "Technological innovation
and economic progress in the ancient world: M.I. Finley reconsidered",
The Economic History Review 53.1 (2003), pp. 29-59.

5.   Finley, M.I., The Ancient Economy, London 1972.

6.   Archibald, Z., Davies, J., Gabrielsen, V. and Oliver, G.J. (edd.),
Hellenistic Economies, London: Routledge 2001.