BMCR 2009.08.34: Geraci on Andreau, Vocabulaire et expression de l'e/conomie dans le monde antique. E/tudes, 19

Jean Andreau, Ve/ronique Chankowski (ed.), Vocabulaire et expression de
l'e/conomie dans le monde antique. E/tudes, 19.  Pessac:  Ausonius,
2007.  Pp. 463.  ISBN 9788910023920.  EUR 35.00.

Reviewed by Giovanni Geraci, Department of Ancient History, University
of Bologna ([email protected])
Word count:  1640 words
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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

This book is the product of a joint research effort which has been
going on since 2000, the first installment of which was the volume
"Mentalite/s et choix e/conomiques des Romains", published in
2004.[[1]] Its ultimate aim is both to enlarge and to deepen our
present understanding of economic behaviour and attitudes in the
ancient Near East, Greece and Rome. The stress is on how the Ancients
saw what we call economics and economic activity. The editors in their
'Introduction' insist that they do not claim that a vocabulary
specifically devoted to economic matters ever existed in antiquity.
That is why they chose to enlarge the investigation field to social
structures, identities, hierarchies and ideologies.

The first part ('Identite/ sociale et expression de l'e/conomie') deals
mainly with the vocabulary of commerce, trade and related occupations.

Laetitia Graslin ('Le vocabulaire des e/changes dans les textes
me/sopotamiens d'e/poque ne/o-babylonienne ') considers the written
sources of the second half of the first millennium B.C. , the period
which offers the best comparison with other periods of antiquity. The
accounts and receipts from temple archives are studied for mentions of
both local and long-distance commerce and for expressions of purchase,
exchange and price. The author stresses that these are not yet clearly
distinct from notions like barter or gift.

Paul Karvonis ('Le vocabulaire des installations commerciales en Gre\ce
aux e/poques classique et helle/nistique') scrutinizes the meaning and
functions of place names linked to commerce, like 'agora' (with the
particular locations where specific products were sold), 'kukloi',
'deigma', 'ergasterion', 'apotheke' and so on, ending with very general
designations like 'stoa' or 'oikema' or 'oikia'. Lastly he draws up a
list of terms connected to craft or trade activities on the one hand or
storage on the other hand.

Jean-Baptiste Yon ('Les commerc,ants du Proche-Orient: de/signation et
vocabulaire') gathers together and discusses representations of
Oriental traders in literary sources and then compares them with
epigraphical dossiers from Athens, Delos and the Roman West. Secondly,
he studies the small traders of Roman and protobyzantine Syria, ending
with the large and long-distance trade of Dura and Palmyra.

Koenraad Verboven ('Ce que negotiari et ses de/rive/s veulent dire')
scrutinizes in depth the meaning of 'negotiari' and 'negotiator' in the
various fields of economic activities: 'mercatura', 'faeneratio' and
finance, agriculture, industry, services and taxation. He then
considers the social implications of using these terms.

Nicolas Tran ('La mention e/pigraphique des me/tiers artisanaux et
commerciaux dans l'e/pigraphie de l'Italie centro-me/ridionale') looks
for the economic, social or personal reasons that induced people to
mention occupations in the epigraphical sources of Central and Southern
Italy.

The second part of the book ('La manifestation des hie/rarchies
sociales dans le vocabulaire et ses enjeux ide/ologiques') is mainly
centred on the question of how social hierarchies are reflected in
vocabulary, in order also to stress the links between this particular
aspect and economic matters in general.

Sylvie Pittia ('L'invisible hie/rarchie censitaire romaine') runs
through the census organisation of Rome, the attribution of Roman
citizens to census classes and the use of contrasting 'classicus' and
'adsiduus' with 'proletarius' or 'capite census'. She underlines the
difficulty in understanding why such an archaic division was mantained
in later times and also stresses the impossibility of finding it in
daily Roman life.

Along similar lines, Jean-Manuel Roubineau ('Les hekte/mores') attempts
to understand the specific meaning of the technical word 'hektemoroi'.
He concludes that the 'hektemoroi' are agricultural workers who are
compelled to be in service by their creditors, who keep part of their
salary in repayment of their debts.

Clara Berrendonner ('Mercennarius dans les sources litte/raires')
sketches the ethical and economic implications of the term
'mercennarius', exploring its juridical connections and also looking at
manual labour in large-scale agricultural activities (like vintage,
crop harvesting or oil making within the villa system), where the
boundaries among juridic categories are often slight.

Jean Andreau ('Remarques sur le quaestus') goes through the economic
and social aspects of three different meanings of 'quaestus' (the first
two much more 'social' -- as related to one's milieu -- and less
'economic' then the third): 1) the behaviour of common people to earn
their daily bread; 2) the supplementary income of the nobility's
estate; 3) the sums gained from the selling of products. The last issue
appears only in the early imperial period.

Andre/ Tchernia ('Le plebiscitum Claudianum') develops some further
reflections on the plebiscitum of 219-218 B.C., which forbade senators
to own a sea-going vessel bringing more than 300 amphoras. Returning to
the meaning of 'quaestus', Tchernia puts the measure within the
political and social framework of the polemical struggle towards the
Punic (commercial and 'chrematistic') maritime way of enrichment and
looks at the moral necessity to prevent senators participating in
contracts for transporting government grain.

Monique Dondin-Peyre ('La place de l'e/conomie dans l'expression
e/pigraphique des notables des trois Gaules') scrutinizes the
epigraphic habit of Gallic provinces in order to discover the ways to
express nobility and/or richness and the relation between the two.

The third and last part of the book focuses on fiscality. Its aim is
not to describe in detail the taxation systems of the Greek and Roman
world, but to analyze through fiscal vocabulary the economic thought
and logic that lie over and beyond them. That is why in particular the
first two papers (by Chankowski and France) were conceived in fully
similar terms ('Les cate/gories du vocabulaire de la fiscalite/ dans
les cite/s grecques' and 'Les cate/gories du vocabulaire de la
fiscalite/ dans le monde romain').

Ve/ronique Chankowski starts by underlining the distinctions between
'prosodoi' and 'poroi', and then contrasts 'phoroi' and 'tele', and
goes on to develop a very clever sketch of tax categories and tax
systems, addressing also the problem of the interrelations between
royal and civic taxation. She ends by considering whether it is useful
and proper to apply to such a field the vocabulary and categories used
to describe and class modern taxation systems.

In his parallel essay on Roman fiscality Je/ro^me France shows the
transition from the 'imperial republic' to 'tributary empire' and
discusses concepts like 'stipendium' and 'tributum', 'vectigal',
'stipendiarius' and 'vectigalis' in their evolution from their
republican meaning to their imperial development. Very interesting also
in this paper is the attempt to compare modern vocabulary and ancient
tax categories, with examples drawn from modern French historiography
and classifications, which leads to a very useful proposal for
classifying Roman contributions.

Isabelle Pernin ('L'impo^t foncier existait-il en Gre\ce ancienne?')
scrutinizes the sources in order to check Boeckh's claim that there
existed in Ancient Greece no form of direct taxation and in particular
no example of taxes on real property. She identifies the majority of
impositions quoted as taxes on land products and tries to connect the
very few (and much discussed) cases of taxes on land with exceptional
contributions due to some exceptional reasons.

The paper of Jean-Jacques Aubert ('Le vocabulaire de la fiscalite/ en
E/gypte gre/co-romaine') is just a brief sketch of the taxation system
in Roman Egypt and its wording, mostly in order to show how a difficult
and complex task it is to study it through the richness of the
papyrological sources.

Laurianne Martinez-Se\ve ('L'expression de la fiscalite/ chez Flavius
Jose\phe') shows Flavius Josephus' interest in the fiscality of the
different periods treated in his works, going from taxes connected with
cult or religion, through the categories of 'phoroi' and 'tele', to
Roman tributes. A very useful summary table of the different taxation
types with reference to the relevant passages is appended.

Roland Delmaire ('Le vocabulaire de l'exemption fiscale dans la
le/gislation du bas-empire romain') looks at the vocabulary of
exemption from taxes in Late Roman Empire, exploring issues like
'immunitas', 'relevatio', 'absolutio', 'excusatio', 'relaxatio',
'remissio' and 'vacatio'.

The book is enriched by many useful and detailed indexes (references to
literary, juridical, epigraphic and papyrological sources; Greek and
Latin words; topics) which are a precious aid to the reader.

To sum up, this is a very good work of interest both for facing
theoretical and technical issues and for showing how the ancient
'economic' theories are deeply embedded and rooted in societies'
schemes and conceptions.

Table of Contents:

J. Andreau / V. Chankowski: Introduction (I-V).
1. Identite/ sociale et expression de l'e/conomie:
- L. Graslin: Le vocabulaire des e/changes dans les textes
me/sopotamiens d'e/poque ne/o-babylonienne (11-33);
- P. Karvonis: Le vocabulaire des installations commerciales en Gre\ce
aux e/poques classique et helle/nistique (35-49);
- J.-B. Yon: Les commerc,ants du Proche-Orient: de/signation et
vocabulaire (51-87);
- K. Verboven: Ce que negotiari et ses de/rive/s veulent dire (89-118);
- N. Tran: La mention e/pigraphique des me/tiers artisanaux et
commerciaux dans l'e/pigraphie de l'Italie centro-me/ridionale
(119-141).
2. La manifestation des hie/rarchies sociales dans le vocabulaire et
ses enjeux ide/ologiques:
- S. Pittia. L'invisible hie/rarchie censitaire romaine (145-175);
- J.-M. Roubineau: Les hekte/mores (177-209);
- C. Berrendonner: Mercennarius dans les sources litte/raires
(211-231);
- J. Andreau: Remarques sur le quaestus (233-251);
- A. Tchernia: Le plebiscitum Claudianum (253-278);
- M. Dondin-Payre: La place de l'e/conomie dans l'expression
e/pigraphique des notables des trois Gaules (279-293).
3. Le vocabulaire fiscal: terminologie et classifications:
- V. Chankowski: Les cate/gories du vocabulaire de la fiscalite/ dans
les cite/s grecques (299-331);
- J. France: Les cate/gories du vocabulaire de la fiscalite/ dans le
monde romain (333-368);
- I. Pernin: L'impo^t foncier existait-il en Gre\ce ancienne?
(369-383);
- J.-J. Aubert: Le vocabulaire de la fiscalite/ en E/gypte
gre/co-romaine (385-397);
- L. Martinez-Se\ve: L'expression de la fiscalite/ chez Flavius
Jose\phe (399-421);
- R. Delmaire: Le vocabulaire de l'exemption fiscale dans la
le/gislation du bas-empire romain (423-431).
Index des sources (433-452).
Index des mots grecs et latins (453-455).
Index des matie\res (457-463).
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Notes:


1.   It is worth noting that in Italy in the same year appeared A.
Storchi Marino (ed.), Economia, amministrazione e fiscalita\ nel mondo
romano. Ricerche lessicali, Bari 2004, a work that is fruitful to
compare and to read together with the book here reviewed.