The Roman Market Economy

The Roman Market Economy PDF

Author: Peter Temin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0691177945

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What modern economics can tell us about ancient Rome The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity. Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century. The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.

The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans

The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans PDF

Author: W. V. Harris

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-04-29

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 019161517X

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Most people have some idea what Greeks and Romans coins looked like, but few know how complex Greek and Roman monetary systems eventually became. The contributors to this volume are numismatists, ancient historians, and economists intent on investigating how these systems worked and how they both did and did not resemble a modern monetary system. Why did people first start using coins? How did Greeks and Romans make payments, large or small? What does money mean in Greek tragedy? Was the Roman Empire an integrated economic system? This volume can serve as an introduction to such questions, but it also offers the specialist the results of original research.

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy PDF

Author: Walter Scheidel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-11-08

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 0521898226

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Thanks to its exceptional size and duration, the Roman Empire offers one of the best opportunities to study economic development in the context of an agrarian world empire. This volume, which is organised thematically, provides a sophisticated introduction to and assessment of all aspects of its economic life.

The Roman Market Economy

The Roman Market Economy PDF

Author: Peter Temin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 069114768X

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The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity.Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century.The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.

Money - the Root of Global Trade

Money - the Root of Global Trade PDF

Author: Katharina John

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2007-11

Total Pages: 57

ISBN-13: 3638864960

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Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Economics - Monetary theory and policy, grade: 2,0, Vienna University of Economics and Business, course: Seminar Business English, 47 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The transition from barter economic systems to early monetary economies in Europe took place at around 700 BC. Ancient Greece (1000 BC - 323 BC) and afterwards the Roman Republic (509 BC - 44/27 BC) successfully established simple coinage systems with currencies like the denarius that already managed to fulfil the three modern economic functions that distinguish money from all other assets. In line with an ancient "free-market"-regulatory system during the early years of the Roman Empire (44/27 BC - 476 AD) the denarius subsequently paved the way for a tremendous enlargement of foreign trade, thus marking off the beginning of modern "free" trade. On the other hand, the Romans were the first who suffered from the negative aspects and challenges of a market economy: since modern principles as social and income justice as well as price stability were fully disregarded, the Romans were facing financial inequality, hyperinflation, and cultural erosion of their "way of living". Their fiscal and monetary policy harshly failed to finance long-term public expenditure, in particular military expenditures and imperial bribes. This imperfect competitive system is one of the main reasons for the disastrous collapse of the (Western) Roman Empire. However, this erroneous trend cannot only be assessed for ancient market systems: inflation during the years 1914-1923 in the German Reich and Weimar Republic also showed negative economical implications of hyperinflation including intense individual suffering and social impairment. Accompanied by the Black Tuesday of 1929 the German inflation finally fuelled political extremist fractions and amplified distrust towards economic institutions and legitimate democratic authorities.

The Roman Monetary System

The Roman Monetary System PDF

Author: Constantina Katsari

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-02-24

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1139496646

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The Roman monetary system was highly complex. It involved official Roman coins in both silver and bronze, which some provinces produced while others imported them from mints in Rome and elsewhere, as well as, in the East, a range of civic coinages. This is a comprehensive study of the workings of the system in the Eastern provinces from the Augustan period to the third century AD, when the Roman Empire suffered a monetary and economic crisis. The Eastern provinces exemplify the full complexity of the system, but comparisons are made with evidence from the Western provinces as well as with appropriate case studies from other historical times and places. The book will be essential for all Roman historians and numismatists and of interest to a broader range of historians of economics and finance.

The Ancient Economy

The Ancient Economy PDF

Author: Moses I. Finley

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1973

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780520024366

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"The Ancient Economy holds pride of place among the handful of genuinely influential works of ancient history. This is Finley at the height of his remarkable powers and in his finest role as historical iconoclast and intellectual provocateur. It should be required reading for every student of pre-modern modes of production, exchange, and consumption."--Josiah Ober, author of Political Dissent in Democratic Athens

Pliny's Roman Economy

Pliny's Roman Economy PDF

Author: Richard Saller

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-12-05

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0691229562

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"Recent works by economic historians of early modern Europe have argued for a link between encyclopedias of the 18th century and the developments culminating in the Industrial Revolution. Diderot and D'Alembert's great Encyclopedie aimed to disseminate useful knowledge for productive growth and was one of the most visible contributions to what economic historian Joel Mokyr has labelled a "culture of growth." While the Ancient Romans didn't have anything like these encyclopedias, they did have its very popular and acknowledged ancestor, the thirty-seven books of Pliny's Natural History. Much has been written about Pliny's view of nature, his scientific thought, his ideology of empire, and so on, but there has been no comparable effort to probe Pliny's economic views and the impact, if any, of his history on Roman economic growth. In Pliny's Roman Economy, eminent Roman historian Richard Saller aims to bring together the economic observations and instances of financial reasoning scattered throughout the Natural History. Taken together, they do not amount to a discipline of "economics," but, Saller argues they do provide insights into Pliny's views about different forms of production and commerce, about labor and agency, about price formation and profitability, about investment and consumption and about technology. Combined with archaeological and other evidence, Pliny's work can also provide us with one of our best textual pictures of the working of the Roman economy"--