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V. Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

The accession of Augustus inaugurated an era of relatively stable government, the basic condition for economic recovery and expansion. The new regime was dedicated to the cause of civil peace and the pacification of Rome’s enemies. The success of this policy furthered internal economic development and, insofar as it expanded the territory under Roman control, extended.the economic horizons of the empire. The settlement of substantial numbers of Italian soldier colonists in northern Italy or abroad, moreover, promoted the recovery of central and southern Italy, now relieved of intense pressure on the land, and furthered the development of more thinly populated areas of the empire. It is unnecessary to hold that Augustus had a clear and coherent policy of stimulating economic expansion. But he did create the conditions under which economic life could flourish. After his reign the empire suffered no major calamities except for the civil war of 68-69 and the ensuing revolt of Civilis, and it faced only a limited threat from across the frontiers. The Pax Romana was by and large uninterrupted.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 15: The Early Principate: Augustus to Trajan , 1982 , pp. 28 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

Notes

1. Hence the gratitude of the traders in Suet. Aug. 98.

2. On population levels see briefly Hopkins (1980), 118 and n. 52, with bibl.

3. For general accounts of the economy see Brunt, P. A., Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic (London, 1971), pp. 20–41 Google Scholar; Finley (1973); Hopkins (1978a) and (1980).

4. See Finley (1965); Landels (1978).

5. Thus, e.g., if one bears in mind the use of slaves as ‘agents’, the lack of a law of agency is not a serious defect of Roman commerce. See Crook (1967), pp. 241 ff.

6. Where slaves were employed in firms larger than the family, as for example in Italy in the pottery industry, owners would have been looking for higher returns through higher labour productivity to pay for the none-too-cheap investment that slaves represented. See e.g. Pucci, G., ‘La produzione della ceramica aretina’, DdA 7 (1973), 255 Google Scholar ff., still useful despite recent reinterpretation of the sources of ‘Arretine’ terra sigillata (much of that which found its way to the northern frontiers was made in Lyon and Pisa).

7. See Hopkins (1980), which is convincing on the danger of underestimating the level of trade (103), less so in arguing for commercial expansion (105 ff.) (a plausible hypothesis nonetheless). But the latter arguments, if successful, establish increased commercial activity in the mid-to-late Republic, not in our period.

8. Pliny HN 18.172 (wheeled plough); 261 (scythe); 296 cf. Palladius 7.2.2-4 (mechanical reaper). All are ascribed to Gaul, and the last two said to be labour-saving. On Britain see the summary of Applebaum, S., in Finberg, H. P. R., ed. The Agrarian History ofEnglandand Wales I. ii (Cambridge, 1972), p. 239 Google Scholar. On agricultural technology in general, White, K. D., Agricultural Implements of the Roman World (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

9. See Whittaker in Garnsey (1980), ch. 9; cf. Harris in D’Arms/Kopff (1980), 133, n. 5.

10. Heitland (1921), chh. 42-3;Tenney Frank(1933-40), V 297; Rostovtzeff (1957), pp. 198 ff.; Sherwin-White, A. N., Letters of Pliny (Oxford, 1960), pp. 256-7Google Scholar, 520-22.

11. Potter, T. M., Changing Landscapes in southern Etruria (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Barker, G., et al., ‘A Classical Landscape in Molise’, PBSR 33 (1978), 35–51 Google Scholar.

12. See Tchernia in D’Arms/Kopff (1980), plausible on the end of Dr. 2-4 and convincing on continuity of production. On the vine-edict, note a) the edict is discriminatory as between Italy and the provinces, but this does not make it protectionist; b) the edict was not enforced, or not for long (Suet.);c) the edict, if Eusebius’ data are accepted (Chron. ed. Schoene II, pp. 160 f.), is close in time to the decree of Rusticus ( cf.Robinson, , TAPA 55 (1924), 5–20 Google Scholar: A.D. 92 or 93) relating to a famine in Pisidian Antioch. The famine of Revelations 6.5 ff. may be Neronian rather than Domitianic.

13. Finley (1976); (1980), ch. 4; Garnsey (1980).

14. Harris (1980) (n. 9).

15. Painter, K., ed., Roman Villas in Italy: recent excavations and research (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Potter (n. 11); G. Barker, et al. (n. 11). The picture that emerges from the limited amount of recent archaeological activity (especially in Etruria, the Molise, Campania, and Latium) is very confused. Our impression is that there was a gradual transformation of the Italian landscape taking place under the Principate, with no major turning-points before the third century.

16. See Duncan-Jones (1974), ch. 7.

17. Finley (1973), ch. 6; Hopkins (1980).

18. See Rickman, G., The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar; and for a different approach, Finley (1973), p. 159.

19. Jones (1974), ch. 8, with Brunt’s addenda; Hopkins (1980).

20. Contrasting views in Crawford (1970), Hopkins (1980), E. Lo Cascio, ‘State and Coinage in the Late Republic and Early Empire’, JRS 71 (1981).