Rome's Imperial Economy: Twelve Essays
W. V. Harris
Abstract
Imperial Rome has a name for wealth and luxury, but was the economy of the Roman Empire as a whole a success, by the standards of pre-modern economies? This book includes chapters on this much-argued subject, with additional comments to bring them up to date. A new study of poverty and destitution provides a fresh perspective on the question of the Roman Empire's economic performance, and a substantial introduction ties the collection together. The book tackles difficult but essential questions, such as how slavery worked, what role the state played, whether the Romans had a sophisticated mone ... More
Imperial Rome has a name for wealth and luxury, but was the economy of the Roman Empire as a whole a success, by the standards of pre-modern economies? This book includes chapters on this much-argued subject, with additional comments to bring them up to date. A new study of poverty and destitution provides a fresh perspective on the question of the Roman Empire's economic performance, and a substantial introduction ties the collection together. The book tackles difficult but essential questions, such as how slavery worked, what role the state played, whether the Romans had a sophisticated monetary system, what it was like to be poor, whether they achieved sustained economic growth. It shows that in spite of notably sophisticated economic institutions and the spectacular wealth of a few, the Roman economy remained incorrigibly pre-modern and left a definite segment of the population high and dry.
Keywords:
Imperial Rome,
Roman Empire,
pre-modern economies,
poverty,
destitution,
economic performance,
monetary system,
economic growth
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199595167 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199595167.001.0001 |
