Roman economy - Knowledge

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commerce in the basic everyday commodities began to decline. Trade began to only take place for the more luxurious commodities, effectively excluding the majority of Romans due to their poverty. Foreign trade was also incredibly significant to the rise and complexity of the Roman economy, and the Romans traded commodities such as wine, oil, grain, salt, arms, and iron to countries primarily in the West. When those countries came under decline in around 2nd century AD, and respective trade between them and the Roman Empire had to cease as a result, this put a dent in the strength of the Roman economy as foreign trade was a major factor of economic growth for the superfluously resourced Empire. Compounded with their inability to make proper production advancements to keep up with their growing and evolving economy, these events hindered Roman trade, limited their array of commodities and harmed the economy.

616: 788: 512: 208: 27: 473: 1299: 974:, a much higher than is implied by the GDP estimates for the whole Empire. Based on the distribution of house sizes from these archaeological remains, he also estimated a distribution of income that implies that Pompeii had a much larger middle-class than would be expected in the Scheidel–Friesen model. His estimates pointed to a level of living standards in Pompeii superior to 19th century Western Europe. He concluded that existing estimates of Roman GDP should be revised upwards. 257: 1515: 859:; urban crafts and services; agriculture; and mining. Convicts provided much of the labour in the mines or quarries, where conditions were notoriously brutal. In practice, there was little division of labour between slave and free, and most workers were illiterate and without special skills. The greatest number of common labourers were employed in agriculture: in the Italian system of industrial farming 1899: 166:) received and held deposits for a fixed or indefinite term and lent money to third parties. Generally, available capital exceeded the amount needed by borrowers and so loans were made and credit was extended on risky terms. The senatorial elite were involved heavily in private lending, as both creditors and borrowers, and made loans from their personal fortunes on the basis of social connections. 1749:) the Roman state under Augustus still spent 640 million sesterces on military costs alone per annum (with total state expenses hovering around 1,000 million). Raoul McLaughlin stresses that "as long as international commerce thrived, the Roman Empire could meet these high-level military costs." A further 25 million sesterces in state revenues was gathered by taxing the Roman 289:; Spain alone had a 40 percent share in world lead production. The high lead output was a by-product of extensive silver mining which reached 200 t per annum. At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, the Roman silver stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of 1546:, customs and tolls on imports and exports, including among provinces. Special taxes were levied on the slave trade. Towards the end of his reign, Augustus instituted a 4% tax on the sale of slaves, which Nero shifted from the purchaser to the dealers, who responded by raising their prices. An owner who 941:

the Mediterranean, such as the Aegean and North Africa are also thought to be more developed than the imperial average in the same period. Estimates of the difference between Italian income levels and the average for the Empire vary from 40, to 66, to 100 percent higher than in the rest of the Empire.

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and its empire during the Republican and Imperial periods remains highly speculative. There are no surviving records of business and government accounts, such as detailed reports of tax revenues, and few literary sources regarding economic activity. Instead, the study of this ancient economy is today

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They were used to convey information about the good and provide an easily recognizable label that attracted consumers to the product. Merchants would hire orators to spread the news of their product on the streets of the Roman cities. Wealthy businessmen would pay people to mention their business in

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is estimated to be higher than the average of the Empire during the Principate, due to a higher degree of urbanization and trade (partly thanks to Mediterranean access compared to the provinces in the imperial periphery), and the concentration of elite income in the heartland. Other regions next to

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The number of dated of shipwrecks discovered provides evidence of the intensity of maritime commerce in the mediterranean sea across different historical periods. One should keep in mind that ships carrying cargoes with marble and ceramic vessels are more likely to be discovered than ships carrying

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issued coinage stamped with their portraits to disseminate propaganda, to create public goodwill, and to symbolize their wealth and power. The Roman Imperial monetary economy often suffered bouts of inflation in part by emperors who issued money to fund high-profile imperial projects such as public

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and centered on the trading of commodities such as grain and wine. Financial markets were established through such trade, and financial institutions, which extended credit for personal use and public infrastructure, were established primarily by interfamily wealth. In times of agricultural and cash

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Whereas the Roman economy was able to thrive in the first few centuries AD thanks to its advanced trade and commerce, the boom was tempered as their ways of conducting business changed drastically. Due to Augustus and the aristocracy holding the large majority of land and wealth in Rome, trade and

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and Nile. Transport by water was preferred where possible, as moving commodities by land was more difficult and much more expensive: during Roman times, travel by sea was 50 to 60 times cheaper than travel by land according to Keith Hopkins. During the Roman period, sea trade in the Mediterranean

115:, such as reductions in long-distance trade, the disruption of mining operations, and the physical transfer of gold coinage outside the empire by invading enemies, greatly diminished the money supply and the banking sector by the year 300. Although Roman coinage had long been fiat money or 1530:

and a tax on their land, construed as a tax on its produce or productive capacity. Supplemental forms could be filed by those eligible for certain exemptions; for example, Egyptian farmers could register fields as fallow and tax-exempt depending on flood patterns of the

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but could not advance in their industrial and manufacturing processes. This ultimately threatened the expanding trading and commerce industries that Augustus brought about, as well as the strong standing of the Empire in the eyes of the Romans and the world.

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was determined by how far a wagon could travel in a day. Mules were the animal most often used for pulling carts, travelling about 6.4 km/h. As an example of the pace of communication, it took a messenger a minimum of nine days to travel to Rome from

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Kron Geoffrey “Comparative evidence and the reconstruction of the ancient economy: Greco-Roman housing and the level and distribution of wealth and income,” in F. de Callataÿ (ed.), Quantifying the Greco-Roman Economy and Beyond, 123-46. Bari: Edipuglia,

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Kron, Geoffrey (2014): “Comparative evidence and the reconstruction of the ancient economy: Greco-Roman housing and the level and distribution of wealth and income,” in F. de Callataÿ (ed.), Quantifying the Greco-Roman Economy and Beyond, 123-46. Bari:

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Kron (2014), Comparative evidence and the reconstruction of the ancient economy: Greco-Roman housing and the level and distribution of wealth and income in F. de Callataÿ (ed.), Quantifying the Greco-Roman Economy and Beyond (Bari: Edipuglia, 2014) pp.

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Low taxes helped the Roman aristocracy increase their wealth, which equalled or exceeded the revenues of the central government. An emperor sometimes replenished his treasury by confiscating the estates of the "super-rich", but in the later period, the

1454:, Egypt) were about 20% wealthier than their mostly Latin-speaking Western counterparts, with Egypt alone being about 28% wealthier. However, Italia, which was not administered as a province, enjoyed a higher per capita income than any one of them. 2646:

Hong, Candelone, Patterson, Boutron 1994, p. 1841–1843; Settle, Patterson 1980, pp. 1170f.; Callataÿ 2005, pp. 361–365 follows the aforementioned authors, but cautions that the Greco-Roman levels may have already been surpassed by the end of the

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captured about 20 percent of income. Another 20 percent went to about 10 percent of the population who can be characterized as a non-elite middle. The remaining "vast majority" produced more than half of the total income, but lived near

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and ground-sluicing, aided by the ability of the Romans to plan and execute mining operations on a large scale, allowed various base and precious metals to be extracted on a proto-industrial scale only rarely, if ever, matched until the

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of 5% was assessed when Roman citizens above a certain net worth left property to anyone but members of their immediate family. Revenues from the estate tax and from a 1% sales tax on auctions went towards the veterans' pension fund

1507:; they might be in effect for a limited time. Tax collection was justified by the need to maintain the military, and taxpayers sometimes got a refund if the army captured a surplus of booty. In-kind taxes were accepted from less- 887:

clothing dealers who were mostly freedmen; or they might be peddled by itinerant merchants. In Egypt, textile producers could run prosperous small businesses employing apprentices, free workers earning wages, and slaves. The

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Textile and clothing production was a major source of employment. Both textiles and finished garments were traded among the peoples of the Empire, whose products were often named for them or a particular town, rather like a

1539:, which required each head of household to appear before the presiding official and provide a head count of his household, as well as an accounting of property he owned that was suitable for agriculture or habitation. 922:

to produce reliable estimates for the national accounts of ancient Rome, thus the estimation of ancient Roman product levels remains speculative. Estimates of the gross domestic product of the Roman economy during the

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and, above all, Spain, with a 40% share in world production alone): Hong, Candelone, Patterson, Boutron 1994, p. 1841–1843; Callataÿ 2005, pp. 361–365; Settle, Patterson 1980, pp. 1170f.; cf. also Wilson 2002, pp.

963:. All cited economic historians stress the point that any estimate can only be regarded as a rough approximation to the realities of the ancient economy, given the general paucity of surviving pertinent data. 260:

World production of lead, estimated from Greenland ice cores, peaked in the 1st century AD, and strongly declined thereafter. World production would only surpass Roman levels in the middle of the 18th century.

3112:(Brill, 2009). Liu sees them as "primarily tradesmen and/or manufacturers engaged in the production and distribution of low- or medium-quality woolen textiles and clothing, including felt and its products." 1437:

The European NDI per capita was higher than in the Asian and African provinces if Italy is included, but without it, the rest of Europe had a lower NDI per capita than the Asian and African provinces. The

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and the concentration of elite income in the heartland; its NDI per capita is estimated at having been between 40% and 66% higher than in the rest of the empire. Besides Italy, the wealthiest province was

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Decimal fractions rounded to the nearest tenth. Italic numbers not directly given by the authors; they are obtained by multiplying the respective value of GDP per capita by estimated population size.

1694:, bringing the total figure for state revenues up to 420 million (which included 40 million from newly conquered Egypt, 40 million from Gaul, and 340 million from all other provinces). The whole of 867:, these may have been mostly slaves, but throughout the Empire, slave farm labour was probably less important than other forms of dependent labour by people who were technically not enslaved. 1582:

Existing literary sources provide only fragmentary evidence regarding Roman state revenues. Some of the existing literary evidence is detailed as follows: With the conclusion of the

758:, despite his intense public and private spending, took control of trade from the government and expanded Roman influence by opening new trading markets in overseas areas such as 54:

mainly based on the surviving archeological and literary evidence that allow researchers to form conjectures based on comparisons with other more recent pre-industrial economies.

1674:, one would readily assume a considerable increase in state revenues was made. The revenues garnered in Egypt in 80 BC alone was seven times the amount of tax money contemporary 561:. The support staff at such a facility included muleteers, secretaries, blacksmiths, cartwrights, a veterinarian, and a few military police and couriers. The distance between 253:, for instance, were no longer available for Roman exploitation after the province was surrendered in 271. Mining seems to have resumed to some extent during the 4th century. 1761: 1741:) was roughly 1,000 million sesterces, allowing the Roman state to garner 250 million sesterces of that figure in tax revenue. Even after the reduction in the number of 883:) who were often well-to-do residents of the production centres. Finished garments might be retailed by their sales agents, who travelled to potential customers, or by 1987:

Temin, Peter. “Financial Intermediation in the Early Roman Empire.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 64, no. 3, 2004, pp. 705–733., www.jstor.org/stable/3874817.

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Parker, A. J. (1992): "Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces", Archaeopress (British Archaeological Reports (BAR) International S.),

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Garnsey, Peter, et al. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture. 2nd ed., University of California Press, 2015, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt9qh25h.

2519:, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 205–235 (216, table 2); Callataÿ, François de (2005): "The Graeco-Roman Economy in the Super Long-Run: Lead, Copper, and Shipwrecks", 2497:, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 205–235 (228, table 6); Callataÿ, François de (2005): "The Graeco-Roman Economy in the Super Long-Run: Lead, Copper, and Shipwrecks", 7140: 229:

The main mining regions of the Empire were Spain (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead); Gaul (gold, silver, iron); Britain (mainly iron, lead, tin), the

1472:. The typical tax rate paid by individuals ranged from 2 to 5%. This tax burden did not include the tax revenues levied by the local cities, called 2359:, Vol. 265, No. 5180, pp. 1841–1843; Callataÿ, François de (2005): "The Graeco-Roman Economy in the Super Long-Run: Lead, Copper, and Shipwrecks", 147:

The setup of the banking system under the Empire allowed the exchange of extremely large sums without the physical transfer of coins, which led to

249:—took place from the reign of Augustus up to the early 3rd century AD, when the instability of the Empire disrupted production. The gold mines of 7108: 7256: 4684: 7327: 5226: 421:

At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, Roman stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of

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than the full total of customers' deposits, as they had no incentive to ensure that customers' deposits would be insured in the event of a

7123: 5268: 5256: 4546:(eds) (2009), Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems, Oxford Studies in the Roman Economy 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1873:

The gladiators owned by Aulus Suettius Certus will fight at Pompeii on May 31. There will be an animal hunt and awnings will be provided.

4068:; Boutron, Claude F. (1994). "Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations". 2436:; Boutron, Claude F. (1994). "Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations". 2406:; Boutron, Claude F. (1994): "Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations", 2353:; Boutron, Claude F. (1994): "Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations", 2193:; Boutron, Claude F. (1994). "Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations". 7155: 7068: 6641: 5315: 4119:; Boutron, Claude F. (1996). "History of Ancient Copper Smelting Pollution During Roman and Medieval Times Recorded in Greenland Ice". 2396:; Boutron, Claude F. (1996): "History of Ancient Copper Smelting Pollution During Roman and Medieval Times Recorded in Greenland Ice", 2328:; Boutron, Claude F. (1996): "History of Ancient Copper Smelting Pollution During Roman and Medieval Times Recorded in Greenland Ice", 7320: 7241: 855:

Work performed by slaves falls into five general categories: domestic, with epitaphs recording at least 55 different household jobs;

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Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy), edited by Alan Bowman, and Andrew Wilson.

5231: 1863:, which is a marketing term referring to the place a brand holds in the customer's minds. They marketed their wine as high-class. 3869: 3842: 3268:

Hopkins 1995/96, pp. 41–75. His estimates are upward revisions from Hopkins 1980, pp. 101–125, where he lays out his basic method.

543:, the state mail and transport service established by Augustus. Relay stations were located along the roads every seven to twelve 7332: 6802: 6603: 5241: 4550: 4543: 4476: 2245: 3661: 801:

Inscriptions record 268 different occupations in the city of Rome, and 85 in Pompeii. Professional associations or trade guilds

285:. Copper was produced at an annual rate of 15,000 t, and lead at 80,000 t, both production levels unmatched until the 7387: 7377: 7180: 7083: 6548: 5236: 4970: 1804:. Goods and products in ancient Rome may have carried inscriptions which were used to advertise other goods and services. Toy 241:(gold, silver); and Asia Minor (gold, silver, iron, tin). Intensive large-scale mining—of alluvial deposits, and by means of 66:

shortfall, Roman officials and moneyers tended to respond by coining money, which happened during the prolonged crisis of the

7337: 6882: 6518: 5343: 4870: 4641: 4572: 4553:(eds) (2012), Settlement, Urbanisation and Population, Oxford Studies in the Roman Economy 2. Oxford University Press, Oxford 4463: 4241: 4019: 3987: 3879: 3852: 3820: 3793: 3671: 3647: 3626: 3602: 3581: 3557: 3536: 3137: 2276: 6608: 6483: 5636: 3171: 948:–Friesen model of Roman national accounts, the total annual income generated by the Empire is placed at nearly 20 billion 508:

reached its pre-modern peak. Vehicles, wheels, and ships indicate the existence of a great number of skilled woodworkers.

317:. The most common fuel by far for smelting and forging operations, as well as heating purposes, was wood and particularly 7236: 6990: 6980: 5189: 2373:, Vol. 207, No. 4436, pp. 1167–1176 (1170f.); cf. also Wilson, Andrew (2002): "Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy", 2334:, Vol. 272, No. 5259, pp. 246–249 (366–369); cf. also Wilson, Andrew (2002): "Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy", 6904: 4860: 4622:- Presentation for the "Long-Term Quantification in Mediterranean Ancient History" conference in October 2009, held in 2620:

World output, the large bulk of which is attributed to Roman silver mining and smelting activities (in Central Europe,

615: 6528: 5288: 4855: 4850: 4826: 4677: 4394: 4251: 4058: 3997: 3909: 2312: 2300: 2288: 7418: 7392: 7352: 7261: 6985: 6761: 6543: 5216: 4865: 4792: 4587: 3783: 1969:

II.17.2 (1981), pp. 752 and 824, and in the same volume, "The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology," p. 908.

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Mogens Herman-Hansen (2006), Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State, Oxford University Press, USA.

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Cleere, H. & Crossley, D. (1995): The Iron industry of the Weald. 2nd edition, Merton Priory Press, Cardiff,

3314: 1667: 856: 2602:): Hong, Candelone, Patterson, Boutron 1996, p. 247; Callataÿ 2005, pp. 366–369; cf. also Wilson 2002, pp. 25–29 7251: 7015: 6925: 6910: 6736: 6726: 6634: 5563: 5488: 5246: 4236:(2007): "Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD. Essays in Macro-Economic History", Oxford University Press, 2833: 601: 3950:

Callataÿ, François de (2005). "The Graeco-Roman Economy in the Super Long-Run: Lead, Copper, and Shipwrecks".

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