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Article

adaeratio  

Arnold Hugh Martin Jones and Michael Crawford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Law
Adaeratio, the procedure whereby dues to the Roman state in kind were commuted to cash payments. The related word adaerare first appears in ce 383 (Cod. Theod. 7. 18. 8) and the practice is characteristic of the later Roman empire. But it is attested for certain dues supplementary to the standard form of *taxation in Cicero's Verrines and Tacitus' Agricola, along with its attendant abuses. In the later Roman empire the procedure was also applied to distributions by the Roman state in kind. The transaction was sometimes official, sometimes unofficial, and might be made on the initiative of the government, the tax-collector (see publicani), or the taxpayer in the case of levies, or of either party in the case of distributions. The rate might be settled by bargaining, or fixed by the government at the market price or at some arbitrary sum. The range of commodities involved was large. Just as dues and distributions in kind had assumed greater importance because of the collapse of the coinage system in the 3rd cent. ce, so a consciousness of the existence of a stable gold coinage after Constantine led to a slow move back to transactions in money, normally gold, over the late 4th and 5th cents.

Article

aerarii  

Andrew Dominic Edwards Lewis

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Law

Aerarii, payers, were a class of Roman citizens who had incurred the *censors' condemnation for some moral or other misbehaviour. They were required to pay the poll-tax (*tributum) at a higher rate than other citizens. The origin of the class is obscure. Mommsen argued that a payer was originally one who had no landed property and was therefore disqualified from certain public rights such as voting and military service but had to pay the poll-tax in proportion to his means.

Article

aerarium  

Graham Burton

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Law
  3. Roman Material Culture
Aerarium, derived from aes, denotes ‘treasury’. The main aerarium of Rome was the aerarium Saturni, so called from the temple below the Capitol, in which it was placed. Here were kept state documents, both financial and non-financial (including leges (see lex (1)) and *senatus consulta which were not valid until lodged there), and the state treasure, originally mainly of bronze (aes) but including also ingots of gold and silver and other valuables. The *tabularium (1) was built near it in 78 bce.The aerarium was controlled by the quaestors under the supervision of the senate, with a subordinate staff of scribae, *viatores, etc. The *tribuni aerarii, men of a property-class a little below the knights, were probably concerned with making payments from the tribes into the treasury. The aerarium sanctius was a special reserve, fed by the 5 per cent tax on emancipations. Treasure was withdrawn from it in 209 bce and on other occasions.

Article

aes  

Michael Crawford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy

Aes, bronze, also more loosely copper or brass, hence (a) money, coinage, pay, period for which pay is due, campaign; (b) document on bronze. The earliest Roman monetary system involved the weighing out of bronze by the pound or its fractions (see weights); transactions per aes et libram, by bronze and balance, became fossilized in Roman private law as a formal means of transferring ownership. Sums recorded in the sources as ‘so many aeris (gravis, heavy, or rudis, raw)’ are to be taken as intended to mean so many pounds of bronze and then so many coins weighing (more or less) a pound and called asses. In the late 140s bce, the Roman state changed from reckoning in asses to reckoning in sestertii = ¼ denarius = 4 asses each; at this point certain valuations were probably transferred from asses to the same number of sestertii, although the real value was different.

Article

alimenta  

John Percy Vyvian Dacre Balsdon and Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Law
The purpose of the alimentary foundations in the Roman empire was to give an allowance for feeding children, and this was achieved by the investment of capital in mortgage on land, the mortage-interest being paid to, and administered by, cities or state-officials. The system originated in civic *euergetism, the earliest known benefactor being the senator T. Helvius Basila at *Atina in the late Julio-Claudian period (ILS997). A later benefactor, the younger Pliny, who gave a similar endowment to *Comum, has recorded his reasons for doing so (Ep. 7. 18). Inscriptions record similar private benefactions both in Italy and in the provinces, the east included. Gifts from the imperial *fiscus to Italian towns for this purpose were first made by *Nerva and *Trajan. The evidence for the imperial scheme in Italy (continuing at least until the early 3rd cent. ce) comes mainly from honorific inscriptions set up by the beneficiaries and two alimentary tables from Veleia and Ligures Baebiani (ILS 6675; 6509).

Article

amber  

D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Amber, a fossil resin, has a wide natural distribution in northern Europe and is also found in Sicily: so far as is known, the amber from the classical Mediterranean was Baltic. It has been found at Ras Shamra (*Ugarit) and Atchana, and also appears in the terremare (see terramara) in northern Italy. The earliest amber from the classical world comes from the Shaft-Graves at *Mycenae; amber is rare in Minoan Crete. There is evidence for amber workshops as early as the neolithic in the east Baltic area, and during the early and middle bronze age amber travelled from west Jutland across Germany along the rivers to the Po (Padus) and the head of the Adriatic. The trade was probably conducted by central European middlemen who could exchange metal for amber for onward transmission both to the east Mediterranean and westwards to Britain. Amber beads were common throughout bronze age Europe, and reached Brittany, central France, and the Iberian peninsula; a gold-bound amber disc from Isopata (LM III A) and a crescentic necklace from Kakovatos in *Elis (LH II A) have striking British affinities.

Article

annona (grain)  

Paul Erdkamp

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Imperial Rome was by far the largest city of its time, and feeding its populace—about one million according to most estimates—required an ever-watchful eye on the part of the authorities. The system supplying Rome, the armies, and some other cities with grain and other foodstuffs came to be known as the annona. The Roman authorities began to intervene directly in the food supply of the city of Rome in the mid-Republican period. A momentous step in this development was the introduction of the grain distribution (frumentatio) by C. Sempronius Gracchus in 123 bce. In the Principate, the annona became a central feature of the relationship between the emperor and the capital’s inhabitants. At the end of Augustus’s reign the office of the annona came to be headed by a praefectus annonae, who had recourse to a staff of subordinates in Rome, Ostia, and Puteoli. Apart from the produce of the imperial estates, Rome collected tax grain primarily in Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, and from Augustus onwards in Egypt; Rome was then largely sustained by this flow of public grain. The main responsibility of the praefectus annonae was to administer the transportation by means of shipping contracts from the grain provinces to Rome and to curb fraud and speculation on the grain market.

Article

annona (other products)  

Carlos Machado

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2018
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman History and Historiography

The annona was the imperial service responsible for overseeing the supply of key food items to the city of Rome and the army. Primarily concerned with grain, the service became increasingly involved in the provisioning of other commodities, such as olive oil, wine, and pork. By the end of the 3rd century, the annona was a complex machinery involving private and public agents in different parts of the empire, overseen by the prefect of the annona, based in Rome. The operation of this system is documented in literary texts, administrative documents such as papyri and writing tablets, inscriptions, and a rich archaeological record, in Rome and in the provinces. However, the precise working of the system and the degree to which it was controlled by the Roman state remain open to debate. The annona was also involved in the supply of the army, especially with regards to provisions brought from distant producing centres. During the later empire, the system became more centralised, being overseen by the praetorian prefecture.

Article

apodektai  

P. J. Rhodes

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Greek Law
Apodektai (‘receivers’), at Athens, a board of officials who received the state's revenues and, in the 5th cent. bce, paid them into the central state treasury, in the 4th, apportioned them (merizein) as directed by law among separate spending authorities. They were appointed by lot, one from each of the ten tribes or *phylai (Ath.

Article

arbitration, Greek  

Edward Harris and Anna Magnetto

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Greek Law

One of the most important decisions a litigant could make was the choice whether to submit his dispute to a private arbitrator or to go to trial. Private arbitration had several advantages because it provided a more flexible procedure and afforded the possibility of compromise solutions aimed at promoting good relations between the parties. By contrast, a trial was an all-or-nothing procedure, which created winners and losers. Nevertheless, there were disadvantages to private arbitration: the arbitrators might be reluctant to vote against a friend, or one of the parties might not agree to arbitration. Because public officials were not involved, documents might be lost. The institution of public arbitrators retained the advantages of private arbitration but avoided several of the disadvantages. Above all, it aimed to promote good relations between the parties and to avoid a bitter fight in court.

Interstate arbitration is identified by the sources as a genuine Greek tradition, attested to be from the Archaic period, that was employed and fostered by other powers, such as the Hellenistic Kings and Republican Rome. It allowed two parties in conflict to solve disputes by resorting to the judgment of a third party agreed upon by both. Its use contributed to the establishing of forms of international law, encouraging the poleis to identify a set of shared principles and rules, at least for territorial disputes, the most common kind of controversy.

Article

arbitration, Roman  

A. N. Sherwin-White and Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
For private arbitration see D. Roebuck and B. de Loynes de Fumichon, Roman Arbitration (2004). The history of Roman inter-state arbitration begins with the intervention of Rome as a great power in the politics of the Hellenistic world. Rome took the place of the kings who had often acted as international arbitrators between the free cities and leagues of the Greeks. Such disputes were referred to the senate, which decided the general issue, but sometimes left particular points to a third party with local knowledge for settlement. Rome did not, in the earliest period, enforce the acceptance of her arbitral awards. While not abusing her influence, Rome tended to accept the state of affairs at the time when the appellants first came under her influence as the standard of reference. This practice tended, as her authority increased, to merge into the defence of the privileges of her allies. With the formation of provinces and the consolidation of the empire, arbitration lost its international character, since, except by special permission, which was sometimes allowed, notably in Sicily, the subject peoples could not turn elsewhere, even if they wished to, although Rome tolerated the Greek institution of ‘foreign judges’ until well into the 2nd cent. ce (see Greek section, above).

Article

aristocracy, attitudes to  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Élites in Greek and Roman societies were identified in a number of ways, of which the most important and inclusive was the sharing in the appreciation, discussion, and propagation of the cultural values in ideas, literature, and the visual arts which have left us the material that we call ‘Classical’. Occasions for the display of these shared but competitive values, such as the religious *festival, the family celebration, or the shared meal (see symposium; convivium), became central to ancient society.Against this background, more selective definitions of widely variable kinds identified the politically powerful from time to time; no aristocratic group survived for long without a connection with the practice of government. Power-élites of whatever kind usually however included the whole kin-group of the practitioners of public, political life, and were therefore prone to regard the qualities—especially aretē, virtus—which they saw in themselves as justifying their status and its rewards as moral and as hereditary: in this they resemble the blood-aristocracies of other cultures. But the difficulties of self-replacement in the demographic circumstances of antiquity entailed a high incidence of élite vacancy, and upward social mobility to fill the gaps, which further encouraged genealogical pride, real or fictitious, and familial inclusiveness, as well as fostering a culture of intense competitiveness among individual aristocrats along with a very strong sense of personal honour (timē, *philotimia).

Article

artisans and craftsmen  

Cameron Hawkins

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
06 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Greek Material Culture
  3. Roman Material Culture

The social worlds of artisans and craftsmen were structured around skill on both conceptual and practical levels. On a conceptual level, artisans employed skill (τέχνη / ars) as a crucial component of the identities they constructed for themselves—identities that differed distinctly from perceptions of artisans among the elite, who dismissed most craftsmen as “base” manual labourers. On a practical level, the importance of apprenticeship as a tool for the acquisition of skill had a profound impact on the social profile of artisans and craftsmen: while it ensured that skill could be acquired by both free and enslaved artisans, it limited opportunities for women and for children born into households of low economic status. From an economic perspective, the small workshop remained the backbone of artisanal production. The ubiquity of small workshops in the economy can be explained best as the product of artisans’ efforts to respond to the risks created by product markets in which demand was inherently seasonal and uncertain. With some exceptions, artisans sought to mitigate their exposure to risk by minimizing fixed costs, while nevertheless preserving the ability to expand their output in periods of elevated demand. This was true even in industries that fostered specialization in discrete and technically demanding stages of a vertical production process: in these industries, artisans typically coordinated their production not within integrated firms, but rather within subcontracting networks.

Article

associations, Roman  

Koenraad Verboven

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Myth and Religion

Voluntary associations are attested already in early republican times, but they became important especially during the late Republic. Their role in street politics in the 1st century bce led to a general ban and lasting imperial apprehension. Yet by the mid-2nd century ce, important collegia were an essential part of urban public life, participating in processions and ceremonies and having reserved seats in (amphi)theatres. The three central activities of all associations were shared dinners, religious cults, and funerary practices. Religious (and) neighbourhood-based collegia prevailed during the Republic. Professional associations became more important during the Principate as authorities began to use them to facilitate and supervise public works and provisions (particularly for the annona), and for levying taxes. Some collegia received privileges and had extensive funds and property. Professional collegia continued to be important at least until early Byzantine times. Imperial control intensified in late antiquity, but the overall legal framework hardly changed.

Article

Ateste  

D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Ancient Geography

Ateste (mod. Este) has given its name to one of the principal iron age cultures of northern Italy, lasting from the 9th cent. bce until its peaceful annexation by Rome in 184 bce. Until ce 589 it stood on the Adige, now some miles south, and throughout its history thus combined natural advantages for sea-trade, presumably coming through *Atria, with easy access to the land routes round the gulf. Already by the late 7th–early 6th cents. its products were not only reaching *Felsina and the head of the Adriatic, but were also crossing the Alps to Carniola and the Tyrol. Noted for its production of sheet-bronze, particularly of situlae, Ateste was for 800 years the most important commercial and artistic centre of Venetia (see veneti (2)): its commercial position led to the incorporation of foreign (e.g. oriental) elements, via Greek and Etruscan intermediaries, into a distinctive indigenous art-style.

Article

auctions  

Jean Andreau

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 February 2018
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman History and Historiography
An auction is a type of sale consisting of a public competition between several buyers; whoever bids the highest price obtains the object being sold. Such auctions existed in the Greek as well as in the Roman world. Some were organized by the public authorities, while others were organized by individuals selling some of their goods at auction. In Roman Italy, these private auctions served a commercial function. In addition, they facilitated the sale of guarantees for unrepaid loans; likewise, they facilitated the management of private inheritance and estates. Between the 2nd century bce and the 3rd century ce, professional bankers regularly participated in these private auctions by providing credit to the buyers.An auction is a procedure consisting of a public competition between several potential buyers. It was a common practice in Greco-Roman antiquity. The object being sold was awarded to the highest bidder, and he alone paid the object’s full price to the seller. Scholars do not know when auctions first began. They are well attested in the Classical Greek period, as well as in the Hellenistic world and in Rome. In Roman Italy, Plautus and Cato the Elder (in .

Article

baking, Roman  

Jared T. Benton

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 November 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Science, Technology, and Medicine
  3. Roman Material Culture
The earliest Roman bakers almost certainly made bread for their own households, but not for sale to the public. Pliny the Elder tells us in his Natural History (18.28) that among the quirites of Rome’s past, women baked the family’s bread, an observation he bases on comparisons with contemporary non-Roman peoples. Yet modes of domestic production were probably as diverse as the families themselves; early terracotta figurines from the eastern Mediterranean show women, men, and children all participating in the production of bread (Fig. 1).Moreover, the figurine shows both milling and baking, processes that remained interlinked until the end of antiquity. Even later commercial bakers seem also to have been millers. Medieval bakers, however, rarely milled their own grain. To some extent, this resulted from the advent of new technologies such as watermills and windmills, but the watermill, at least, was available from the 1st century bce onward (Vitr.

Article

banks  

Paul C. Millett

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
In antiquity banks supplied a selection of the services familiar from their modern counterparts. None the less, the essential banking function, receipt of deposits which might then be lent at interest to a different set of customers, appears only fleetingly in ancient texts (Dem. 36. 11). Many temples, both Greek and Roman (e.g. *Apollo on *Delos, *Castor and Pollux at Rome) took deposits and even lent money; but deposits remained untouched and cash was lent from the temple's own funds. Similarly, moneylenders who lent from their own resources, even on a regular basis, were not bankers; nor were usurers, specializing in short-term, high-interest loans of small sums—the common Greek term is obolostatēs (‘a lender of obols’). Banking in the Greek world appears to have evolved out of professional money-changing: a response to the multiplicity of state coinages (trapezitēs or ‘banker’ refers to the trapeza or changer's table). Changers, and presumably bankers, existed all over the Classical and Hellenistic Greek worlds, but our knowledge is concentrated in Athens, where, from the 4th cent. bce, the names are known of some twenty bankers.

Article

bee-keeping  

John Ellis Jones

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Bee-keeping had the same importance for antiquity that sugar production has now. Honey-gathering preceded the culture of bees which began perhaps in the mesolithic period. The evidence for bee-keeping in classical antiquity is mainly literary, ranging in time from Hesiod onwards and in content from incidental allusions to codifications of the practical experience of Greek, Roman, and Carthaginian bee-masters (Arist. Hist. an. 5. 21–2, 9. 40; Gen. an. 3. 10; Varro, Rust. 3. 16; Verg. G. 4; Columella, 9. 2–16; Plin. HN 11. 4–23); Hellenistic monographs (e.g. Aristomachus of Soli, Philiscus of Thasos) are lost. *Solon introduced regulations for bee-keepers (Plut. Sol. 23. 8). Greek cities (*Teos, Theangela in *Caria) and Ptolemaic Egypt had taxes on bee-keeping and stimulated honey-production. Varieties of breeds and methods were developed, especially in Hellenistic times. Attica (Hymettus), Theangela (in *Caria), *Cos, *Calymnos, *Rhodes, *Lycia, Coracesium, *Thasos, *Cyprus, *Syria, *Sicily (*Megara Hyblaea), *Liguria, *Noricum, and southern *Spain produced and exported the best honey.

Article

beer and brewing  

Travis Rupp

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2020
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Beer was a staple of ancient diets, extending from the ancient Near East to Egypt and from the Greek Aegean to Rome. The brewing process developed in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Israel, while industrialized production of beer continued in Egypt. However, in Greek and Roman culture, discussions and acceptance of beer are not as prevalent in the composed texts of the elite populace. These authors avoid or degrade the topic. Though no one word for beer universally translates in ancient Greek and Latin languages, further examination has demonstrated that beer was a nutritional necessity and was produced in Greek and Roman history; yet, the resilience of beer is largely attributed to peoples living on or beyond the boundaries of Greek and Roman dominion. Their direct contact with Rome’s legions compelled beer’s development even without a full embrasure from aristocratic elites. Combining art, architecture, archaeology, and literature, a comprehensive story for the existence and permanence of beer is told from 9500 bce to 500 ce.