Ancient Economy

Cyprus, third largest Mediterranean island (9,282 sq. km.: 3,584 sq. mi.) was of strategic and economic importance to the Mediterranean and near eastern powers, and significant both to their relations with western Asia and with one another. It is vulnerable to the power politics of its neighbours, by one or other of whom it has often been occupied or governed, and whose mutual conflicts have sometimes been fought out on its soil or its seas. Though mountainous (the highest points on its Troödos and Kyrenia ranges are 1,951 and 1,023 m. (6,403 and 3,357 ft.) respectively), its central plain (Mesaoria) is fertile, while its extensive piedmont and river-valley systems are suited to crop and animal husbandry. The island suffers intermittently from serious seismic disturbance. Rainfall is uncertain, drought endemic, and fertility dramatically responsive to irrigation capacity. Copper ore, chiefly located in the Troödos foothills at the junction of igneous and sedimentary deposits, has been exploited since prehistory. Timber resources played a major role in the region's naval history.

Most currency systems in classical antiquity used precious metals at standardized weights and/or fineness. Debasement describes reductions in currency standards, whether such reductions were openly declared or hidden, or whether they were enacted by legitimate minting authorities or counterfeiters. Some debasements may have been unintentional, the result of imprecisions in the minting process. Often, however, debasements were carried out on purpose and for a wide range of reasons—in response to crises such as wars or famines, or as part of a larger economic or monetary reform. Contemporary responses to debasements varied. Coin-users and money specialists developed techniques to assess the quality of coins. Some polities enacted legal tender laws—sometimes to discourage the use of debased counterfeit coins, but often to require the use of legitimate coinage after it had been debased. The scholarly study of changes in coin standards continues to provide insights into both the practical workings of ancient monetary systems and the abstract notions of value, acceptability, and other embedding frameworks that governed the use of ancient coinage.

People’s life courses are shaped by the complex interactions of contextual factors, of individual behavior, and of opportunities and constraints operating at the macro level. Demography studies these processes with a focus on particular transitions in the life course: birth, leaving home, marriage, and other transitions in civil status (divorce, remarriage, and transitions into widowhood), the birth and survival of offspring, migration, and finally the end of the life cycle—death.

Initial work on the ancient world focussed primarily on macro-level data, trying to establish overall trends in population development on the basis of census figures and other population estimates. This approach has received further impetus with the advent of survey demography (see Population Trends). More recently, attention has turned to single events in the life course. Core demographic studies have attempted to establish patterns and rates of marriage, fertility, migration, and mortality. Others have taken a complementary approach with a stronger focus on qualitative data. These support investigation of sociological, cultural, and economic aspects of demographic phenomena. The remainder of this article focusses on a concise evaluation of current understanding of marriage, fertility, migration, mortality, and population trends in the ancient Greco-Roman world.

Docimium was a city in *Phrygia, about 25 km. (15 ½ mi.) north-east of modern Afyon. It was named after a Macedonian founder, Docimus, and was one of the rare Hellenistic settlements of central Phrygia. Under the Roman empire it was known principally for its marble *quarries, which were under imperial control from the time of Tiberius, and which produced enormous quantities of white and polychrome (pavonazetto) *marble. This was used for large-scale imperial building projects, for instance in *Trajan's forum at Rome, and widely for prestige civic building in Asia Minor, for instance for the theatre at Hierapolis. Sculpture workshops attached to the quarries were also responsible for making elaborate, decorated *sarcophagi, which were sold both inside and outside Asia Minor, and for producing free-standing sculpture during the 2nd and 3rd cents. ce.

The Greeks and Romans did not develop a concept of “the economy” or discuss economic matters at any length; the study of the ancient economy therefore began only in the late 18th century, in parallel with the developing study of contemporary economic development, and was heavily influenced from the beginning by the question of the relationship between antiquity and modernity. The field has long been dominated by two different but closely connected debates about the nature and degree of development of the ancient economy (was it “primitive” or, on the contrary, proto-modern?) and about the correct theoretical and methodological tools for studying it, with constant anxieties about the dangers of anachronism. A notable trend has been the increasing weight given to material as compared with literary evidence, as archaeologists have accumulated ever greater information about economic activity, leading to calls in recent years to focus on ancient economic performance rather than on the structures of culture and thought that supposedly inhibited ancient development.

Energy and power are closely related concepts: energy implies the capacity to do work, and power affects the rate at which work is done (energy transmitted per unit of time). The availability of energy, and the rates at which that energy can be converted into heat or mechanical work, for example, constitute fundamental limits to the performance of any economy.

“Energy” derives from the Greek ἐνέργεια. The word is used by Diodorus Siculus ( 20.95.1 ) for the motive power of one thousand men pushing a battering ram, but for the most part it means “action” or “operation.” In Latin, energia is used by Jerome (Ep. 53.2) to describe the power of a living voice, but it is largely a medieval term. Latin offers a wide range of words for “force” or “power” in a more general sense, such as vis or potentia, which could be used for physical force, but not in the abstract sense in which “energy” can be used. This perspective on the ancient world, and the importance of energy and power, is a wholly modern one.