Colin Elliott - Indiana University (original) (raw)
Books by Colin Elliott
Princeton University Press, 2024
In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor... more In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, now known as the Antonine plague, may have been history’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall. In Pox Romana, historian Colin Elliott offers a comprehensive, wide-ranging account of this pivotal moment in Roman history.
Did a single disease—its origins and diagnosis still a mystery—bring Rome to its knees? Carefully examining all the available evidence, Elliott shows that Rome’s problems were more insidious. Years before the pandemic, the thin veneer of Roman peace and prosperity had begun to crack: the economy was sluggish, the military found itself bogged down in the Balkans and the Middle East, food insecurity led to riots and mass migration, and persecution of Christians intensified. The pandemic exposed the crumbling foundations of a doomed Empire. Arguing that the disease was both cause and effect of Rome’s fall, Elliott describes the plague’s “preexisting conditions” (Rome’s multiple economic, social, and environmental susceptibilities); recounts the history of the outbreak itself through the experiences of physician, victim, and political operator; and explores postpandemic crises. The pandemic’s most transformative power, Elliott suggests, may have been its lingering presence as a threat both real and perceived.
Cambridge University Press, 2020
Modern economics tantalizes historians, promising them a set of simple verbal and mathematical fo... more Modern economics tantalizes historians, promising them a set of simple verbal and mathematical formulas to explain and even retrospectively predict historical actions and choices. Colin P. Elliott challenges economic historians to rethink the way they use economic theory. Building upon the approaches of Max Weber, R. G. Collingwood, Ludwig von Mises and others, Elliott reconceptualizes economic theories such as the quantity theory of money and Gresham’s law as heuristic constructs – constructs which help historians identify and understand the unique modes of thought and embedding contexts which characterized economic action in the Roman Empire. The book offers novel analyses of key events in Roman monetary history, from Augustus’ triumph over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, to third-century AD coinage debasements. Roman history has long been a battleground for polarizing methodological debates, but this book’s accessible style and conciliatory tone invites historians, economists, sociologists and other scholars to use economic theory for understanding.
Articles by Colin Elliott
Classical Review, 2023
Fundamentally, Roman economic history is the study of how and why inhabitants of the Roman world ... more Fundamentally, Roman economic history is the study of how and why inhabitants of the Roman world produced, distributed and exchanged goods and services. By understanding the economic actions, events, institutions and products of the Roman world, Roman economic historians come to understand better the Romans themselves: their motivations, values, relationships and identities, among other things. With such a broad remit, today's Roman economic and monetary historians not only scour traditional sources for evidence of Roman commerce, prices, labour, capital and contracts, but they now deploy an ever-broadening range of methodologies, theories and approachessome of which originate well outside the disciplines of both history and economics. Some Roman economic historians, for example, create, investigate and run simulations, using massive digital archives of data gleaned from ancient evidence. Others compare micro-nutrients in ancient wheat varieties with their modern counterparts to gain a better understanding of diet, nutrition and economic prosperity in Roman cities. Increasingly, specialists in some aspect of the Roman economy find themselves members of internationally funded interdisciplinary teams seeking to understand what Arctic ice cores or North-American tree rings say about money production in the Roman principate. Roman economic historians' scholarly sprawl has never been more challenging to describe, but I believe it is possible to group recent developments in the field into three overlapping areas: digitisation, particularisation and consilience. Over the past few decades troves of ancient texts and objects have been translated into formats that can be easily accessed, organised, manipulated and even simulated via computer. The digital revolution was both rapid and comprehensive. Until only very recently, for example, most information concerning Roman coinagecoin types, die studies, hoard descriptionslay locked in dense volumes in dark and dusty corners of university libraries. The same could be said of inscriptions, papyri and many other types of ancient sources. From the mid-1990s onwards, however, both amateurs and professionals in piecemeal fashion migrated such information into various digital databases (such as those found at Nomisma [nomisma.org], Epigraphic Database Heidelberg [edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/] or the Oxford Roman Economy Project [oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk]; an exhaustive list, with commentary, is found in R. Bagnall and S. Heath, 'Roman Studies and Digital Resources', JRS 108 [2018]). Now scholars are less likely to perform cutting-edge research in museum collections, libraries and archives; often, all one needs is a laptop, a comfortable spot in a coffee shop and a good internet connection. Such accessibility has many benefits, even for those who engage with the Roman economy through physical books. Two recent works are illustrative. C. Rowan's From Caesar to Augustus (c. 49 BC-AD 14) (2019) and L. Yarrow's The Roman Republic to 49 BCE (2021) are flush with coin images taken from digital archives with minimal copyright restrictions. Both books also rely heavily on recent numismatic data to support fresh perspectives on otherwise well-trodden Roman historiography. To take one theme as an example: it is debated whether Roman coin iconography should be thought of as 'propaganda'. Back when coin images were expensive and difficult to procure, and therefore rarely seen in high numbers in a single book, it might have been easy to underappreciate the dazzling assault of politically and ideologically charged iconography in Roman coinage from the THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
Capital in Classical Antiquity, 2022
When Octavian returned to Rome in the summer of 29 BCE, he enjoyed a triumphal procession accompa... more When Octavian returned to Rome in the summer of 29 BCE, he enjoyed a triumphal procession accompanied by a series of massive monetary pay-outs. Not only did these payments directly and disproportionately benefit elites but they did so before land values and prices could adjust to the changes in the money supply, and therefore became reflected in the overall price structure. Thus, those who owned Italian land were given a period of time in which the spending power of their cash, the returns on their capital and their expanded access to credit silently transferred real wealth away from economic consumers. The monetary intervention shifted real economic resources (labour, land and ultimately future consumption as the new investments moved down the chain of production) towards servicing elite investments and interests.
American Historical Review, 2021
The Egyptian experience of monetization—especially during the Roman period—subverts colonializing... more The Egyptian experience of monetization—especially during the Roman period—subverts colonializing historiographies in which the adoption of (Western) coinage autonomously subdued passive and ‘primitive’ reciprocity and redistribution-based economies at the periphery. Many scholars now argue that cultural, religious and economic contexts directed exchange practices in Roman Egypt. This article argues that these embedding elements were themselves cultivated in a meta-context of place—namely, the fluvial geography and ecology of the Nile Valley, Delta and Fayyum Oasis. The rhythmic inundations of the Nile and Egypt’s related agricultural cycle shaped the meanings inhabitants attached to instruments of exchange, including the invading coins of Greek and Roman polities. Coinage thoroughly permeated Egyptian institutions, and yet ecologically-determined rituals, customs and traditions preserved aspects of indigenous exchange culture. Ecological forces nurtured and strengthened the cultural, economic and political forces that constrained Roman monetary imperialism. The monetization of Roman Egypt is, therefore, a critical historical case-study of broader geographic, temporal and thematic interest—one which enables scholars to better understand how ecology intersects with cultural, economic and political embeddedness.
Disease Proxies and the Diagnosis of the Late Antonine Economy
Complexity Economics: Building a New Approach to Ancient Economic History. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies., 2020
Coin Debasement, Climate and Contagion in Second-Century Egypt: Some Intersections
Debasement: Manipulation of Coin Standards in Pre-Modern Monetary Systems, 2020
(Please message/email me for a copy) From the moment Egypt was brought into the Roman administra... more (Please message/email me for a copy)
From the moment Egypt was brought into the Roman administrative umbrella, authorities cumulatively reoriented the state machinery of tribute and redistribution towards the presumption of regular and prosperous Egyptian grain harvests. Although the changes in climate in the mid- to late second century were not exceptional, the fiscal arrangements of the state were too complex and intransigent to undo without significant effort. Septimius Severus’ ban on adaeratio in Egypt in March of AD 200 is the first indication of an adaptation – although it was not put into place until almost a half century after the problems first began. Flexible state prices in Egypt – another crucial innovation to avoid exacerbating natural shortages – are not seen until AD 246. More permanent changes, such as the return to feeding Rome primarily via Africa and Sicily or the abolition of the closed currency system, were not completed until the early fourth century – and these processes were unquestionably painful, especially for the city of Rome, perhaps contributing to a sense of crisis – whether there was in fact a crisis – in the third century. Any mono-causal explanation for the tumult of this period--including the Antonine plague--should be categorically rejected. It is true that the forces of nature and disease began working against the Roman empire commencing in the mid-second century AD. At the same time, the impact of environmental and epidemiological changes – the types of effects, their duration and their intensity – was necessarily felt in human institutions. In Egypt, these institutions included not only the political administration and the grain producers, transporters and merchants, but also the monetary system.
Handbook of the History of Money and Coinage, 2018
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2019
Most currency systems in classical antiquity used precious metals at standardized weights and/or ... more 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, debase ments 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. Contempo rary responses to debasements varied. Coin-users and money specialists developed tech niques 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 legiti mate 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 sys tems and the abstract notions of value, acceptability, and other embedding frameworks that governed the use of ancient coinage.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2019
Inflation typically refers to rising prices. In both ancient and modern societies, inflation is s... more Inflation typically refers to rising prices. In both ancient and modern societies, inflation is sometimes difficult to identify, measure, and explain with precision. Inflation can occur in the prices of individual goods, the goods and services associated with a particular indus try or sector of an economy, or as a macro-phenomenon in which all or most prices in an economy rise. The magnitude of price rises and the duration during which prices stay ele vated also have a bearing on how inflation is studied. The ancient world witnessed peri ods of both slow and steady inflation as well as punctuated surges in prices. Some re gions, such as Egypt, offer hundreds of prices, which facilitate quantitative measure ments of inflation. In many areas and periods, however, inflation is poorly understood be cause sufficient numbers of prices do not survive. Scholars, therefore, often use theoreti cal models and proxy evidence to better understand the nuances and complexity of infla tion in classical antiquity.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2017
Text and Bibliography expanded to reflect current research.
The Antonine Plague, Climate Change and Local Violence in Roman Egypt
Past & Present, 2016
There is evidence to suggest that short-term variations in temperature, sunlight, precipitation a... more There is evidence to suggest that short-term variations in temperature, sunlight, precipitation and flood levels in the mid second century — especially when combined with several other factors — may have been severe enough not only to ruin the prospects for pastoralists and farmers operating on the margins of the Mendesian nome’s agricultural economy (and the agrarian regions of Egypt broadly), but also simultaneously to create new economic opportunities for agricultural operations which were better insulated against ecological changes. Additional economic pressure was placed upon rural villages when the inflexible poll tax (laographia) was collected. This volatile mixture of a short-term agricultural crisis, tax burdens and economic inequality (in terms of landholdings) may explain the surge in civil unrest and, ultimately, the demographic changes witnessed in papyrological evidence; changes which actually began sometime in the 150s before intensifying in the late 160s and early 170s. In other words, it is plausible that the demographic contraction in the villages of the Mendesian nome was caused by a confluence of ecological, social and economic factors, and was not primarily a result of an empire-wide plague epidemic.
Journal of Ancient History, 2015
Ancient accounts of a financial crisis in the city of Rome in A.D. 33 seem to indicate the existe... more Ancient accounts of a financial crisis in the city of Rome in A.D. 33 seem to indicate the existence of quasi-capitalistic financial markets in the early Roman Empire. It appears that a busted real estate and lending bubble led to a sudden crash in asset prices. Land prices were only stabilized when the emperor Tiberius implemented a state-directed rescue package in the form of interest-free loans through an apparently robust banking system. However, a careful study of the historiography of the crisis and the language used to describe it shows that this narrative, with its unmistakable echoes of recent economic woes, is merely the latest in a series of innovative appropriations of the ancient sources. In reality, the crisis was less about finance and more about status and the reinforcement of social hierarchy.
Numismatic Chronicle 174, 2015
Conference/Workshop Papers by Colin Elliott
Non-Neutral Money and Systemic Inequality in the Early Roman Principate
Many economists in the neo-classical mainstream assume the ‘neutrality’ of money—that changes in ... more Many economists in the neo-classical mainstream assume the ‘neutrality’ of money—that changes in the money supply only affect ‘nominal’ variables (prices, wages, exchange rates) in the long-run. In Capital in the Twenty First Century, Thomas Piketty notes that inflation ‘can in some cases have real effects on wealth, the return on wealth, and the distribution of wealth’ (p. 211-2) but it takes substantial (hyper) inflation over a long period of time before investors convert their capital stocks into real assets, which are protected from inflation. Apart from this comment and a few others (pp. 544-7), Piketty only hints that money supply changes may in fact be non-neutral and thus capable of augmenting systemic inequality. As both a supplement and response to Piketty’s comments, this paper sketches some of the implications for non-neutral money in the Roman Empire and assesses the extent to which changes in the money supply exacerbated economic inequality in the Roman Principate.
Disease and the Diagnosis of the Roman Economy
Historical narratives which concern the Antonine plague typically reflect and reinforce the estab... more Historical narratives which concern the Antonine plague typically reflect and reinforce the established story of the Roman economy: there was significant economic growth in the centuries leading up to a peak under the Nerva-Antonies which was followed by a precipitous decline in the third century AD. The Antonine plague serves this economic narrative as both cause and effect. On the one hand, the ‘plague’ (if such a term is warranted) is seen as perhaps the calamitous catalyst for economic contraction due to massive mortality among labourers. On the other hand, the Antonine plague is a convenient witness that the Roman economy had reached its ‘carrying capacity’ (in Malthusian terms) and its budding capitalism, in the form of long-distance trade networks, city-based economies and low transaction costs, invited and encouraged disease epidemics. Should it surprise us that historiographical hindsight temps us to find a cause for the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’ in the period which immediately preceded it?
The glaring circularity of the established narrative has yet to be addressed by scholars. In an attempt to generate new narratives and new questions, this paper explores the possibility that disease may in fact be a useful heuristic device for understanding the nature of the Roman economy. It argues that it need not be assumed that the Roman economy was a well-integrated, functioning and rapidly clearing free-market and that, therefore, sudden changes apparently require catastrophic explanations. In fact, could it have been the case that the Roman economy was much like many other pre-industrial, non-capitalistic, agriculture-based economies – highly susceptible to even minor changes in population, climate and demography? In other words, mortality need not have been very high at all to have impacted those parts of the Roman world which experienced outbreaks of disease in the mid to late second century AD.
Status, Stimulus and the Roman Financial Crisis of A.D. 33
Counter-factuals and Theory in the Study of Ancient History
Numismatics and Neoclassical Assumptions: A Case Study from the Third-Century Roman Empire
Boom and Bust: Describing a Financial Bubble during the Early Principate
Princeton University Press, 2024
In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor... more In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, now known as the Antonine plague, may have been history’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall. In Pox Romana, historian Colin Elliott offers a comprehensive, wide-ranging account of this pivotal moment in Roman history.
Did a single disease—its origins and diagnosis still a mystery—bring Rome to its knees? Carefully examining all the available evidence, Elliott shows that Rome’s problems were more insidious. Years before the pandemic, the thin veneer of Roman peace and prosperity had begun to crack: the economy was sluggish, the military found itself bogged down in the Balkans and the Middle East, food insecurity led to riots and mass migration, and persecution of Christians intensified. The pandemic exposed the crumbling foundations of a doomed Empire. Arguing that the disease was both cause and effect of Rome’s fall, Elliott describes the plague’s “preexisting conditions” (Rome’s multiple economic, social, and environmental susceptibilities); recounts the history of the outbreak itself through the experiences of physician, victim, and political operator; and explores postpandemic crises. The pandemic’s most transformative power, Elliott suggests, may have been its lingering presence as a threat both real and perceived.
Cambridge University Press, 2020
Modern economics tantalizes historians, promising them a set of simple verbal and mathematical fo... more Modern economics tantalizes historians, promising them a set of simple verbal and mathematical formulas to explain and even retrospectively predict historical actions and choices. Colin P. Elliott challenges economic historians to rethink the way they use economic theory. Building upon the approaches of Max Weber, R. G. Collingwood, Ludwig von Mises and others, Elliott reconceptualizes economic theories such as the quantity theory of money and Gresham’s law as heuristic constructs – constructs which help historians identify and understand the unique modes of thought and embedding contexts which characterized economic action in the Roman Empire. The book offers novel analyses of key events in Roman monetary history, from Augustus’ triumph over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, to third-century AD coinage debasements. Roman history has long been a battleground for polarizing methodological debates, but this book’s accessible style and conciliatory tone invites historians, economists, sociologists and other scholars to use economic theory for understanding.
Classical Review, 2023
Fundamentally, Roman economic history is the study of how and why inhabitants of the Roman world ... more Fundamentally, Roman economic history is the study of how and why inhabitants of the Roman world produced, distributed and exchanged goods and services. By understanding the economic actions, events, institutions and products of the Roman world, Roman economic historians come to understand better the Romans themselves: their motivations, values, relationships and identities, among other things. With such a broad remit, today's Roman economic and monetary historians not only scour traditional sources for evidence of Roman commerce, prices, labour, capital and contracts, but they now deploy an ever-broadening range of methodologies, theories and approachessome of which originate well outside the disciplines of both history and economics. Some Roman economic historians, for example, create, investigate and run simulations, using massive digital archives of data gleaned from ancient evidence. Others compare micro-nutrients in ancient wheat varieties with their modern counterparts to gain a better understanding of diet, nutrition and economic prosperity in Roman cities. Increasingly, specialists in some aspect of the Roman economy find themselves members of internationally funded interdisciplinary teams seeking to understand what Arctic ice cores or North-American tree rings say about money production in the Roman principate. Roman economic historians' scholarly sprawl has never been more challenging to describe, but I believe it is possible to group recent developments in the field into three overlapping areas: digitisation, particularisation and consilience. Over the past few decades troves of ancient texts and objects have been translated into formats that can be easily accessed, organised, manipulated and even simulated via computer. The digital revolution was both rapid and comprehensive. Until only very recently, for example, most information concerning Roman coinagecoin types, die studies, hoard descriptionslay locked in dense volumes in dark and dusty corners of university libraries. The same could be said of inscriptions, papyri and many other types of ancient sources. From the mid-1990s onwards, however, both amateurs and professionals in piecemeal fashion migrated such information into various digital databases (such as those found at Nomisma [nomisma.org], Epigraphic Database Heidelberg [edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/] or the Oxford Roman Economy Project [oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk]; an exhaustive list, with commentary, is found in R. Bagnall and S. Heath, 'Roman Studies and Digital Resources', JRS 108 [2018]). Now scholars are less likely to perform cutting-edge research in museum collections, libraries and archives; often, all one needs is a laptop, a comfortable spot in a coffee shop and a good internet connection. Such accessibility has many benefits, even for those who engage with the Roman economy through physical books. Two recent works are illustrative. C. Rowan's From Caesar to Augustus (c. 49 BC-AD 14) (2019) and L. Yarrow's The Roman Republic to 49 BCE (2021) are flush with coin images taken from digital archives with minimal copyright restrictions. Both books also rely heavily on recent numismatic data to support fresh perspectives on otherwise well-trodden Roman historiography. To take one theme as an example: it is debated whether Roman coin iconography should be thought of as 'propaganda'. Back when coin images were expensive and difficult to procure, and therefore rarely seen in high numbers in a single book, it might have been easy to underappreciate the dazzling assault of politically and ideologically charged iconography in Roman coinage from the THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
Capital in Classical Antiquity, 2022
When Octavian returned to Rome in the summer of 29 BCE, he enjoyed a triumphal procession accompa... more When Octavian returned to Rome in the summer of 29 BCE, he enjoyed a triumphal procession accompanied by a series of massive monetary pay-outs. Not only did these payments directly and disproportionately benefit elites but they did so before land values and prices could adjust to the changes in the money supply, and therefore became reflected in the overall price structure. Thus, those who owned Italian land were given a period of time in which the spending power of their cash, the returns on their capital and their expanded access to credit silently transferred real wealth away from economic consumers. The monetary intervention shifted real economic resources (labour, land and ultimately future consumption as the new investments moved down the chain of production) towards servicing elite investments and interests.
American Historical Review, 2021
The Egyptian experience of monetization—especially during the Roman period—subverts colonializing... more The Egyptian experience of monetization—especially during the Roman period—subverts colonializing historiographies in which the adoption of (Western) coinage autonomously subdued passive and ‘primitive’ reciprocity and redistribution-based economies at the periphery. Many scholars now argue that cultural, religious and economic contexts directed exchange practices in Roman Egypt. This article argues that these embedding elements were themselves cultivated in a meta-context of place—namely, the fluvial geography and ecology of the Nile Valley, Delta and Fayyum Oasis. The rhythmic inundations of the Nile and Egypt’s related agricultural cycle shaped the meanings inhabitants attached to instruments of exchange, including the invading coins of Greek and Roman polities. Coinage thoroughly permeated Egyptian institutions, and yet ecologically-determined rituals, customs and traditions preserved aspects of indigenous exchange culture. Ecological forces nurtured and strengthened the cultural, economic and political forces that constrained Roman monetary imperialism. The monetization of Roman Egypt is, therefore, a critical historical case-study of broader geographic, temporal and thematic interest—one which enables scholars to better understand how ecology intersects with cultural, economic and political embeddedness.
Disease Proxies and the Diagnosis of the Late Antonine Economy
Complexity Economics: Building a New Approach to Ancient Economic History. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies., 2020
Coin Debasement, Climate and Contagion in Second-Century Egypt: Some Intersections
Debasement: Manipulation of Coin Standards in Pre-Modern Monetary Systems, 2020
(Please message/email me for a copy) From the moment Egypt was brought into the Roman administra... more (Please message/email me for a copy)
From the moment Egypt was brought into the Roman administrative umbrella, authorities cumulatively reoriented the state machinery of tribute and redistribution towards the presumption of regular and prosperous Egyptian grain harvests. Although the changes in climate in the mid- to late second century were not exceptional, the fiscal arrangements of the state were too complex and intransigent to undo without significant effort. Septimius Severus’ ban on adaeratio in Egypt in March of AD 200 is the first indication of an adaptation – although it was not put into place until almost a half century after the problems first began. Flexible state prices in Egypt – another crucial innovation to avoid exacerbating natural shortages – are not seen until AD 246. More permanent changes, such as the return to feeding Rome primarily via Africa and Sicily or the abolition of the closed currency system, were not completed until the early fourth century – and these processes were unquestionably painful, especially for the city of Rome, perhaps contributing to a sense of crisis – whether there was in fact a crisis – in the third century. Any mono-causal explanation for the tumult of this period--including the Antonine plague--should be categorically rejected. It is true that the forces of nature and disease began working against the Roman empire commencing in the mid-second century AD. At the same time, the impact of environmental and epidemiological changes – the types of effects, their duration and their intensity – was necessarily felt in human institutions. In Egypt, these institutions included not only the political administration and the grain producers, transporters and merchants, but also the monetary system.
Handbook of the History of Money and Coinage, 2018
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2019
Most currency systems in classical antiquity used precious metals at standardized weights and/or ... more 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, debase ments 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. Contempo rary responses to debasements varied. Coin-users and money specialists developed tech niques 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 legiti mate 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 sys tems and the abstract notions of value, acceptability, and other embedding frameworks that governed the use of ancient coinage.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2019
Inflation typically refers to rising prices. In both ancient and modern societies, inflation is s... more Inflation typically refers to rising prices. In both ancient and modern societies, inflation is sometimes difficult to identify, measure, and explain with precision. Inflation can occur in the prices of individual goods, the goods and services associated with a particular indus try or sector of an economy, or as a macro-phenomenon in which all or most prices in an economy rise. The magnitude of price rises and the duration during which prices stay ele vated also have a bearing on how inflation is studied. The ancient world witnessed peri ods of both slow and steady inflation as well as punctuated surges in prices. Some re gions, such as Egypt, offer hundreds of prices, which facilitate quantitative measure ments of inflation. In many areas and periods, however, inflation is poorly understood be cause sufficient numbers of prices do not survive. Scholars, therefore, often use theoreti cal models and proxy evidence to better understand the nuances and complexity of infla tion in classical antiquity.
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2017
Text and Bibliography expanded to reflect current research.
The Antonine Plague, Climate Change and Local Violence in Roman Egypt
Past & Present, 2016
There is evidence to suggest that short-term variations in temperature, sunlight, precipitation a... more There is evidence to suggest that short-term variations in temperature, sunlight, precipitation and flood levels in the mid second century — especially when combined with several other factors — may have been severe enough not only to ruin the prospects for pastoralists and farmers operating on the margins of the Mendesian nome’s agricultural economy (and the agrarian regions of Egypt broadly), but also simultaneously to create new economic opportunities for agricultural operations which were better insulated against ecological changes. Additional economic pressure was placed upon rural villages when the inflexible poll tax (laographia) was collected. This volatile mixture of a short-term agricultural crisis, tax burdens and economic inequality (in terms of landholdings) may explain the surge in civil unrest and, ultimately, the demographic changes witnessed in papyrological evidence; changes which actually began sometime in the 150s before intensifying in the late 160s and early 170s. In other words, it is plausible that the demographic contraction in the villages of the Mendesian nome was caused by a confluence of ecological, social and economic factors, and was not primarily a result of an empire-wide plague epidemic.
Journal of Ancient History, 2015
Ancient accounts of a financial crisis in the city of Rome in A.D. 33 seem to indicate the existe... more Ancient accounts of a financial crisis in the city of Rome in A.D. 33 seem to indicate the existence of quasi-capitalistic financial markets in the early Roman Empire. It appears that a busted real estate and lending bubble led to a sudden crash in asset prices. Land prices were only stabilized when the emperor Tiberius implemented a state-directed rescue package in the form of interest-free loans through an apparently robust banking system. However, a careful study of the historiography of the crisis and the language used to describe it shows that this narrative, with its unmistakable echoes of recent economic woes, is merely the latest in a series of innovative appropriations of the ancient sources. In reality, the crisis was less about finance and more about status and the reinforcement of social hierarchy.
Numismatic Chronicle 174, 2015
Non-Neutral Money and Systemic Inequality in the Early Roman Principate
Many economists in the neo-classical mainstream assume the ‘neutrality’ of money—that changes in ... more Many economists in the neo-classical mainstream assume the ‘neutrality’ of money—that changes in the money supply only affect ‘nominal’ variables (prices, wages, exchange rates) in the long-run. In Capital in the Twenty First Century, Thomas Piketty notes that inflation ‘can in some cases have real effects on wealth, the return on wealth, and the distribution of wealth’ (p. 211-2) but it takes substantial (hyper) inflation over a long period of time before investors convert their capital stocks into real assets, which are protected from inflation. Apart from this comment and a few others (pp. 544-7), Piketty only hints that money supply changes may in fact be non-neutral and thus capable of augmenting systemic inequality. As both a supplement and response to Piketty’s comments, this paper sketches some of the implications for non-neutral money in the Roman Empire and assesses the extent to which changes in the money supply exacerbated economic inequality in the Roman Principate.
Disease and the Diagnosis of the Roman Economy
Historical narratives which concern the Antonine plague typically reflect and reinforce the estab... more Historical narratives which concern the Antonine plague typically reflect and reinforce the established story of the Roman economy: there was significant economic growth in the centuries leading up to a peak under the Nerva-Antonies which was followed by a precipitous decline in the third century AD. The Antonine plague serves this economic narrative as both cause and effect. On the one hand, the ‘plague’ (if such a term is warranted) is seen as perhaps the calamitous catalyst for economic contraction due to massive mortality among labourers. On the other hand, the Antonine plague is a convenient witness that the Roman economy had reached its ‘carrying capacity’ (in Malthusian terms) and its budding capitalism, in the form of long-distance trade networks, city-based economies and low transaction costs, invited and encouraged disease epidemics. Should it surprise us that historiographical hindsight temps us to find a cause for the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’ in the period which immediately preceded it?
The glaring circularity of the established narrative has yet to be addressed by scholars. In an attempt to generate new narratives and new questions, this paper explores the possibility that disease may in fact be a useful heuristic device for understanding the nature of the Roman economy. It argues that it need not be assumed that the Roman economy was a well-integrated, functioning and rapidly clearing free-market and that, therefore, sudden changes apparently require catastrophic explanations. In fact, could it have been the case that the Roman economy was much like many other pre-industrial, non-capitalistic, agriculture-based economies – highly susceptible to even minor changes in population, climate and demography? In other words, mortality need not have been very high at all to have impacted those parts of the Roman world which experienced outbreaks of disease in the mid to late second century AD.
Status, Stimulus and the Roman Financial Crisis of A.D. 33
Counter-factuals and Theory in the Study of Ancient History
Numismatics and Neoclassical Assumptions: A Case Study from the Third-Century Roman Empire
Boom and Bust: Describing a Financial Bubble during the Early Principate
Obscurum Per Obscurius: Quantity Theory and the Crisis of the Third Century AD
Inflation, Debasement and Economic Integration in the Third Century AD
Money as Marketing: Propaganda Motives for Debasement in the Third-Century Roman Empire
Journal of Roman Studies, 2021
The past few decades have been a time of renewed interest in both qualitative and quantitative st... more The past few decades have been a time of renewed interest in both qualitative and quantitative study of the Roman economy, and yet ancient economic historians have had surprisingly little to say about capital. Although the Oxford Classical Dictionary now includes entries on 'credit', 'ination', 'prices' and 'monopolies', for example, one cannot nd an entry on 'capital'a major factor of pre-industrial production alongside land and labour. This volume, edited by Paul Erdkamp, Koenraad Verboven and Arjan Zuiderhoek, provides a much-needed interventiongiving readers not only a vibrant and well-informed methodological discussion, but also a series of case-studies which illuminate the rich complexity as well as the contextual constraints on capital in the Roman world. The editors outline an ambitious study of 'all material resources such as tools, workshops and factories, warehouses, and so on, that are needed or used to realize production' (5). This broad denition of capital does not explicitly mention 'human capital' (especially slaves), but hints elsewhere in the introduction and the fact that skilled labour and slavery are discussed in several contributions belie an expansive view of the capital structure in the Roman world. Norman Underwood's chapter, for example, considers the transfer of human capital into the church from the fourth century A.D. onwards. Relying heavily on legal texts and literary sources, Underwood argues that church leaders brought many of the empire's professionalseducators, physicians, architects, etc.into permanent positions in the church. In so doing, the church gained access to a vast pool of skills and talents, resulting in a fundamental shift in the control of skilled human capital by the mid sixth century A.D. A major theme in the collection is innovationwith several chapters discussing technology and techniques as key aspects of capital. The volume's only chapter on the Archaic period, for example, portrays Rome and the cities in its vicinity as part of a society of growing social and economic stratication bolstered by innovations in agricultural processes (such as intensive farming) and urbanisation. Using a combination of evidence from burials, pottery and the retrospective observations in later Roman literary sources, Christiano Viglietti argues that the cities of archaic Latium were not only receptive to new techniques and practiceswhether these were imported from outside the region or represent local adaptationsbut that Rome and its neighbours embraced the demographic and cultural consequences of increasing economic surpluses. But not all innovations brought signicant economic advantages, as Tamara Lewit's synthetic survey of press technology illustrates. In one of the volume's most innovative contributions, Lewit traces the diversication, if not quirkiness, of press technologies, undermining the idea that the seemingly more efcient screw technology quickly replaced existing press technologies. Screws did make for more reliable and safe presses, but Lewit, through detailed explanations and diagrams of the press process, shows that these devices probably did not generate much more output than traditional presses. According to Andrew Wilson, however, some technologies did spread rapidly through the Roman world. Wilson, who has studied water-powered devices for much of his career, believes that the High Roman Empire, and not Late Antiquity as other scholars suspect, represents the peak in the use of such devices. In support of his case, Wilson points to the roughly 230 conrmed sites where archaeologists have discovered at least one (but some cases several) large centrally driven millstones. People in various parts of the Roman world used water power in a range of applications, from milling grain to crushing ore. Wilson claims that the wealth required for investment in water mills was 'within reach of many landowners'a notable outlier in a volume in which most contributors see capital as securely controlled by local or imperial elites. Hopefully, Wilson will expand upon and perhaps attempt to quantify this point in a future study.
Review of Daniel Hoyer, Money, Culture, and Well-Being in Rome's Economic Development, 0-275 CE
Bryn Mawr Classical Review , 2018
Journal of Roman Studies, 2017
Review of Catherine Apicella, Marie-Laurence Haack, François Lerouxel (eds.), Les Affaires de Mon... more Review of Catherine Apicella, Marie-Laurence Haack, François Lerouxel (eds.), Les Affaires de Monsieur Andreau: Économie et Société du Monde Romain. Bordeaux: Ausonius Éditions; F. de Callatay (ed.), Quantifying the Greco-Roman Economy and Beyond. Bari: Edipuglia.
Journal of Roman Archaeology 28, 2015
Journal of Roman Studies, 2014
Review of Bowman, A. & A. Wilson (eds.). Settlement, urbanization, and population. Oxford Studies in the Roman Economy
Bryn Mawr Classical Review