Review of Mayer (2011), The Ancient Middle Classes (JRS 2013) (original) (raw)
Related papers
caa.reviews, 2013
Emanuel Mayer's ambitious The Ancient Middle Classes: Urban Life and Aesthetics in the Roman Empire, 100 BCE-250 CE is divided into two distinct methodological parts. The first (chapters 1-3) is a synthesis of significant trends in the economic history of the Roman imperial period that emphasizes the abundant presence of a prosperous mercantile class across the Roman Empire. Adopting Max Weber's definition of the middle class as a well-defined group that "shared cultural traits as well as economic opportunities" (18), Mayer proceeds to collect a wealth of archaeological evidence to demonstrate that ancient cities were dominated by production-oriented commercial classes that either rented or owned a significant percentage of property in any given Roman city, thereby establishing an imprint of its own distinctive values on urban material culture.
This book collects a selection of ten papers that were delivered among many others at the international conference 'People of the Ancient World' (Cluj-Napoca, 13-15 October 2016). As openly stated in the title, the focus of this event was on 'people'hence the general theme covered in this short volume of proceedings. The intention of the editors is to engage with this theme from different perspectives and through different methodologies, looking at prosopography, onomastics, professions, social history and military life under the Roman Empire. Many contributors are early-career researchers; their papers are often preliminary in terms of the conclusions they draw, or are a summary/excerpt of more substantial publications that are either in preparation or are now available in print elsewhere. Nevertheless, inclusion of their texts in this book was an opportunity to display the progress and results of their research, and therefore must be regarded as a welcome initiative. The book can be broken down into three sections: the first section (pp. 1-55) deals with trade and professions; more general aspects of prosopography and social status are considered in the second section (pp. 57-113); while the last section (pp. 115-64) focuses on themes related to provincial military communities.
Rome: The Economic Change in the 2nd Century BC
To understand the roman economy in the 2nd century B.C. is something that is not possible without being aware of the process how the Mediterranean World fused into a political whole, first under the influence and later under the rule of the Roman State. Constructing the economic history of this period is not possible without considering the globalisation that occurred in the Mediterranean political realm as well as the major changes in the social and economic spheres taking place in the Italian Peninsula. This context makes possible to lay down, first a relationship between the conquering process and the changes that came about in the field of the land property and its cultivation. A second relationship may still be established between the deep changes that occurred in the distribution of urban and rural populations on the one side, and, on the other side, the consumption structure, the origin of supplies and, in general, the changes in the economic tissue. Further consideration is given to the economic significance of the proceeds coming from the war along with the revenues that roman ruling officials and economic agents obtained while administering the imperial domain. The appetite for luxury goods that resulted from this process led in particular to the building of wealthy houses where fine mosaic pavements tended to be a common feature.
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 2012
In recent years, studies devoted to the ancient economy have seen the development of two complementary currents transcending the Finleyan model that dominated the 1980s. One seeks to measure economic performance through indirect archeological data used as proxies (number of wrecks, bone size, lead concentrations in glaciers, etc.). 1 The other strives to explain performance with the help of theoretical models. One of the reasons for the success of the New Institutional Economics (NIE) resides in the fact that it makes it possible to combine neo-classical analysis with analysis of the influence of the social and political orders. 2 Historians of antiquity are now familiar with several key concepts of the New Institutional Economics—such as transaction costs or path dependence—but until now they have paid very little attention to the role of cultural values and norms, which occupy a central place in both the Finleyan model and the NIE. These elements,