Introduction

The ancient countryside is a paradox: rural life was rarely represented in art and literature, yet every aspect of the ancient world was dependent upon the control and exploitation of rural landscapes. In effect, the very basis of society was systematically repressed in self-representation (Osborne 1987). Today’s society demonstrates its own paradox: as global urbanization accelerates, we are showered with ever more images of idyllic rural lifestyles. But while the focus of anthropology and geography has shifted from rural to urban matters, reflecting the changing modern world, studies of antiquity have moved in precisely the opposite direction (W. Harris 2005: 1-42). In fact, over the past 25 years, studies of the ancient Mediterranean have been thoroughly “ruralized.” The reasons are not hard to find. Agricultural innovation, urbanization, and tourism have transformed the physical and social landscape of the Mediterranean. A perceived timeless way of peasant life has vanished during living memory. Simultaneously, these processes have revealed a wealth of archaeological evidence which has stimulated further interest. This rural fascination may occasionally betray nostalgia: Hanson’s The Other Greeks (1995) laments a world where small farms are replaced by agribusiness, and scholars of Greek agriculture have no firsthand experience of farming. But this fascination does not mean that ancient historians have shunned the modern world: Horden and Purcell’s (2000) profoundly rural approach to Mediterranean history is a clear response to globalization (Manning and Morris 2005: 1-44). As all these paradoxes and the responses to them suggest, the ancient countryside is a subject of lively debate. A short chapter such as this cannot cover the full range of primary and secondary literature, but aims instead to discuss a varied sample as an introduction to the subject.

It is a simplification to suggest that scholars have only recently become aware of a world “beyond the acropolis.” Nevertheless, until a generation ago, rural matters were of marginal interest. Even during the 1980s, publications might

A Companion to Ancient History Edited by Andrew Erskine © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-13150-6

Invoke an evangelical tone about the need and means of studying rural landscapes (Snodgrass 1987). Today, no assessment of the Greek polis or the Roman economy is complete without consideration of the countryside; it is a central component of a “paradigm shift” in classical archaeology (Snodgrass 2002). However, though its importance is not in doubt, there is no consensus about how the evidence should be interpreted.

Understanding of the countryside is closely connected with debate about the ancient economy; a brief sketch of economic history is therefore a necessary starting-point (see Morley, economic and social history). During the twentieth century, attention focused on two key debates: (a) primitivism (or minimalism) versus modernism, and (b) substantivism versus formalism. Respectively and simplistically, these contested the scale of economic activity and whether or not the “economy” was socially embedded. The key text was Finley’s The Ancient Economy (1973; 3rd edn 1999). However, during the 1990s studies developed along two parallel courses. The first concerns the ideology of economy, considering texts and material culture as fields of representation, negotiation, and meaning. For example, Roman elite selfrepresentation stressed the importance of land and agriculture as the proper sources of wealth. But why was this particular aspect of elite identity emphasized - and what was omitted? Sources do not therefore provide direct access to the ancient economy because they were produced by individuals representing themselves and others in particular socio-political settings. The second approach concentrates on model building and quantification, supplementing texts with comparative and archaeological data (Cartledge 1998).

These two approaches developed from distinct backgrounds and proclaim different objectives. The former draws on the humanities, searching for specific meanings through the particular. The latter, drawing on the social sciences, aims to generalize and explain (Manning and Morris 2005: 1-44). There are few attempts to reconcile these approaches, though the need for a rapprochement is clear: methods based purely on representation lose touch with the brute realities of life; conversely, comparative approaches may underestimate the socially embedded nature of the economy and the specific contexts in which texts were generated (Morris 1994). These brute realities and ideological representations intersect nowhere more powerfully than in the ancient countryside.