Susan e. alcock
I introduction
From the welter of disagreements and uncertainties surrounding the ancient economy at large, one presupposition often tacitly governs approaches to the Roman east. It is assumed that the eastern empire was less radically transformed, that it witnessed less “growth,” than its western counterpart or than the imperial heartland of Italy itself. Pre-existing high levels of urbanization, relatively greater distance from Rome, and a less pronounced military presence, are among the explanations offered to explain this phenomenon.1
This assumption may very well be true, but it has contributed to a dominantly western orientation in many, if by no means all, general studies of the Roman economy.2 This chapter will take issue with this state of affairs in two respects. First, it is necessary to assess how far the state of our evidence dictates the perception and its consequences. And second, it is necessary to challenge the notion that “more change” is automatically better and more interesting, and that the economic history of the eastern provinces can thus be judged negatively and somewhat disregarded.
The Roman east is home to not a few famous facts and familiar insights into the workings of the ancient economy: tombstones record an impressive number of occupations at Corycus in Cilicia; Hadrian can be observed intervening in oil and fish prices in Athens; Dio Chrysostom speaks to the behavior of urban elites; the Talmud and the New Testament offer anecdotal testimony for everyday economic life. Culled principally from Greek authors of the early empire, or from “loquacious” cities and their rich epigraphic records, these pieces of evidence recur from one secondary account to the next.3 The problems posed by such fragmentary texts — which catch partial and serendipitous snapshots of a moving and complex
1 See, for example, Garnsey and Saller 1987: 58; on agricultural developments, Garnsey 200o: 692—3.
2 E. g., Duncan-Jones 1990; Greene 1986; but see Rostovtzeff 1957.
3 Many of these appear in the helpful source book, Meijer and van Nijf 1992. For two views of the economic testimony of the Mishnah and Talmud, see Neusner (1990) and Safrai (1994). On the loquacity of cities: Rostovtzeff 1957: 138. 1972
Map 25.1 The eastern half of the Roman empire
Adapted from Bowman et al. 1996: map 21; graphics: A. T. Wilburn
Target — have, of course, been recognized before, endemic as they are to the economic study of the empire as a whole.
Where the eastern Mediterranean clearly still lags behind other parts of the empire is in the availability of archaeological evidence, both in “raw” form and, more tellingly, in broader synthetic studies. This remains the case despite much improvement in the last few decades, for example with the expansion of regional survey projects and with progress in the vital area of ceramic studies. In part the problem lies in the overall amount of work done; in part on the type of work done (with a heavy emphasis on the excavation of urban, public spaces); in part on the frequent lack of reliable data publication. For example, in just one oft-cited index of economic activity — shipwreck frequency — the west does much “better” than the east, yet the recorded sample on which that assessment relies is clearly problematic.1973 It is not special pleading to highlight these material problems from the start, given that archaeological data provide our only substantive new means of accessing the ancient economy, and thus a principal means of escaping established assumptions and tired arguments.1974 As far as is possible, material evidence — urban excavations, regional surveys, mortuary studies, ceramic analyses — has been drawn into what follows and some appraisal given of where our analyses may go astray for lack of such information.
This chapter, covering the period from roughly 200 bc to ad 300, cannot be a comprehensive analysis of economic behavior in the eastern Mediterranean.1975 What it can do instead is sketch out some of the structural determinants of the region’s economic performance, and then trace that performance through the processes highlighted elsewhere in this volume: production, distribution, and consumption. Isolating these very closely interwoven elements is helpful for the purposes of this particular type of overview; ultimately, however, the interaction of the three requires reconciliation and synthesis in other, more targeted studies.
At the end ofthe chapter, we will return to the assumption with which we began, and revisit the issue ofrelative growth across the empire. This opens the door to a possible shift in perspective, one which moves away from viewing the region in this period as the historical tail end of the “ancient economy.” Economic analysis in other pre-modern empires contends that imperial zones will be transformed differentially, depending on their ethnic makeup, their local history and internal organization, their geographical and cultural distance from the metropolitan center, their natural characteristics and resources, and so on. What tends to emerge is a highly variable imperial landscape, yet one in which all parts unquestionably carry the impression — however expressed — of domination and demand. Looking at the eastern Roman empire less as the end of a long-lived system, and more as something new under the sun, may give us a new way to corral our disparate data. 1976
(a) The definition of the region and its place in empire
The area to be discussed in this chapter begins with the Balkan peninsula and arcs eastwards and southwards to the borders of the next chapter, Roman Egypt (Map 25.1). The number and configuration of provincial units in this zone varied over time, but around ad io6 would have included Achaea and Macedonia in modern Greece and the former Yugoslavia, Republic of Macedonia, various divisions within the nation-state ofTurkey (Asia, Bithynia and Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Lycia and Pamphylia, Cilicia), as well as Syria, Judaea (later Palaestina) and Arabia in the Levant. The frontier, and more specifically military, aspects of border provinces are not here discussed.1977 Greek was the common tongue of the region’s elite, but numerous local languages (such as Aramaic or Phrygian) survived under the empire. Although the area in general is sometimes referred to as the “Greek provinces,” that label must be used with care.
The ecology of the region ranges from the Mediterranean climate of the zone immediately encircling that sea, to increasingly more arid territories as one moves away to east and south. Within this broad expanse, geological features such as mountains or plateaus created a variety of micro-climates, with direct implications for agricultural success and the concomitant need for exchange. No one would claim that the east in general boasted the most effortlessly fertile lands of the empire, but certain exceedingly rich districts did exist, such as the territory ofwestern Asia or the Hauran in Syria. Mines, quarries, and other natural resources were irregularly distributed across the region, which is also differentiated by variable access to water transport. Coastal or near-coastal communities were obviously well served by the Mediterranean itself (as illustrated by the travels of such figures as Apollonius of Tyana or St. Paul); harbor complexes were both monumentally developed (as at Caesarea) and painstakingly maintained (as at Ephesus or Seleucia in Pieria).1978 Rivers, with the exception of the Tigris and Euphrates, did not shape developments to the degree seen in the west, but some (for example, the Orontes or the Sangarius in Asia Minor) and water bodies such as Lake Tiberias were navigable routes of communication. Yet other areas, such as the high tablelands of Anatolia, remained relatively landlocked. Perhaps not surprisingly, modern agroclimatic classifications divide up the territory of the eastern Roman empire into numerous sub-zones — an observation that no doubt would be felt even more strongly by an ancient farmer or trader, from an on-the-ground perspective. Economic opportunities and options would vary substantially, depending on where in the region one operated.
The circumstances behind the annexation of these eastern provinces varied dramatically, as did their subsequent political and military trajectories. This is not the place to rehearse these data, essential background though they are to any economic inquiry.1979 What can be noted, however, is that while events of the first century bc (the Civil and Mithridatic Wars, the conquest of Crete) quite viciously affected parts of the eastern Mediterranean, the Augustan takeover does appear to have inaugurated — albeit with periodic and localized exceptions — an extended epoch of peace. Only in the third century, for example with the raids of the Heruli or Persian invasions, was the pax Romana significantly disrupted.1980 Looking at a map of the eastern provinces also makes clear that many were “internal” to the empire, buffered externally by a frontier zone. As a result, some provinces, such as Achaea, were technically unarmed (inermis); others harbored only a limited military presence. That is not a universal rule: Cappadocia, Syria, Arabia and Judaea — provinces along the limes or with a special history of imperial antagonism — all housed legionary and auxiliary forces, while other “troublesome” areas (for example the mountains of Pisidia) received veteran colonies as another means to ensure order. On the whole, however, a stable peace is one central element in the economic preconditions of the early empire.1981
Much of the area considered here (Achaea; the Asian provinces; Syria) would fall within the “tax-exporting” category of Hopkins’ provincial classification. Garnsey and Sailer, who posit instead a “three-fold division of provinces by function,” would largely concur, while allowing for the possibility of overlapping roles. Certainly some eastern provinces directly supplied the troops within their borders, and received outside help to do the same. Specifics on taxation are, of course, notoriously elusive. For the east, both tax in kind and in cash are attested (sometimes assessed on the same land, as seen in a document from the second-century Babatha archive, found in a cave near the Dead Sea), but money payments appear widespread in this sector of the empire. Taxation, although experienced in several parts of the east before (most notably those areas encompassed within Hellenistic kingdoms), now became a regular and more or less universal element in the economic configuration of the region.1982
(b) Demography and urbanization
Two essential parameters — the number of people in a region and their distribution in space — both govern and are governed by the workings of the economy. Recent evaluations posit, first, an overall “modest measure of sustained growth” in the early empire, and second, a greater population density in the east than in the west at the time of Augustus. That relative balance, it has been argued, was then affected by east-to-west migration over the early centuries of empire, a migration fed by the commercial and intellectual classes, as well as by the movement of slaves. That there was migration in the opposite direction (colonial populations, negotiatores) is undeniable, but is considered negligible in comparison: Juvenal’s famous line about the “Orontes flowing into the Tiber” (3.62) would seem apposite here. In Frier’s demographic simulation of events, by ad 164 the population of the western empire would have grown significantly faster, eventually assuming a density more comparable to that of the east which, by contrast, remains “virtually stagnant.”1983
Frier admits that this simulation is “very tentative,” noting that archaeological evidence might argue for more growth in the east than this model would allow; Scheidel’s reconstruction of the situation seems somewhat more optimistic, although there can be no question but that populations grew more quickly in other parts of the empire. Much would also depend on how to interpret the movement of intellectuals and other “talent.” There has been a tendency to assume that Greeks, “most of them clever and educated men, emigrated in masses to countries which offered better opportunities,” with “the same wind that brought prunes and figs and damsons to Rome they came.” How far the epigraphic evidence for easterners in the west indeed reveals a significant, and lasting, shift in human capital is debatable; such movements at very least, however, do raise questions of evolving economic links and loyalties.1984
What can be discussed with more confidence is the distribution of people in space. It is not news to observe that the east was far more urbanized than the west, a structure resting not only on centuries of polls formation and expansion, but on ongoing civic foundations by Roman generals and emperors alike. Yet, while true as a generalization, this observation needs to be kept in perspective. First, villages (komal or katolklai) — either in the territory of cities, on sacred estates or as independent entities — were a vital component in the social organization of many areas, especially Anatolia and Syria. Secondly, the level of urbanism was by no means uniform: as one moved inland from the Mediterranean, or into drier environmental zones, civic numbers dropped off. On the whole, Syria and Arabia are less overwhelmingly urban in orientation than Achaea and Asia.1985
Another critical phenomenon is the size of some of these entities. If Rome was the mega-city of the empire, with Alexandria (and eventually Carthage) next in line, the provinces of the east were home to several cities which could potentially have approached ioo, ooo inhabitants: Antioch, Pergamum, and Ephesus (possible candidates); Corinth, Athens, Smyrna, and Apamea (less likely). Most civic units, however, clearly comprised much smaller populations, perhaps in the range of 10,000—15,000, and with a proportion of people dwelling outside the urban center. The “super-cities” of the east were not only disproportionately well endowed in demographic terms but attracted all manner of other things: visitors, markets, goods, and gods.1986 This gravitational pull, to be discussed again below, would have included an influx of immigrants, necessary to replenish civic populations in the large, dirty and diseased centers of antiquity.1987
Ii production (a) Agriculture and the land
The centrality of agriculture in the Roman economy, as in most pre-modern economies, has been firmly established already in this volume, as has the uncertainty of agricultural production in the eastern Mediterranean — with all the implications for contact and exchange that brings in its train. Finally, as elsewhere in antiquity, land-ownership in the Roman east offered avenues to security and status, as well as the preeminent means to garner wealth in the ancient world.
Given these fundamental continuities, what can be said more specifically about the Roman east? First, its mosaic of land-ownership was exceedingly complicated. Land was divided among an ever-changing assemblage of individuals and institutions, including the emperor and his family (with estates attested in Judaea, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, as well as other resources, such as certain trees in the forests ofLebanon and balsam plantations at Judaean En-gedi) and the Roman state (the Bithynian royal lands, for example, becoming ager publicus). Other participants included cities, immigrant negotiatores, private citizens of all types and ranks, and gods and their sanctuaries (Athena at Ilium, Zeus at Aezani, to name but two).1988 The trend, visible elsewhere in the empire, towards increasing stratification in the control of agricultural wealth is manifest, not least in the material munificence of large estate owners in civic and (to a lesser extent) rural display. Large-scale proprietors could well possess property in numerous places, even in different provinces; the scattered holdings of Herodes Atti-cus (in at least eight separate parts of Greece and in at least three provinces) provide just one spectacular example of a no doubt frequent phenomenon. The ongoing existence of minor landowners, whose “small-scale production continued to be important in the Roman empire,” is more difficult to observe, but must be accepted for the east.1989 Labor on the land likewise varied in composition. The “relative absence” of servile labor in rural activities has been noted in Asia, being perhaps somewhat more widespread in Greece. Tenancy (embracing a spectrum of dependent statuses), together with the periodic hiring of free labor, was surely a very common means of organizing production.1990
It has been persuasively argued that, thanks to its more developed urban armature and perhaps in part to cultural restraint, the east suffered less disruption in patterns of land-ownership (for example, through invasive investment by the senatorial class) than did north Africa or the western provinces. Even so, senators did acquire extensive properties, for example in western Greece, Macedonia, and Asia. More pervasive (if at a less elevated level) was the appearance of significant communities of negotiatores in numerous parts of the region where — sooner rather than later — they rooted themselves in their adopted lands. Finally, although there are relatively fewer imperial colonies and foundations in the east, where these appear (e. g., Nicopolis and Corinth in Greece; Pisidian Antioch and Cremna in Galatia; Aelia Capitolina in Judaea), previous systems of land-ownership were recast.1991 In all cases, the result of these external interventions worked in favor of expansive, often imperially privileged, landowners.
Given this background, what changes are observable in the agricultural landscape of the eastern provinces? The archaeological evidence is patchy, especially in terms of the kind of intensive regional work necessary to track rural development in detail. Yet where such field survey work has been undertaken, the overall trend is clearly towards an early imperial (first to third centuries ad) expansion of site numbers, with settlements often moving into previously unoccupied or little utilized areas — arguably a proxy indicator of expansion in cultivated area and of heightened intensity in production, as well as of demographic growth. This pattern has been observed in the Aegean islands (including Crete and Cyprus) and Asia Minor (e. g., Rough Cilicia, Lycia, Black Sea coast). Syria too saw a florescence of rural activity, most famously in the “Dead Cities” of the northern limestone massif with its continuous growth in occupation and exploitation from the first century onwards (though peaking beyond the period under study; Map 25.2). The Hauran also witnessed a notable rise in habitation and apparent prosperity. Numbers ofrural sites discovered in Jordanian surveys similarly pick up in either Nabataean or early Roman times. Finally, surveys in Judaea/Palaestina likewise attest to an upsurge in rural settlement, although once again the peak here is reached only later, in the Byzantine period. The story of expansion and growth is by no means universal. Many parts of Achaea, for example, demonstrate a converse retraction of settlement and abandonment of territory, although even that is not uniform across the province.1992 To the picture presented by regional survey can be
Map 25.2 Distribution of ancient sites in and around the limestone massif ofNorthern Syria. Shading indicates the area of the massif
After Tchalenko 1953: vol. ii, pl. xxxv; graphics: A. T. Wilburn added another index of interest in agricultural productivity — the evidence for Roman-period irrigation projects (cisterns, reservoirs, tanks). This is especially notable in Syria and Judaea, but concern for waterworks is ubiquitous in the east (witnessed, for example, in the numerous aqueducts of the east, including small agriculturally oriented examples, or in the draining of Lake Kopais in Boeotia).1993
Sometimes this upward climb in site numbers can be seen to begin in Hellenistic times, and, as noted, sometimes — especially farther to the east — it carries on long past the scope of this study. But what strikingly emerges, for the early imperial period, is a general picture of increased agricultural activity and, by extension, intensity of production, at a level greater than has previously been appreciated. How to explain this? It would be unwise to assume identical processes at work, and, obviously, the devil of understanding this pattern lies in the detail. Yet for some areas it was undoubtedly linked to the market offered by a nearby conurbation, especially the supercities of the east; for others it might be owing to the stimulus of local natural resources (such as timber, ore, or marble), their exploitation, and the need to feed specialist workers.1994 Such aggressive behavior makes good sense for the small farmer out to produce a surplus to cover tax burdens, on top of other economic and social obligations. The decisions taken by large-scale proprietors, with their wider range of options, are always less predictable, but this evidence strongly suggests a frequent willingness to push agricultural opportunities.
As for what was being grown across this increasingly active rural landscape, the vast majority of crops were what we might well expect: the staples of cereals, olives, vines, legumes. Animals, either in the large flocks of the prosperous (mentioned periodically in the ancient sources) or the agropastoral symbiosis practiced by smallholders, must also be kept in the pic-ture.1995 The textile industry of certain eastern cities (to be further discussed below) dictated localized concentrations of herding, often of animals hailed as possessing very particular characteristics. Geographical pockets focusing on a significant cash crop, such as the olive-oil production of the Syrian limestone massif, can also be occasionally identified. Largely neglected, but actually quite remarkable, are the various lists of unusual fruits, plants, or other rare and wondrous things grown in the east: Asiatic peaches, liquorice (the best from Cilicia), remedies and poisons from Pontus, perfumes from Boeotian Chaeronea, and so on. Such items — noted principally by Pliny, Galen, Strabo, and Pausanias — have traditionally been dismissed as one-off luxuries impossible to quantify and, in the grand scheme of things, unim-portant.1996 Yet this kind of specialized attention to unusual crops, however limited in scope or restricted in volume, should instead intrigue us, for it raises the question of just who was devoting energy to their production, to what end, and with what repercussions for local conditions and labor. The power of exotic goods — in aid of social display and political authority — has been much studied in other cultures, and for Roman trade beyond the bounds of empire; the rare products of the eastern provinces similarly deserve greater attention.1997
Such local wrinkles aside, on the whole a balanced combination of agricultural endeavors should be envisioned across these regional landscapes. Inscriptions retailing the makeup of individual holdings testify to their mixed nature, as does at least one slightly more unusual data source: an array of Phrygian tombstones attesting to the side-by-side regional practice of viticulture, agriculture, horse-rearing, and marble exploitation.1998 Across the east, whatever the precise mix of crop and husbandry regimes, we can infer one thing simply from the continued existence of its many cities: there must have been, usually, successful surplus production of basic necessities to feed, clothe, and otherwise supply and support those units. This task, of course, required other, non-agrarian forms of production.
(b) Non-agrarian production
Fine iron work from Cibyra, hairnets from Patras, glass from Sidon, ships from Cyprus: the list of artisanal activities connected to the east, rather like its rare plants and potions, is long. In this case, too, a concern for the size and economic “significance” of productive units has often deflected attention from just how they may have operated. The quality and quantity of evidence is variable, and it is probably most sensible simply to review a few of the better documented enterprises in turn.
(b. i) Ceramics
The major sigillata types of the eastern Mediterranean (including Eastern Sigillata A, B, C, and D, with their various aliases) have been identified, but the history of fine ware production remains in many ways opaque. The industry appears to have experienced a “big boom” in Augustan times, with the appearance of new wares (e. g., Pontic sigillata) and a much expanded use of existing types; after an early stage of imitating western forms, much of this production went its own way, appearing to come to an end at some point in the third century ad. While much attention has been devoted to the creation of ceramic typologies, issues of production (and the implications of their distribution) have been less examined. To date, only two fineware kiln sites have been explored in detail: the Ketios valley near Pergamum, and Sagalassos, home to the only very recently defined Sagalassos Red Slip Ware. Features of both sites, in the minds of investigators, decidedly point to elite ownership of raw materials and the means of production (including the land on which the potting took place), with potters holding “their traditional low place in society.” A fragmentary docket from Pergamum, recording the types of vessels made, is similar to examples found at La Graufesenque in Gaul, but how far the organization of ceramic production parallels other parts of the empire remains an open question.1999
(b.2) Textiles
Any discussion of textile production in the Roman empire is sure to allude to the high-quality cloth ofPhrygian Laodicea (with merchants as far afield as Lyon), as well as to the weaving or dyeing specialties of other eastern centers. It is clear, however, that textiles were a matter for ubiquitous manufacture, although different places were famed for specific products: Cos for diaphanous silks, Tarsus for linen, Ephesus for towel weaving, Tiberias for coarse cloths and mats, and so on. Others have argued for the organized and professional nature of much Roman textile production, as well as for the numbers of individuals potentially involved in such activity. At Tarsus, the poor and disenfranchised linen workers were numerous enough to be a “useless rabble and responsible for tumult and disorder” (Dio Chrys. Or. 34.21); Pausanias’ note about how the “charming” women of Patras (who outnumbered the men of their city) earned a living weaving byssos may speak to a specifically female labor force (7.21.14).2000 The exact articulation between the supply of raw materials (wool, flax) and the actual manufacturing process is nowhere clear, but a close link between local supplies and local industry can be assumed: “The country round Laodicea produces sheep that are excellent not only for the softness of their wool. . . but also for its raven-black color, so that the Laodiceans derive splendid revenue from it. . .” (Strabo 12.8). Other materials and fabrics (cashmere, cotton, silk) were imported from outside the empire, in some cases to be worked or reworked in centers such as Palmyra before being shipped further on.2001
The harvesting of the murex shell, and the dyeing of purple cloth, also surfaces as a widespread industry around the eastern Mediterranean. Some centers, such as Tyre with its Tyrian purple (“the most beautiful of all”) were particularly famous; despite the unpleasant conditions (presumably the smell) of the Tyrian dyeworking, “yet it makes the city rich through the superior skill of its inhabitants. . .”(Strabo 16.2.23). Smaller sites are also recorded, however; various sources identify five places in Achaea alone, and Pausanias (10.37.3) reports half the population at Phocian Bulis as given over to such activities. Archaeological evidence backs up this impression of distributed purple production in Greece, with murex dumps and dye works found, for example, in the southern Argolid, in the Athenian Kerameikos, at Eretria and Chalcis in Euboea, and an especially impressive village of dyers at Koufonisi (Leuka) on Crete. Similar material traces are dotted along the Mediterranean coast elsewhere in the east; collegia of purple-dyers are also known from Asia Minor, for example at Hierapolis.2002
(b.3) Mining and quarrying
If never as stupendously rich, massively developed, or as notoriously foul as the mining operations ofSpain and the west, several locales in the east were home to enterprises in pursuit of gold, silver, copper, lead, iron and other minerals (such as cinnabar or alum) or precious stones (such as amethyst). Ore-producing mines, as is documented elsewhere, fell under state control, being leased out to individuals or to societates; slave labor appears to have been commonly used.2003 Compared to Syria, and especially to Asia (noted for silver and iron), Achaea was little involved in this industry, although the famed silver mines of Laurion are known to have been revisited for their ore dumps. One contemporary glimpse of an eastern mine in action is given by Galen, who was interested in the possible medical uses of copper by-products. His visit to the copper mines of Soli on Cyprus illustrates their imperial administration, the use of slaves and the horror of mine conditions. Being sent to the Cypriot mines would, in the late third century, become a punishment for Christians from Palestine and Syria.2004
As for metal-working itself, the cry (“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”) of the silversmith Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen calls to mind just one documented industry in the east. Finished artifacts, especially in the form of divine and imperial images, were everywhere in public and in private, being carried, for example, in the procession detailed in the early second century ad Salutaris foundation.2005 The manufacture of both precious and utilitarian artifacts is recorded, in passing, for many cities, though few production sites have been explored. As just one example of the kind of work possible (and necessary), a recent technical study ofextant statues has been able to reconstruct the existence of an eastern bronze workshop of Severan date, with its output (including imperial imagery) distributed to a catchment of sites in Cyprus and Turkey.2006
As with mines, most (if not definitively all) stone quarries were the property of the imperial fisc. Unlike mines, the most desirable stone sources lay in the east; of some 318 objects found at the Trajanic marble yards at Portus (admittedly not a completely representative sample), the material for some 90 percent came from the eastern provinces, especially from Achaea and Asia. Although various types of precious stone were consumed, marbles take pride of place, and are one indubitable “growth industry” under the empire. Administration and exploitation of these quarries was a dynamic affair, with each marble type following its own trajectory, if sharing in an apparent third-century decline in activity. Intensive field work at quarrying sites (notably Docimium in Phrygia), together with textual evidence and scientific characterization studies, combine to create a still-evolving picture of the marble trade, from initial extraction to final consumption.2007
One of the “famous facts” mentioned at the start of this chapter was the long list of occupations (ioo-odd in all) recorded in the tombstones of the port town of Cilician Corycus. That range of occupations can be glimpsed in other contexts from Achaea and Asia as well as, for example from a synagogue at Aphrodisias.2008 Collegia of craftsmen also testify to a dense network of manufacturing activities at work in the east; if best seen in the Asian provinces, there is evidence for fullers at Antioch (for whom a special channel, 2.5 km. in length, was constructed with conscript labor) and for goldsmiths and leather-bottle makers at the Arabian capital of Bostra (identified through their assigned seats in the theater). These were not individuals of the highest status (although nor should they be assumed to be poor). The likelihood of relationships between such endeavors and large-scale landed proprietors — at very least through the supply of raw materials (wool, wood, clay, flowers) from the latter’s estates — seems too cogent to deny.2009
Further explorations of the physical location and scale of specific artisanal or “industrial” zones would, of course, be helpful at this juncture. The relative absence of rural villas, especially working villas, in the east, if no doubt in part owing to an investigative bias, is provocative, and one clear point of departure from other sectors of the empire.2010 Few villages have been explored in sufficient detail to offer much help here, and even very recent studies of eastern cities continue to focus on their monumental structures and public spaces. This strategy has militated against the discovery of possible urban-based (or peri-urban) manufacturing sites, of the type discovered at sites with long-running, or broadly conceived, investigations, as at Pisidian Sagalassos (where a “Potters Quarter” has been excavated) or at Corinth. Finds kept from early excavations at Antioch also quietly point to a range of practical behaviors at the household level, including carpentry and fishing. It is unlikely in the extreme that any of these cases was unusual. Such observations add their testimony to arguments for an overall increase in productive activity in the early imperial east, as well as continuing the reassessment and deconstruction of the “consumer city” model for classical antiquity.2011
Iii distribution
Discussion of the movement of goods in the ancient economy has usually revolved around the question of its nature, such as the ratio of institutionalized reciprocity and redistribution to market exchange, or the balance between “staples” and “luxuries.” This discussion will instead first consider the distribution of goods in space — at the local, regional, and long-distance scale — before turning to the issue of the agents involved in these various transactions.2012
Precisely delimiting these spatial domains is, of course, a nightmare: what is local? what is a region? But if accepted in impressionistic fashion, overlapping systems of exchange emerge in the eastern empire. By “local,” for example, we could envision the territorial ambit of a particular city or large village, or a close nexus of these entities — absolute distances are here less important than topography: say, for the sake of argument, a day, or a very few days travel time. A considerable density of exchange in antiquity would operate first and foremost at this scale, although the situation could
Vary profoundly over time — especially depending upon the vagaries of agricultural production or upon other periodic events (e. g., major festivals, an imperial visit) when wider relationships would be called into play. For obvious reasons, this sphere of exchange is normally the least archaeologically visible of all, with perishable goods or everyday, utilitarian objects (those least studied, such as tile or coarse pottery) on the move; we do have, however, occasional textual evidence, such as the very active, if small-scale, exchanges limned in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. Cities or villages (many of which saw the early imperial construction or redevelopment of marketplaces, or agoras) served as points of exchange, as did the phenomenon of local fairs; two examples, among several offered by de Ligt, include a twice-yearly panegyris at Tithorea in Achaea and at the remote locale of Imma in Syria.2013
Regional distribution can here be arbitrarily (and loosely) defined as the movement of goods across distances exceeding travel times between neighboring cities, yet remaining within the ambit of the eastern provinces. This level of exchange remains under-explored, but was very active in the eastern Mediterranean — a fact we can both infer and observe. The east’s degree of urbanization, and the sheer size of cities at the top of the hierarchy, would have necessitated the development, either permanently or periodically, of broad catchment areas to provide for civic consumption requirements. For centers such as Pergamum, Ephesus, Corinth, not to mention nearby Alexandria (a clear importer of eastern produce), regional transport of grain, oil, and wine would be essential. More extensive distribution patterns are also indicated by zones of agricultural intensification: for example, the olive oil of the Syrian limestone massif, produced in substantial quantity (but not particularly famous), must presumably have supplied the down-scale markets of numerous cities. Ceramic evidence also materially points in this direction. Fulford’s quantified analysis of a handful of coastal Mediterranean sites (among which, admittedly, only Knossos represents the east) demonstrated that something like one-fifth of fine and coarse wares were imported, suggesting “a considerable volume of maritime traffic.” This tallies with the growing evidence for the variable distribution of eastern ceramic forms, for example with Lund’s observation that nearly half of all Cypriot sigillata was sold outside Cyprus (notably to Cilicia, Egypt, Crete, Judaea, and Petra), with forms manufactured especially to cater to overseas clients.2014 The consumption of non-locally produced goods, or of goods with typological links extending to many areas of the east (to be discussed
Map 25.3 The variable distribution of Cretan amphora types (ACi—AC4) outside the island of production After Marangou 1999: Figure 4; graphics: A. T. Wilburn
Further in the next section), also argues for an increasingly vibrant network of regional interaction.
The civic rivalries of the Roman east come into play here, for it is clear that such competition fought, in part, over benefits which in turn attracted a heightened density of buyers and sellers. Assize centers (such as Apamea/Celaenae in Phrygia) are one example, as is made clear in a much-cited passage from Dio Chrysostom. At such places are brought together a throng of people:
.. . litigants, jurymen, orators, princes, attendants, slaves, pimps, muleteers, hucksters, harlots and artisans. Consequently not only can those who have goods to sell obtain the highest prices, but also nothing in the city is out of work. . . And this contributes not a little to prosperity; for wherever the greatest throng of people comes together, there necessarily we find money in greatest abundance, and it stands to reason that the place should thrive. (Or. 35.15—16)
Provincial capitals, university towns, oracular shrines, neocorate centers are relevant here, as are regional fairs — gatherings (compared to their local counterparts) of longer duration and more extensive territorial “pull.”2015 Regional systems of exchange thus had numerous, distributed hot spots across the eastern provinces.
That leaves long-distance trade, which will here be taken to mean the distribution of raw materials or finished products either to Italy and the west, or their conveyance to (or through) the east from beyond the bounds of empire. Goods involved ranged from high-value, low-bulk goods (the rarities of fruits and nuts discussed above, as well as the silks of China), right through to monolithic columns of Greek marble. Wine identified by its point of origin, for example from Aegean islands (notably Rhodes and Crete), is one well-recognized export to Rome and points west, although investigations into eastern amphora types in general remain at a relatively preliminary stage (Map 25.3).2016
The queen of all long-distance trade links, of course, was the transport of luxury goods (spices, perfumes, slaves, silk, cotton) from beyond the eastern frontier, notably via India and Yemen, into the Roman imperial sphere. Such commerce is currently best illustrated in Egypt, especially thanks to new archaeological evidence from Red Sea ports such as Berenice and along the Eastern Desert routes. Yet physical traces of a cross-Arabian trade in aromatics (with Roman activity building on a Nabataean foundation) are visible in cities such as Petra and outpost garrisons such as Hegra, although this route seems to have declined in vitality during the early empire. To the north, the frontier oasis of Palmyra sat at the terminus of several overland and river communication routes, stretching back to the head of the Persian Gulf and linking to points east as far as China. Although the romance of the “caravan city” label applied by Rostovtzeff has been greatly deflated, the mediatory commercial role played by Palmyra unquestionably, and profoundly, affected the community’s social organization and political circumstances. 2017
Local, regional, and long-distance are but crude distinctions, and one obvious goal is to elucidate them further, especially by tracing and accounting for developed special links between different, not necessarily predictable, sectors of the empire.2018 These spatial divisions were also obviously nested one within the other and were entirely permeable: the same goods could remain locally or move globally. Exchange of amphora-borne commodities (wine, oil, figs) is one example; another such multi-level activity was the slave trade. Thrace, western Asia Minor, Syria and — at times — Judaea were known surplus producers of slaves. Various eastern cities, most famously Ephesus, served as large-scale collection and distribution centers. The chief flow of bodies, no doubt, was towards Italy, but a degree of local and regional consumption must also be assumed.2019
Governing and constraining all of this activity, of course, were the physical conditions of transport by land and sea. Mere distance was not the make-or-break factor. For landlocked communities, “. . . our surpluses are unprofitable and our scarcities irremediable” (as Gregory Nazianzus of Cappadocia sorrowed, Or. 43.34—5), while coastal communities could safely develop a higher degree of economic interdependence. Overall, however, the literary evidence for human traffic — pilgrims, sophists, doctors, bailiffs, missionaries — and their seeming relative ease of movement around the eastern provinces and beyond, argues for a growing velocity of circulation at this time, fostered by the trite but true blessings of peace. More rigorous measurement, admittedly, is difficult, not least since the volume of sea traffic, as previously observed, is not yet well measured by shipwreck data. On the other hand, the establishment or improvement of road networks across the east has been well documented. That many of these routes were designed originally for military purposes does not negate their wider utility, although burdens on neighboring populations also accompanied imperial and army traffic. The picture was, as always, dynamic: the creation of a road, or the boosting of one web of communication at the expense of another, could make or break patterns of exchange and of prosperity.2020
As for the agents involved in these interactions, the usual suspects can be seen at work: the Roman state, shippers {naukleroi), merchants {emporoi), together with negotiatores of western origin. These can be briefly reviewed, before engaging, from an eastern point of view, with the heated issue of elite involvement in trade and exchange.
Imperial interventions {apart from the base-line impetus of centrally administered taxation) included control of the output of marble quarries and ore sources, as well as the movement of supplies for the army on the eastern frontier. Appeals for state assistance in the food supply of eastern cities are periodically recorded, for example a second century ad case in which Egyptian grain was allowed to be shipped to Ephesus. Paradoxically, the physical presence of the emperor, and all that he brought with him, could apparently trigger subsistence problems, as when Sparta, around the time of a Hadrianic visit, was also given permission to buy Egyptian wheat. Gifts ofmoney {in times oftrouble, such as earthquakes) and ofgoods such as marble columns {by petition) are other imperial additives to the eastern economic mix.2021
Naukleroi and emporoi are documented in action at all levels of exchange and from numerous civic bases in the east. On the whole, and predictably, these do not emerge as individuals of high status, although some distinctions are discernible: merchants could advance somewhat more easily than shippers, purple-dealers {a specialist trade) could do better than other merchants. None of these wheelers and dealers, however, appears to have matched the affluence and scope of some of the very well-to-do merchant families seen in the west.2022 Finally, Italian negotiatores {often with links to coastal cities) are visible in business capacities {e. g., banking, lending), yet with a growing interdependence of their “landed” and “commercial” interests that can also be argued for members of the Greek elite.2023
Few smoking guns point to direct elite involvement in eastern business affairs, yet Pleket has convincingly argued for such engagement, as a sideline “with structural significance.” Indeed, it has been hazarded that such families were perhaps “a little less squeamish” than their Italian counterparts about overt desire for economic gain. Cases of elite hoarding of grain are known; Dio Chrysostom speaks of sharp money-lending, as well as the ownership of tenements, ships and slaves “in great numbers” (Or. 7.104).2024 Some enterprising eastern characters, such as T. Flavius Damianus, were also highlighted in the work of John D’Arms. Damianus owned urban property and acquired productive land which he planted with fruit-bearing trees; he “improved” a seaside property to allow docking facilities for cargo ships. Such behavior — where “landed and commercial wealth could be simultaneous and complementary assets; public generosity and a concern for status could be compatible with efficient management of assets and a keen interest in profits” — cannot have been unusual among eastern elite families, especially given their habits of consumption. Damianus himself, according to Philostratus (DS 605—6), was famed for building a hestiatorion near the Ephesian Artemision, “adorned in Phrygian marble such as had never before been quarried.”2025
What emerges in the eastern Mediterranean, then, is a complicated web of exchange, of things produced and things imported, with various agents working at various scales, and in varying rhythms. While that may seem a painfully vague statement with which to conclude, some generalizations about distribution in the early imperial east are still possible: that the distances involved in some forms of exchange lengthened, that the number of “end points” for trade contact multiplied, and that the velocity of communication and interaction increased.
Iv consumption
What ultimately drives the dynamics of both production and distribution, however, is the third and remaining axis: consumption. Unfortunately, this is the most difficult of the triad to summarize in brief. Beyond a basic division between public and private, huge gulfs ofdifference yawn between super-cities and villages, between the urban aristocracy and the rural poor. Yet this entire, highly differentiated pattern of demand is relevant to any attempted outline of the early imperial economy.
The fundamental issue of food supply to cities has already been raised. Although failures and hunger are known, local and regional efforts largely provided what civic populations needed to live, even ifthis sometimes led to shortage at the other end of the chain, with rural deprivation and hunger: as Galen (for one) has been taken to suggest in On the Wholesome and
Unwholesome Properties of Foodstuffs. Another major insight into what many cities “ate” is revealed in any photograph or plan depicting their numerous buildings and amenities. Paid for either by the community itself or by wealthy donors (occasionally by the emperor), the baths, colonnaded streets, gates, libraries, theaters, temples, nymphaea, aqueducts — all highlights of what has been termed the international or marble style — demonstrate materially where much surplus revenue was going. Although major building in some centers can be seen as early as the Augustan period, the floruit of this visual transformation took place in the second century ad. This appears to be the case in Asia, Syria, and Arabia, and — to a lesser extent — Achaea. Other forms of civic beneficence, from the creation of agones to the legacy of foundations, are less monumentally permanent signs of the same elite dedication to civic standing via public consump-tion.2026 This development, of course, has in the past been derided as a classic form of non-productive investment, leading to no further technological or economic good or gain.
There is a danger in taking the “standard features” of eastern cities and assuming uniformity in their behavior or desires. Although detailed analyses are in their early days, there are signs of great variety in civic access to, and use of, goods, as well as in the factors underlying such variation. In part, this could well be a matter of location and geography. It is perhaps not surprising that an inland city such as Sagalassos appears to enjoy fewer imported wares than coastal cities such as Anemurion or Perge; what is interesting is that the city is otherwise very well set up in terms of architectural display and the usual signs of conspicuous consumption. Close study of ceramic assemblages, comparing for example Athens and Corinth, reveals very different patterns in imports and choices of styles adopted, decisions which can be related to the self-perceived nature of the community and its prevailing social concerns. Westward links and imitations, for example, are more visible in some civic assemblages than in others, although Italian imports (of fine and coarse pottery) are seen throughout the east.2027
As for the consumption choices of individuals, literary sources can offer some powerful and touching tales of personal habits and dreams. One can contrast the young man in Lucian’s The Ship who wants a “dream of wealth” — a house near the Stoa Poikile, slaves, clothes, carriages, and horses
(as well as the eponymous ship to make all possible: The Ship or the Wishes ii, 13) - with Paul’s letter to Timothy: “We brought nothing into the world; for that matter we cannot take anything with us when we leave, but if we have food and covering we may rest content... the love of money is the root of all evil things. . (i Timothy 6.7—8).2028 Archaeological measures of individual
Consumption include the examination of private homes and of mortuary contexts. On one level, a predictable schism immediately arises between the world of the wealthy and that of the majority of the population. Yet signs of broader networks of exchange, and new options in consumption, seem apparent at all levels of the hierarchy.
The contents and decoration of private homes and tombs, of course, speak to a broad array of questions — of social status, of cultural identification, of cultured living. Here, we can simply note the richness of elite homes in the east. Antioch, where excavations in the 1930s preserved at least some of the range of domestic finds, yielded up (in addition to the well-known, superb mosaics) a plethora of furniture ornaments, locks and keys, jewelry, toilet articles, sculptures, lamps, coins, pottery, nails, chains — in materials ranging from lead to bone to gold. At the other end of the spectrum, small rural sites in Greece, of no perceptible distinction, yet had imported eastern sigillata and African Red Slip forms, as well as local imitations of these and other, Italian wares.2029 2030 The tombs of the rich and famous are almost invariably robbed out, but leave their monumental sarcophagi or elaborate burial structures as visible testimony to their expensive care. By contrast, the graves of the poor are rarely published, but an example could be offered in the contents of one not very remarkable tomb chamber, in Ephesian territory (modern Uzgur). For the nine ceramic, seventeen glass and three bronze items found, although their precise production centers remain unknown, parallels can be found as far afield as Cosa, Corinth, Ostia, Tarsus, Berenice, Athens, Stobi, Knossos and
More.
6i
These two brief comparisons seek only to argue that, up and down the social scale, the acquisition and utilization of goods extended beyond the immediately local sphere and (presumably) carried with it some social force and charge. In and of itself, this phenomenon is no new thing, yet the argument can be made that, with a wider availability and range of goods, circulating at greater speed, selective consumption and consumer choice became a more pervasive and powerful phenomenon in the Roman world. Ironically, one of our best list of “goodies” comes in a denunciation revelling in the destruction of a great city and its material abundance:
. . . cargoes of gold and silver, jewels and pearls, cloths of purple and scarlet, silks and fine linens; all kinds of scented woods, ivories, and every sort of thing made of costly woods, bronze, iron, or marble; cinnamon and spice, incense, perfumes and frankincense; wine, oil, flour and wheat, sheep and cattle, horses, chariots, slaves, and the lives of men. . . (Revelation 18.12-14)
Customs of consumption, actual or imagined, could become a platform for cultural and religious reaction and resistance, with implications in turn for economic strategies.
V conclusion
As threatened early in the chapter, this discussion was never intended to provide a comprehensive survey of economic behavior in the eastern Mediterranean from c. 200 bc to ad 300. It remains a brief, and inevitably schematic, review. What the evaluation does offer is an introduction to some of the structural determinants (geography, demography, urbanization) of the region’s performance, as well as an emphasis on three processes (production, distribution, consumption) that motivated and dictated economic development. A few more general points, arising from this analysis, can be raised in conclusion.
First, looking at the Roman east leaves one in close sympathy with recent arguments for the plurality of the ancient economy. As one reviews the various elements of production, distribution, and consumption, and the manner in which these played out among so many different agents at divergent spatial scales (from hand-carried loans to next-door neighbors to the transport of sarcophagi to the far reaches of the west) — any inclination to box the east into a single monocolore framework (to use Davies’ adjective) appears an increasingly bad idea. Thinking instead in terms of “a loosely articulated melange of separate systems each with its own rules, purposes and ideology,” however, leaves us with decisions about how to define and analyze these systems, without creating new, equally unhelpful boxes (“the marble trade,” “purple in the east”).2031 Electing a spatial perspective on the organization of economic process — be it for local patterns, regional cadences, or inter-regional flows — offers one way to follow out alternative sets of behavior, while still allowing for their mutual influence, if not outright integration.
Second, the issue of growth. Aggregate growth in production — to some as yet unquantifiable, but arguably considerable degree — must be accepted for the early imperial east, although such a global statement should not mask the fact that there would always be winners and losers across this considerable expanse. Many indicators point in this direction: the development of urban hierarchy, the increase (however modest) in overall population, the expansion of rural settlement, the density of merchant networks, the material evidence for more exchange and more consumption of more types of goods. Following the same parameters, a growth in per capita production can also be assumed, but to validate this statement (for example by examining improvements in living standards across a sufficient sample of population) would require different, and better, evidence than we currently possess. As for temporal change (otherwise admittedly little discussed here), the third century witnessed a slowing, or hiccup, in the positive trajectory of the east at large. Later Roman and Byzantine evidence suggests, however, a general recovery and even continued subsequent growth, notably in the area of agricultural production. Where this does not hold true is for certain industries hit particularly hard by either pan-Mediterranean developments (the rise of new ceramic production centers) or the difficulties of central authorities (the decline of marble quarrying).
World History
