Roman Society and Economy
Roman society was hierarchical and slave-owning, structured by citizenship, patronage, and family, while its economy rested on agriculture, an integrated Mediterranean trade, and the demands of a vast empire.
Definition
The study of the social organization and material economy of ancient Rome across the Republic and Empire.
Scope
This topic covers the social structure and economic life of the Roman world: orders and status, citizenship, the family and patronage, slavery and freedmen, the agricultural base, trade and urbanization, taxation and money, and the role of population, disease, and environment in shaping Roman prosperity and crisis.
Core questions
- How was Roman society stratified by status, wealth, and citizenship?
- What role did slavery and the family play in Roman social life?
- How did the Roman economy function and how integrated were its markets?
- How did population, environment, and disease affect Roman society over time?
Key theories
- Slave society
- Keith Bradley's and others' characterization of Rome as one of history's few genuine 'slave societies', in which enslaved labor was central to elite wealth and social structure.
- Environment and the fate of Rome
- Kyle Harper's argument that climate change and pandemics, such as the Antonine and Justinianic plagues, played a major role in the trajectory and decline of the Roman world.
History
Roman social and economic history draws on legal texts, inscriptions, papyri, coinage, and archaeology, including survey data and material such as shipwrecks and amphorae. The field has been transformed by quantitative and comparative approaches and, more recently, by the integration of climate and disease evidence from the natural sciences.
Debates
- Scale and sophistication of the Roman economy
- Scholars debate whether the Roman economy saw significant per-capita growth and market integration or remained a largely agrarian, low-growth system, building on and revising Finley's primitivist model.
Key figures
- Peter Garnsey
- Richard Saller
- Walter Scheidel
- Keith Bradley
Related topics
Seminal works
- garnsey1987
- scheidel2007
- bradley1994
Frequently asked questions
- How important was slavery to Rome?
- Slavery was central to the Roman economy and society, with enslaved people working in agriculture, mines, households, and many trades, making Rome one of the few true slave societies in history.
- What did the Roman economy depend on?
- It rested primarily on agriculture, supplemented by extensive Mediterranean trade, mining, and the redistribution of taxes and grain to feed cities and the army.