André Tchernia is one of the leading experts on amphorae as a source of economic history, a pioneer of maritime archaeology, and author of a wealth of articles on Roman trade, notably the wine trade. This book brings together the author's previously published essays, updated and revised, with recent notes and prefaced with an entirely new synthesis of his views on Roman commerce with a particular emphasis on the people involved in it. The book is divided into two main parts. The first is a general study of the structure of Roman trade: Landowners and traders, traders' fortunes, the matter of the market, the role of the state, and dispatching what is required. It tackles the recent debates on Roman trade and Roman economy, providing, original and convincing answers. The second part of the book is a selection of 14 of the author's published papers. They range from discussions of general topics such as the ideas of crisis and competition, the approvisioning of Ancient Rome, trade with the East, to more specialized studies, such as the interpretation of the 33 AD crisis. Overall, the book contains a wealth of insights into the workings of ancient trade and expertly combines discussion of the material evidence-especially of amphorae and wrecks-with the prosopographical approach derived from epigraphic, papyrological and historical data.

The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity.Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century.The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.

Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies is a collection of essays which focuses on the art of questioning; it is about ideas and analytical experiment. Ancient economic history has developed enormously since the publication of M.I. Finley’s The Ancient Economy in 1973. Much new material has been brought to bear on the debate on the character of economic life in the Greek and Roman world. But, at the same time, discussions have been going round in circles. This is because not enough attention has been given to the questions ancient historians ask and the concepts with which they approach the economy. In this collection, an attempt is made to renew the terms of the debate by presenting a wide variety of new analytical approaches to ancient economic history ranging from literary theory, cross-cultural comparison, statistical analysis of archaeological data to neo-institutional economics and model-building.

Thanks to its exceptional size and duration, the Roman Empire offers one of the best opportunities to study economic development in the context of an agrarian world empire. This volume, which is organised thematically, provides a sophisticated introduction to and assessment of all aspects of its economic life.

Marzano explores the exploitation of marine resources in the Roman world and its role within the economy. Bringing together literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and legal sources, she shows that these marine resources were an important feature of the Roman economy and paralleled phenomena taking place in the Roman agricultural economy on land.