Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective

Three recent developments are reshaping the task of the economic historian of the pre-Islamic Old World. An appreciation of the existence of complexity at all levels of activity is replacing simplistic Finleyesque models: the Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, though already old-fashioned in some respects, has provided an invaluable benchmark for further progress: and analytical tools are being borrowed from the social sciences by pioneers with ever-increasing confidence. These developments carry three major implications for those who are active in the specialism. The first is fuelled by the steadily mounting evidence of continual but unstable large-scale movements of human beings, materials, and technologies of all kinds across the entire span of AfroEurAsia and beyond: even small-scale studies need to acknowledge the existence and influence of the macro-regional picture. The second is that prejudices need to be confronted and the use of social-scientific models and techniques be embraced wholeheartedly. The third is the need to accept that economic historians need to look beyond the channels of activity (especially via New Institutionalist Economics) and instead engage with the physio-psychological springs of demand, as they drive economic activity within this or that geo-environment and this or that level of technology.

Economic knowledge tends to be neglected as a factor of growth in economic science, with ordoliberalism being the only significant exception; usually technology is emphasised as the main driver of growth. Here, important cases are discussed of how economic knowledge did become essential in certain phases for the path of economic development, starting with current examples like that of the European Union, going backwards in history to the ethical reflections in the Middle Ages and then describing the peculiar economic institutions and the economic thought in Ancient Greece. The functioning of the economy presupposes institutions, and the founding of economic institutions presupposes economic understanding. Ancient Greece presents an interesting case because of the tradition of Greek philosophy and history writing, which show how the economic institutions of the Ancient institutions such as gift-giving or liturgies were understood. A paradoxical example is provided by the institutions of credit: Interest-taking was regarded as immoral, but credit relationships were indispensable. This contrast compelled Western societies to analyse justifications, hence causes of interest-taking, ultimately leading to more sophisticated monetary institutions and economic theory, while Ancient China tolerated interest and then lacked these sophistications.

Every human being capable of action and self-consciousness and every institution, whatever their technological skills or knowledge, practice economics in that they apply their own peculiar economic thought in regard to the use of available means to gain desired ends. This peculiar economic thought is different in regard to the social actor engaging in it and in regard to the context of action. This economic thought can be substantiated in an economic theory or not, but it is always implied in a determined set of values and cultural norms. This economic thought is the only one that is always present and operative in economic history and as such can be the object of diachronic comparisons.

The comparability of economies in time and space was taken for granted by many cataloguers and encyclopaedists in the centuries leading to enlightenment. The dawning thought of a development path of humanity put an end to such ingenuous comparisons. Along with the consciousness of the evolutionary nature of history, Europe developed the hubris of civilisation, condemning the rest of the world to an uncivilised backwardness. Comparisons became impossible, except for societies at the same stage of development. The study of economies suffered the same fate at the hand of all historicists who conceived complex models of growth in stages. Comparisons were allowed only by presuming the permanence of some characteristic of men or the existence of natural laws. While modern economics was funded on such assumptions, historicists became more and more sceptical about the possibility of comparisons over time: every event was unique. This profound difference in philosophical assumptions led to the famous debate between primitivists and modernists in respect to the study of ancient economies. Causality or contextualisation? That was the question. The chapter will relate the nineteenth-century discussion on the comparability of ancient and modern economies, extending the analysis to some heterodox economists of the twentieth century. Some conclusions will be drawn on the possibility to construe in-kind indexes of wealth, allowing fruitful comparisons of different institutional settings.

This chapter analyses the economic policies of governing elites in the most ancient proto-urban and proto-state societies of the ancient Near East between IV and III millennium B.C. with a focus on Greater Mesopotamia (including south-eastern Anatolia) and western Anatolia. Based on archaeological evidence diverse economic strategies emerge between the elites of the first centralised Mesopotamian societies characterised by early urbanisation and state structures and the elites of the fortified citadels in the little independent political centres of Anatolia at the beginning of the III millennium B.C. The comparison will allow some considerations on the economic centralisation of primary production and labour (the ‘staple-finance’ of Polanyi and Earle) in relation to the centralisation of products and/or productions of luxuries (‘wealth finance’) in various types of early societies. Further research is dedicated to changes in state control over crafts and trade in later and more mature forms of state.

The scholarship on Bronze Age Mesopotamian economies has been split between the construction of broad theoretical narratives aimed at explaining macro-economic features and long-durée phenomena, and the development of models for making sense of micro-economic and utilitarian aspects of early urban life. The former traditionally relied on the top-down application of super-models borrowed from other social disciplines and on textual sources, whereas the latter mostly relied on excavated material culture for building bottom-up reconstructions. The paper aims at proposing a framework for integrating multiform empirical datasets and theoretical models for achieving a more complex vision of early Mesopotamian economies, following an interdisciplinary social science perspective. Considering the abundant evidence on the decision-making of institutional bodies for the study period, particular focus will be given to the concept of “political economy” and how it can be applied to the societies of Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia.

We plan to synthesize an understanding of the broad regional economies of Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe. This synthesis will consider variation in the economies along three dimensions: variation in the subsistence economies reflecting local conditions of resource availability, technologies, and population densities; variation in exchange reflecting regional comparative advantage in commodity production and trade; and variation in political economies reflecting specific bottlenecks in production and distribution allowing for mobilization and circulation of surpluses in wealth and staples. The goal will be to consider how an emerging world economy, especially involving metals, textiles, weapons, slaves, and other highly valued objects created emerging commodity exchange, market forces, power differentials, and population movements. This will consider structures of craft production, means of transport, and political and symbolic uses of objects. We expect to see the evolution of an integrated economy as more products move distances and become integrated into market-like exchanges. Our focus will be on areas that we know best: Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary, and Italy, but we hope to position these regions within a broader understanding of macro-economic transformations.

The debate over the vast hydraulic systems implemented in Assyria (mostly under Sennacherib, 704–681 B.C.) still rages even after more than a decade of heated discussions. Hydraulic systems are either seen as the sign of imperialistic display or as a technologically advanced response to the problem of water supply. The question involves many disciplines: philology (official texts of Assyrian kings), archaeology (accurate study of the territories involved), modern satellite analyses and economic history. From the point of view of this last discipline the main point is the economic relevance of this exceptional engineering public work in comparison to its instrumental use for political display.

The chapter discusses how some preconceived ideas stemming from later historical phenomena have informed the modern interpretation of Roman society and the nature of its economy. Many of the resulting historical narratives and theoretical models, which had previously encountered general consensus, have been questioned in recent years, leading to new approaches and interpretations. While capital investment in the amelioration of production or the practical application of technological innovations has in the past been seen as having had a minimal role in the Roman world due to the widespread reliance on slave labour, a growing body of archaeological data is drastically changing this picture. This chapter discusses selected cases pertaining to capital investment in processing facilities, the adoption of technology, and the organization of labour. It also touches on the different ways in which the various ‘economic actors’ used the existing legal and socio-political frameworks to exercise control over precious natural resources.

The essay will present and discuss a group of weighing scale masses, recently identified in different contexts in the Bronze Age Aeolian Islands. Outside from Greece the Aeolian masses appear to be the most ancient in Europe. Statistical analyses prove that the masses are similar, in form and weight, to the ones that would be in use in central Europe several centuries later. The Aeolian weight system corresponds also to the ones in use in the contemporary Eastern Mediterranean. The weighing scale masses will be analysed in the context of the long-distance trade that took place in the European continent during the II millennium B.C. The studies on the origins of raw materials (mainly copper) suggest the existence of a network of exchanges on a continental scale characterised by a marked difference between the scattered distribution of sources of copper and the uniform presence of finished products. Regional differences in measure systems had to be converted to allow such long-distance trade. Weight systems could become a conventional mean to express the economic expectations of individual agents.

The present study mainly focuses on the chronological phase, ranging from the fourth until the first century B.C., when the establishment of a network of relations in the Mediterranean area was completed and, during the first two centuries, seems to have been mainly managed by the Greeks. Magistrates, institutions and cult places acted as commissioning authorities and producers in a multi-level productive and commercial system, which became more and more integrated over time. The geographical spread of manufacturing centres, from the end of the fourth century B.C. and particularly during the third century B.C., corresponds to the most dynamic phase of the demographic growth and of the urbanization process, during which new social languages are established. Production and consumption suited the new expressive models, thus definitively deleting the Archaic and Classical scheme of management of the society and of the collective life.

This chapter deals with the theme of Hellenistic economies in two parts. Firstly, it analyses the way in which Hellenistic economic history seems to differ in the current historiographical production from that of the archaic, classical, and then the Roman period. I will ask what the critical points are in the study of this time compared to earlier and (above all) later developments in the Mediterranean world. Secondly, the chapter offers some considerations based on the case study of Rhodes, an example in which Hellenistic economic history can be assessed according to the now-prevailing historical-economic categories of the New Institutional Economics (NIE).

In the paleo-Babylonian era (2004–1595 B.C.) when a king ascended the throne he used to issue a remission edict. These edicts, also known to be diffused in Syria, Anatolia, Assyria and in other time periods, aimed at providing relief to those subjects who experienced extreme economic distress. The edicts included the cancellation of some typologies of debts among private persons, the exemption from the payment to the “palace” of certain taxes, the freedom from debt enslavement and the nullifying of specific real estate transactions. The edict had normative force when enacted in court by an ordinary or special judge in specific cases. It also had retroactive value and produced immediate effects of economic and social value. The edicts were of uttermost relevance in the case of real estate transactions. In fact, debts usually had a duration of one year and edicts, so, covered only the debts of the past year, while debt enslavement—at least in regard to the code oh Hammurabi—could only last three years. Real estate transactions as a means to settle debts, instead, were permanent and so could be nullified in court even years after their subscription. In this context, the retroactivity of edicts covered the entire period spanning from one edict to the preceding one. Given the ensuing uncertainty in property rights, creditors being offered a settlement through real estate transactions devised legal means to make edicts ineffective. Starting with Rīm-Sîn in Larsa (60 years of reign) and Hammurabi in Babylonia (42 years of reign) most of the kings issued edicts many times during their rule: a sign for many researchers that the edicts increasingly lost validity while estates unceasingly grew to enormous dimensions and little proprietors vanished. This chapter will analyse the impact of edicts on the Babylonian economy in light of the most recent findings and also specify the legal means through which edicts became useless.

The paper aims to underline the relevance of Greek sanctuaries in establishing a State treasury in the pre-Hellenistic period. In the Archaic and Classical ages, the sanctuary played a crucial role in the functioning of Greek public economics, preserving inside temples consistent capitals in the form of golden and silver items and, to a lesser degree, money. Hoarding processes carried out in sacred spaces were in fact part of the complex administration of the public finances of the polis. The economic activities taking place in cult areas were in fact not restricted to the religious sphere, but, conversely, were deeply interconnected with the urban economy, given that divine assets included taxies, levies, war booties and tithes and could be spent to finance war campaigns the erection of public edifices and infrastructures, the payment of magistrates, the support for the widows and orphans of the wars and further secular expenses.

This chapter analyses the phenomenon of indebtedness and the practice of usury and their consequences on the roman society under the Republic. Sources are mainly textual and documentary. The passage from an agro-pastoral society, characterized by a pre-monetary and substantially closed economy, to an open mercantile society with the Mediterranean conquests changed the nature itself of debt, determining new forms of collection and resolution. In regard to usury, the Roman world had different attitudes. The term ‘fenus’ meant both a loan with interest payment—legal at determined rates—and usury. The precarity of the Roman economic system is highlighted by the complex anti-usury legislation issued in the second half of the fourth century B.C. Nonetheless, the practice of usury continued to thrive in the following centuries.

This chapter takes into consideration those among freed slaves who conducted business in the Roman Empire, in order to understand whether their activities defined a real entrepreneurial dimension or not. The author’s approach focuses on the social phenomena connected to the subject, particularly on the impact that the management of financial and commercial activities had on the freedmen’s identity. Incelli gives particular importance to case studies which show that, even after achieving a significant wealth, some freedmen chose to pass over their business to fellow co-workers sharing the same social status rather than closing it down, even though such activities were scorned by Roman society. After this analysis, the author concludes that the lack of proper conditions inhibited the impact of a faint, yet existing, entrepreneurial mentality on a strongly conservative aristocratic society.

This chapter analyses the use of slave labour in various sectors of the Roman economy, with specific attention to the provinces. Data are taken mainly from purchase contracts. The study will cover cases from different times, but also different places at the same time, underlining changes and continuity. Attention will be given to slaves who were not object of purchases, but acted as subjects, even when they did so in the interest of their “domini”. The study will show how the Marxian concept of “ancient mode of production” when applied to the Roman world must be extended to include all economic activities managed by slaves, acting with ample autonomy.