Market Regulation and Transaction Costs in the Roman Empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elio Lo Cascio
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Unexpected Result ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
State Of Affairs

The unification of the Mediterranean world under Roman rule brought about the suppression of piracy and the resulting increased safety of seaborne commerce, better circulation of information, the spread of common metrological systems, the creation of a single monetary area, and the diffusion of common legal rules. All this certainly made the definition, protection, and exchange of property rights within the Empire much safer and therefore less expensive. This chapter shows, through the analysis of a series of interventions both at the central and at the local level, documented by juridical, epigraphic, and papyrological evidence, that this state of affairs was not merely the unintended and unexpected result of the political unification of the Mediterranean world, but the product of the role that the political organization of Rome purposely undertook in regulating market transactions, by guaranteeing the rights of all involved parties: producers, tradesmen, and consumers.

Representations of Empire

2002 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Near East ◽  
Source Material ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Relationship

This book covers the whole of the period in which Rome dominated the Mediterranean world. The belief shared by all the contributors is that the Roman empire is best understood from the standpoint of the Mediterranean world looking in to Rome, rather than from Rome looking out. The chapters focus on the development of political institutions in Rome itself and in her empire, and on the nature of the relationship between Rome and her provincial subjects. They also discuss historiographical approaches to different kinds of source material, literary and documentary — including the major Roman historians, the evidence for the pre-Roman near east, and the Christian writers of later antiquity. The book reflects the immense complexity of the political and cultural history of the ancient Mediterranean, from the late Republic to the age of Augustine.

Athens

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
City State ◽  
Peasant Farmers ◽  
The Hill ◽  
The City

In the Mediterranean world, only Rome rivals Athens as a city famed for its antiquities. Ancient travelers came to marvel at its grand temples and civic buildings, just as tourists do today. Wealthy Romans sent their children to Athens to be educated by its philosophers and gain sophistication in the presence of its culture. Democracy, however faltering its first steps, began in this city, and education and the arts flourished in its environment. Even at the height of the Roman Empire, the Western world’s government may have been Roman but its dominant cultural influence was Greek. Latin never spread abroad as a universal language, but Greek did, in its Koine (common) form. By the 4th century B.C.E. this Attic dialect of Plato and the Athenian orators was already in use in countries around the Mediterranean. The monuments of Athens and the treasures of its National Museum still amaze and delight millions of visitors from every nation who come to see this historic cradle of Western culture. A settlement of some significance already existed at Athens in Mycenaean times (1600–1200 B.C.E.). Toward the end of the Dark Ages (1200–750 B.C.E.) the unification of Attica, a territory surrounding Athens of some 1,000 square miles, was accomplished under the Athenians. The resulting city-state was governed by aristocrats constituted as the Council of the Areopagus, named for the hill below the Athenian Acropolis where they commonly met. But only the nobility—defined as the wealthy male landowners—had any vote in the decisions that influenced affairs in the city, a situation increasingly opposed by the rising merchant class and the peasant farmers. The nobles seemed paralyzed by the mounting social tensions, and a class revolution appeared imminent. In 594 B.C.E. the nobles in desperation turned to Solon, also an aristocrat, whom they named as archon (ruler) of the city with virtual dictatorial powers. Solon, however, refused to rule as dictator of the city, instituting instead a series of sweeping reforms that mollified the lower classes without destroying the aristocracy.

One Shepherd, One Flock

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-176
Author(s):  
Andrew W. Devereux
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Christian Order

This chapter examines Spanish, as well as Christian and Islamic, thought on “universal empire.” It analyzes the thinking on universal empire as a form of political organization that developed as a result of the protracted dialogue of competing claims by fellow Christian and Islamic polities. It also addresses Portuguese, French, and Ottoman iterations of universalist claims as the expression of a utopian ideal of religiopolitical organization. The chapter covers the political ideology of the wide variety of literature that situated the Mediterranean at the center of a drama where a universal Christian order would be instated. It also focuses on the Castilian conquest of Granada and the acquisition of numerous presidios and cities along the coast of the Maghrib, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella deployed a variety of propaganda that successfully disseminated the image of the monarchs operating in this capacity.

Naming religious groups in the late Roman empire

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore S. de Bruyn
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Late Roman

What are scientifically valid and interpretatively meaningful names for adherents of religious cults or traditions in the Mediterranean world of late antiquity? This question lies behind the articles in this issue of Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses, which consider the meaning and validity of five names used in studies of religion in the late Roman empire: "pagans," "Jews," "Christians," "Gnostics" and "Manichaeans." This paper, an introductory essay to the issue, proposes that, when answering this question, one adopt Benson Saler's prototype approach to the categorization of religious groups. It argues, further, that a prototype approach must include etic categories of analysis and that it requires specific and detailed studies of similarities and differences within and between groups.

I. The Fear of the Orient in the Roman Empire

1926 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Charlesworth
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Roman People ◽  
The Mediterranean

In September of the year 29 B.C. the citizens of Rome saw pass before them one of the most splendid triumphs ever celebrated in their city. In it Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, the heir and successor of Julius Caesar, now sole master of the Mediterranean world, displayed the spoils he had won from his campaigns in Illyria and Dalmatia, at the battle of Actium, and by the conquest of Egypt. The spectacle must have been gratifying to Roman pride and a fair omen for future security: in the young victor were centred the hopes of the Roman people for external conquest and internal peace. Octavian had now reached the summit of his desires, his word and will appeared all-powerful; yet he was already aware that he was bound to a policy imposed upon him by his own success, and as time went on he became conscious that the very completeness of his victory, though it satisfied immediate demands, presented embarrassing problems for the future. In order to defeat Antony and to secure the necessary support for himself he had utilised a sentiment which had recently grown strong in Rome, and he was now to some extent fettered by the feeling he had aroused. This feeling was a profound fear of the Orient and mistrust of all things Oriental, and Octavian had posed as the champion of Roman manners and institutions, and had thus succeeded in concentrating on himself the enthusiasm of all Italy. He was now committed to this policy; in future years there must be no suspicion of Orientalism whether in government or institutions or religion. And even though Octavian might satisfy his countrymen on this score, he himself found it difficult to throw off the anxiety and embarrassment that the possession of Egypt caused him.

Wandering philosophers in Classical Greece

2000 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 86-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Montiglio
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mediterranean

The wandering philosopher is best known to us as a Romantic ideal that projects one's longing for physical and mental withdrawal. Rousseau's ‘promeneur solitaire’ does not cover great distances to bring a message to the world. His wanderings, most often in the immediate surroundings, rather convey spiritual alienation. But the ‘promeneur solitaire’ is not the only kind of wandering philosopher known in Western culture. Itinerant philosophers existed already in antiquity. During the Roman empire, many sages wandered all over the Mediterranean world. They went about for the sake of intellectual and spiritual enrichment, but essentially to spread their teaching and to intervene in local quarrels as religious consultants. Wandering connoted their ambiguous status in society—both in and out—and thereby enhanced their charisma and endowed them with an aura of superior power.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yair Mintzker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
German Nation ◽  
German Speaking

This introductory chapter discusses how the historical figure of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer—also known as Jew Süss—is incredibly elusive, and any understanding of him must begin with the political and legal regimes under which he lived and died. Oppenheimer spent almost his entire life in the southwest corner of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. In the eighteenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was the general political organization that connected the hundreds of more or less sovereign polities in German-speaking central Europe. Especially important for understanding Oppenheimer's case is the fact that the Empire's members shared a common legal system scholars term “inquisitorial.”

The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.

1984 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fergus Millar
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Political ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Greek East ◽  
Political Character

In any attempt to understand Roman history the first half of the second century B.C. must have a special place. Victory in the Hannibalic war had laid the foundations of a general dominance of the Mediterranean world, but had hardly yet produced an Empire. Outside Italy, only Sicily, Sardinia and two commands in Spain were normally allotted as provinciae for annual magistrates; and this list was not increased by the famous victories in the Greek East, Cynoscephalae, Thermopylae, Magnesia and Pydna. Roman imperialism is too crude a term for what we can observe between 200 and 151 B.C. Roman dominance was felt everywhere, from Spain to Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch and Ankara; Roman militarism was demonstrated consistently in N. Italy and Spain, at various periods in Greece and Macedonia (200–194, 191–187, 171–168), and for one period of three years in Asia Minor (190–188). Roman colonialism was still confined, with one very marginal exception, to the Italian peninsula.

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