Economic History Association

Economic Stagnation in the Early Roman Empire Author(s): Mason Hammond Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 6, Supplement: The Tasks of Economic History (May, 1946), pp. 63-90 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2113075 Accessed: 15/08/2010 05:34
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Empire* in theEarlyRoman Economic Stagnation

HAT the later Roman empirewas a period of stagnation,not to say of decline and total collapse, in the economicas in other sphereshas long been recognized.'But it has been the contributionof such modern scholarsas Frank,Rostovtzeff,and Heichelheimto show that the symptoms and causes of this stagnationare not to be sought solely in the anarchyof the third century A.D.2They may be detected earlier, behind the facade of peace and prosperityin the secondcentury,and have roots which reach back into the very beginningsof the Roman dominationover the Mediterraneanworld. In order to avoid too great extension in time, as well as in space, the presentdiscussionwill be limited to the symptomsand causes the Mediterranean of economicstagnationthat may be detectedthroughout worldduringthe early Romanempire,the two hundredand fifty odd years that elapsed from the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., which left Augustus world, to the assassinationof SeverusAlexmaster of the Mediterranean
T

* This paper was read at the meeting of the Economic History Association under the assigned title, "Symptoms and Causes of Economic Stagnation in the Early Roman Empire." Thanks are due to the disputants of the papers and to the editorial readers of this JOURNAL for helpful corrections and suggestions. Limitations of time at the meeting and of space in the JOURNAL have prevented the development of certain arguments. "Stagnation" is taken in the general sense of an "inactive, sluggish, dull condition" rather than in the more restrictive meaning sometimes ascribed to it by economic historians of a condition in which opportunity for investment is so glutted as to make the movement of capital sluggish. The author of the other paper on the program chose the phrase "retardative factors" to avoid possible ambiguity. 'The following works have been particularly used in the preparation of this article: T. Frank, ed., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press): Vol. I (I933), T. Frank, Rome and Italy of the Republic; Vol. II (0936), A. C. Johnson, Roman Egypt to the Reign of Diocletian; Vol. III (I937), R. C. Collingwood, Roman Britain, J. J. Van Nostrand, Roman Spain, V. M. Scramuzza, Roman Sicily, A. Grenier, La Gaule romaine; Vol. IV (1938), R. M. Haywood, Roman Africa, F. M. Heichelheim, Roman Syria, J. A. 0. Larsen, Roman Greece, T. R. S. Broughton, Roman Asia; Vol. V (1940), T. Frank, Rome and Italy of the Empire. The Danubian provinces have not been covered. There is a General Index to Vols. I-V (1940). This work will be referred to hereafter as Economic Survey. M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I926), is referred to as Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire. There is a German edition (2 vols.; Leipzig: Quelle and Meyer, I93i) and an Italian (Florence: La Nuova Italia, I933). F. M. Heichelheim, Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Altertums (2 vols.; Leiden: Sijthoff, I938); Vol. I (text) is referred to as Heichelheim, I, and Vol. II (notes) as Heichelheim, II. Chap. viii deals with the period from Augustus to Diocletian. The Cambridge Ancient History, Vols. IX-XII (Cambridge: The University Press; is referred to as C. A. H. Chap. vii of New York: The Macmillan Company, I932-I939) Vol. XII by F. Oertel deals with "The Economic Life of the Empire." Pauly's Real-Encyclopidie der classischen Alterturnswissenschaft is referred to by series, volume, and half volume as: RE, I (i), etc., and RE 2, I (I), etc. The first series begins with "A"; the second series with "R."

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anderin 235 A.D., which usheredin a half centuryof anarchyand eventually the totalitarianstate of Diocletianand Constantine.' I The economic history of the Mediterraneanworld during the GrecoRoman period recordsfew of those drastic innovationsthat have characterized economichistory since I400 A.D.4It affordsnothing so remotely revolutionaryas the introductionof the compass, the invention of printing or gunpowder,the applicationof steam, electricity, or atomic fission as sources of power, or the developmentof the steamship, the auto, the airplane,the telegraph,and radio. Moreover,such inventionsor introduction of novelties as there were occurredchiefly duringthe Hellenistic, not The economichistory of the Romanempireis largely one the Roman,era.5 of the geographic expansion,stagnation,and eventualdeclineof a relatively economicsystem. This static characterof the economicsystem unchanging of the Roman world, though obvious from any considerationof its techniques, tools, and operation,has not been sufficientlyemphasizedin discussions of the causes for its decay. Considerationsof space, however, prevent more than this unsupportedstatement of so important a factor in both the expansionand the decay of the Roman empire. In consequenceof this basically unchangingsystem, the symptoms of economicstagnation in the early Roman empire are not to be sought, as they might be in more recent periods,in a slowing down of technological expansion but in the cessationof geographical inventionsor improvements,
'The economic historian of the classical world has only scattered and inadequate evidence on which to base his conclusions so that his treatment must inevitably be more general and less statistical than that of the modern economic historian (see Heichelheim, I, 5-7). 'The failure of the Greek genius in practical inventiveness lies outside the scope of an economic discussion. There is a notable distrust of innovation in all ancient thought (cf. the myth of Prometheus). The Romans showed little inventiveness along either cultural or technical lines and their literature adopted the attitude that inventions and economic expansion were responsible for the greed which led to wars and corruption and reduced the primitive age of gold to the contemporary one of iron (see, for example, Horace Odes i. 3; Epodes 7 and i6; Tibullus i. 3. 35-50; and similar passages in other authors). This distrust of inventions is well illustrated by -the story which Pliny the Elder tells about Tiberius. When an artisan discovered a method of making flexible glass, Tiberius ordered his whole shop destroyed lest the value of bronze, silver, and gold be diminished.-Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 26 (27). Pliny says the story was better known than certain. Petronius (Satiricon 5I) states that Tiberius executed the artisan, as does Dio Cassius (lvii. 2I. 7). 'On inventions and introduction of new plants and products during the Hellenistic period, see M. Rostovtzeff,The Social and EconomicHistory of the HellenisticWorld (3

Press, I941), vols.; Oxford:Clarendon

I, 35i-80

(PtolemaicEgypt); II, ii80-I238

(general

summary). For Syria, see Heichelheim in Economic Survey, IV, I26; for Roman science, see C. Singer, "Science," in C. Bailey, ed., The Legacy of Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, with bibliography. pp. 265-324, I925),

in the Early RomanEmpire 65 EconomicStagnation

and the beginningof disintegration,both geographicaland qualitative,in the traditionalway of life. Possible symptoms may, for convenience,be brieflyconsideredunderthe four heads of agriculture,industry,trade, and finance.But some of the importantsymptomsin these fields, particularly with respectto coinage,the changingcharacterof labor,and the difficulties regulation,are not limited to any one field and, the increaseof government in fact, have often been consideredcauses of the generaleconomicstagnation. It will appear,however,that any profoundsearch for the causes of economicstagnationleads outside the purelyeconomicsphereinto politics, sociology,and intellectualhistory.6 not only continuedto flourish Duringthe earlyRomanempire,agriculture world,with in most of the older,well-cultivatedareasof the Mediterranean the possibleexceptionof Greeceand, to a lesser degree,Italy,' but it was also developedto a high degreeof intensity in the newly conqueredareas expansionin the of the west and north.Therewas not the same agricultural basin,whoselandshad long beensubjectto intensive easternMediterranean cultivation.Nevertheless,takingthe empireas a whole,there is no evidence productivityin the early empire,or for for any generalloss of agricultural that matter, throughoutthe empire.Moreover,despite primitive methods of fertilizingand crop rotation,evidencefor the exhaustionof the soil is so Certainly slight that Rostovtzeffdoubts if it occurredto any large extent.8 writerssuch as ColumellaunderNero, Pliny the Elder underVespasian,or on the agriculunderTrajan,thoughthey may animadvert Dio Chrysostom tural decline of some areas, give the impressionof general fertility and basin. productivitythroughoutthe Mediterranean Symptomsof stagnation in ancient agriculturemust be sought, therefore, not in the soil but in its tillers, namely, in labor and organization. Agriculturallabor was of three types: the free peasant on his own farm, with at most membersof his family and a few slaves to help him; the large estate workedby gangsof slaves; and the large estate let out to tenants.It is generallystated that these are successive stages, roughly free peasants duringthe early and middle republic,slave estates duringthe late republic and first century of the empire,and tenant estates, or what is technically called the colonate, from the second century onward.But this sequenceis
8

See below, n. 104.

gives the best survey of general agricultural conditions during the early empire.-Roman Empire, chaps. vi and vii, pp. i80-305. See also the appropriate sections of the volumes of the Economic Survey, especially, for the decay of Greece, Vol. IV, 465-92, and, for the decay of Italy, Vol. V, i84, 297. 8Rostovtzeff (Roman Empire, pp. 329-30) disputes the view of J. Liebig and his followers (see p. 59I, n. 30) that soil exhaustion was the cause of the decay of the Roman empire. On pp. 494-96, n. 25, Rostovtzeff denies soil exhaustion even in Italy.
7 Rostovtzeff

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true only with qualifications. In the main it applies to Italy.9Large estates workedby slaves or tenants had long been familiar in the Near East and in Carthaginian areas; in fact it was fromCarthagethat Rome first learned the techniqueof operatingthem.'0 Even in Italy and Sicily, it is questionable whetherthe growthof large estates ever really drove out the independent peasant except in the flat areas suitable for large-scalecultivation or in the uplandsdevotedto the pasturingof herds."It is moreoverprobablethat the Celtic and even the morecivilized Germanchieftainsheld their tribesmen in some sort of tenant or, if the termmay be used, feudalsubservience so that the great villas of Roman Gaul, Germany,and Britain grew naturally out of indigenousinstitutions.' Hence a widespreaddisplacementof free peasants by large estates, particularly outside of Italy, may be questioned. Heichelheim,in fact, feels that the Greeksand Romans failed in their policy of expandingthroughoutthe Mediterranean world an agricultural system in which municipalities dominated over the surroundingfarm land. He holds that the self-sufficientlarge estate as developedunder the empirewas the economicand social institutionwhich endured,not only in Medieval Europe,but also in Byzantine and Islamic countries. It might,
9W. E. Heitland, Agricola (Cambridge: The University Press, 1921), is still standard for agriculture in the classical world, particularly in Italy. He argued that, as the upper classes acquired wealth during the later republic, they gradually bought out the small farms to form large estates worked by slave gangs and that, when the supply of slaves diminished and below, under the empire, the large landowners substituted tenants (see esp. pp. 205-I2, n. 69, for a similar thesis in Barrow, Slavery). 10M. Rostovtzeff (here spelled Rostowzew), Studien zur Geschichte des rdmischen Kolonates, erstes Beiheft zum Archiv fur Papyrusforschung (Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, i910), is still the fundamental study of tenant farming in the ancient world, although his conclusion that the Romans borrowed the system from the Near East is perhaps overdrawn. See Frank in Economic Survey, V, 300-2. See also Heichelheim, I, 744-49, and II, II7I-73, n. 42 (bibliography); and Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, p. 646, index under Coloni. "Rostovtzeff holds that free peasants in Italy survived the growth of large slave-worked estates only to become tenants of absentee landlords at a later date.-Roman Empire, pp. Frank in Economic Survey (V, i68-75) accepts their survival in Italy during the 192-93. first century. Scramuzza in Economic Survey (III, 366-67) argues that they were never eliminated in Sicily. " Grenier in Economic Survey (III, 495) states that the domains established in Gaul at the opening of the Roman epoch reproduced to a large extent those of the Celtic aristocracy. Collingwood traces the contrasting villa and village systems in Roman Britain to native origins.-Ibid., pp. 73-87. ' Heichelheim, I, 747, 749. Similarly (pp. 753-59), he sees in this period the beginning of a shift from the distinction between farmers and city dwellers to that between the great landowning officials, the honestiores, and the tenant serfs, the humiliores, of the later empire, a distinction perpetuated in the feudal societies of both the eastern and the western Mediblames terranean. Oertel accepts this view.-C.A.H., XII, 28i. Heichelheim (I, 67i-82) Augustus for having failed to carry through the Caesarian program of a classless society and a unified economic system, and for having perpetuated the city-state concept of economic organization, which proved inadequate to maintain itself on an imperial scale (see below, n. 85).

in the Early RomanEmpire 67 EconomicStagnation

however,be arguedthat the economicconditionsrepresentedby the large estates were favorable to stagnation and that stagnation in agricultural economicswas characteristicnot only of the Roman empire but also of the Middle Ages. Hence, whetherthe system of large estates as developed under the empire represents,outside of Italy, a serious displacementof free peasantryor simply the continuanceof previousconditionsundernew masters,the system itself may be taken as a symptomof stagnation.This stagnation,however,was not due to failureof productivityor to inadequacy of method, except insofar as agriculture,like other activities, showed no technologicalimprovement.The stagnation resulted rather from the low economicstatus of laboron the largeestates. Heitland, in his study of classical agriculturecalled Agricola,felt that the failure of the agriculturalsystem, and therefore,since agriculturewas the main economic activity of the Mediterraneanworld, of the whole economic structure, derived from the failure adequately to solve the He regardsthe slave system in itself as evil, becauseof the laborproblem." lack of incentive for the laborer,and he interpretsthe substitutionof the colonate, or serfdom,as simply the impositionof a differentform of economic slavery, necessitatedby the shortageof slave labor. His conclusion that slavery was the cause of economicstagnationhas not been generally accepted.' On the one hand, as will be shown presently,under the Roman empirethe status of slaves steadily improvedand their numbers,thanks to short supply and manumission,became fewer. On the other hand, the tenant system does not seem to have been developedas a substitute for slavery but originallywith a definiteview to maintaininga peasant econThe tenant workedhis own farm as did the free peasant; he was omy.1" not worked in gangs like slaves except for such labor as he owed to the generalestate. However, there was one feature of the system of large estates as it existed underthe empirethat was economicallyunsound.Wheresuch estates had existed previously,they were ownedlocally and what profit came out or spent locally. Underthe Romanempire, of them was either accumulated rich senators acquiredpropertieswidely spread throughoutthe provinces and the profits from these estates were drawn off for the luxuriousliving
14Heitland, Agricola, PP. 432-59. He remarks (pp. 434, 443) on the scorn that the ancients felt for manual labor. 1" Frank in Economic Survey, V, 175-82, 297. Broughton in Economic Survey (III, 69092, 839-40) finds that the amount of agricultural slavery in the province of Asia is hard to estimate. " Rostovtzeff (Roman Empire, pp. 3I9-23) thinks that Hadrian and (p. 357) even Septimius were eager to promote a free peasantry.

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of the owneror for the taxes that he paid.'7 Moreover,an increasingnumber of estates passed to the emperor,though it has been questionedwhether this tendency reached dangerousproportionsbefore the confiscationsof SeptimiusSeverusat the close of the secondcenturyA.D."8 The profitsfrom these imperial estates went to the support of the court, the provision of food andentertainment for the parasiticalpopulationof Rome,or the maintenance of the machineryof government.Not only, therefore,were the profitsdrawnaway fromtheirplace of origin,but pressurewas ever heavier to get more out of the land. This had three bad results: first, the tenant cultivatorhad less opportunityto build up a reserveand less incentive to work; second, the governmentwas increasinglyforced to bind the cultivator to the land to ensure its revenueand the productionof food; and, third, the governmentsought means to bring undercultivationland which had either not previouslybeen cultivatedor which had been abandonedas.
unprofitable, the so-called agri deserti.'9 These tendencies begin to appear
'7lbid., pp. 296-97. For the wealth of senators, L. Friedliinder, Darstellungen aus der I, I21-35; and for luxury, II, Sittengeschichte Roms (9th ed.; Leipzig: Hirzel, I9I9-I92I), 263-379. W. S. Davis, The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome (New York: The Macmillan Company, i9io; reprint, New York: Peter Smith, I933), is a vivid if popular study in which the undue pursuit of wealth is blamed for the fall of Rome (see below, n. I04; also Frank in EconomicSurvey,V, 22-26, 56-6o). doubts that the growth of large estates and 18Frank in Economic Survey (V, 300-2) tenant farming had serious economic effects before the extensive confiscations of Septimius, which vastly increased the crown property (res priuata). He feels that this caused rivalry for the throne, loss of initiative in agriculture, and increased pressure for production. For Asia, Broughton in Economic Survey (IV, 587, 648-63, 905-6) reaches the same conclusion. Van Nostrand in Economic Survey (III, 2i6) also thinks that imperial properties were not large in Spain until the time of the Severi. It is possible that the imperial properties in Africa were extensive at an earlier date, if there is any truth in Pliny the Elder's remark that Nero put to death six men who owned half of Africa (presumably the old proconsular province, namely, Tunis).-Nat. Hist. xviii. 6 (7). 35. The conclusion is generally drawn that Nero confiscated their estates, though Pliny does not say so and only cites the fact to illustrate the spread in the provinces-of large estates, which he condemns as the ruin of Italy. From just outside proconsular Africa come the much discussed inscriptions concerning the management of the Saltus Burunitanus under Trajan, Hadrian, and Commodus. Haywood in Economic Survey (IV, 83-102, esp. pp. 85-86) thinks that, whatever the previous imperial holdings in Africa were, Septimius greatly increased them. ' Rostovtzeff (Roman Empire, pp. 266, 269) thought that concern with abandoned or unreclaimed land became a government policy when Augustus took over the management of Egypt (see his Kolonates, pp. 351). The policy was later applied by Hadrian to the African estates.-Idem, Roman Empire, pp. 321, 330, and 591j n. 3I; Kolonates, pp. 391-93. Herodian (ii. 4. 6), quoted in Kolonates (p. 39I, n. i), states that Pertinax, in 193 A.D., generalized the rule that those who would work uncultivated land could possess it. It is, in fact, at about this time, under Marcus, that the settlement of barbarians within the empire begins to become common. Rostovtzeff (Roman Empire, p. 374) connects this settlement of barbarians with the general policy under the Severi of converting the army into a farming militia, settled on farms around strongholds which served as a rallying point for defensive operations (see pp. 375-79 and below, n. 75).

in the Early RomanEmpire 69 EconomicStagnation

under Hadrian, though Rostovtzeff thinks that his enactments, known chiefly from certain important African inscriptions, were aimed at the restorationof free peasant cultivators.' By the time of the Severi, flight of the tenants, or colony,from intolerable oppressionhad become fairly common.= In regardto agriculture, therefore,symptomsof economicstagnationare not to be sought in any failure of productivity,or in the growth of large estates per se, or in the substitution of slave for peasant or tenant for slave, but in the over-all political and economicconditions,which meant on the estates were drawnoff beyondmeasure that the profitsof agriculture and that the needs of the governmentled to oppression. Ancient industry never really developedbeyond a householdeconomy, in towns or the that is, one based on either the small producer-shopkeeper ocIndustrial occasionally concentration artisan-laborer on large estates. curredbecauseof particularfactors.In Egypt, the Pharaohsand Ptolemies of production, had imposeda high degreeof state monopolisticmanagement both agriculturaland industrial.In Roman Egypt, however,there was a tendencyto returnto private ownershipof both land and industrialestabIn certainplaces elsewherein the empire,the existenceof natlishments.22 ural supplies of raw materials or concentrationof particularskills led to centralizedproduction.The sands of the coast of PhoeniciaaroundSidon wereparticularlysuited for glassmaking.'Deposits of special clay around Arezzoin Italy and later at certain points in Gaul and Britain caused the establishmentin these localities of potteries to make the red ware which,
See above, n. i6. 21Rostovtzeff (Roman Empire, pp. 349, 597, n. 8) compares the threat of the peasants of the Saltus Burunitanus under Commodus "to flee to some place where we can live as free men" to the traditional "strikes" of Egyptian peasants (see p. 256), who would stage a "secession" to a temple if they felt that some wrong was not being properly redressed. The cases are, however, somewhat different: the Egyptian peasant did not plan to settle somewhere else if he did not get justice; the Africans definitely threatened to depart. The growth of desertion, both of peasants after the time of the Severi and, under the later empire, of the oppressed tax-paying bourgeoisie (see below, n. 92), is a well-known phenomenon. Rostovtzeff connects various "peasant uprisings" of the late second century, notably that of Maternus in Gaul and Spain, with the oppression of tenants (see pp. 327, 357, 424, and 620, n. i6, 436, 438). The government of the fourth century tried to combat the tendency toward "desertion" by binding all classes of the population more strictly to their appointed tasks (see pp. 465-69; see also Johnson in Economic Survey, II, 245-46, for Egypt, and Heichelheim in ibid., IV, 234, for Syria; Broughton in ibid., IV, 658-6o, for Asia; Oertel in C.A.H., XII, 254-59). ' For Roman relaxation of Ptolemaic monopolies, see Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. I59, i69; Heichelheim, I, 736-37. Johnson in Economic Survey (II, 325-35) discusses the monopolies but draws no conclusions concerning Roman policies. " For glass, see Heichelheim, II, I139, n. I4.

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originatingin Samos,became the commonfine tablewareof the empire.' might be adduced.But in none of Otherexamplesof similarconcentrations them is therea real factory system of mechanizedmass productionsuch as modernindustry.There might be some subdivisionof labor, characterizes for instance,in the potteriesbetweenthe moldingand firingof the pots, but weresimply of individualworkmenunder by and largesuch concentrations one roof. Each man continued to producehis particularobject by hand, just as if he were workingindependently. Duringthe early empire,the disparityin civilizationbetweenthe central outskirts,particularlyin the west, and the newly conquered Mediterranean led to an artificial semblanceof the present-daycontrast between industrial and agriculturalareas. Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece,and Italy producedmanufacturedgoods for export in return for raw materials or preciousmetals and luxury objects.' By the second century,however,the newer provinceshad developedtheir own industrialskills, either through the immigrationof workmenor throughthe training of local talent, and the primacyof the centralareaswas lost. This causedan economicdecline of these central areas which has often been taken as a symptom of stag-. of balanceand a restoranation; ratherit is a symptomof a readjustment tion of the normalconditionof ancient industry,that is, local production of the ordinary,simple necessities of life and trade only in luxuries or those manufacturedgoods or raw materialswhich were restrictedin production to certain areas. The most famous instance of this decentralizing of Arretine trendis that alreadymentioned,the spreadof the manufacture pottery from Italy into Gauland Britain. Symptomsof economicstagnationin industry, therefore,are not to be found in respect to techniques,which were unchanging,or in a decline of over-all productionand consumption,which probably did not alter very much.They are to be found in aspects not purely economic.The tendency made easier the political disruption towardlocal economicself-sufficiency which manifests itself from the time of Marcus onward,first into eastern and westernhalves and, from the third century,into smaller units. Moreover, the disseminationof industry into the provincesis accompaniedby
Comfort in a special section on
732-40;

' For Arretine ware, see Heichelheim, II, terra sigillata in Economic Survey, V, i88-94. ' Rostovtzeff,Roman Empire,pp. i6i-69; (Italy), 222-29 (Rome). Survey, V, I85-2I7

ii63,

n.

32;

I, Heichelheim,

Frank in Economic

EconomicStagnation in the Early RomanEmpire 7 I

a markeddecline in artistic and professionalskills.' The explanationof this, however,goes far deeperthan pure economics; it was not the result of mass or standardizedproductionas against individual or piecework, since the individualworkmanwas still supreme.Rather it was one aspect of the generalstagnationand decline that overtook Greco-Roman culture as it spreadoutward. Overlandtradein antiquity,by wagon,beast, or packman,was expensive and thereforeprofitableonly for goods of small bulk and high value.' Even sea trade,suitablefor shipmentsin quantity,was slow and unreliable.Rome had suppressed piracy in the first century B.C., but shippingwas still subject to uncertaintiesof weatherand fear of anythingbut coastwisenavigation.'2 Twenty days was an averageallowancefrom the Bay of Naples to Alexandria.'9 St. Paul took all winter, with a shipwreckthrownin, to get
a Rostovtzeff (Roman Empire, p. i67) connects the decline in artistic skill with standardization and decentralization. Standardization should not have caused a decline in artistic skill, because standardization did not really cut the workman off from directly shaping his product. Even in mold-made pottery decorated with reliefs, the mold was handmade and new ones had frequently to be made. Athenian pottery of the sixth to the fourth century B.C. was produced in quantity for export on fairly standard models, but the individual potters and painters achieved a high level of artistry. More properly, Rostovtzeff later (p. 479) connects the decline in industrial art with the general decline of classical civilization. An interesting, but noneconomic, question is that of how far the decline was due to "barbarization," that is, the spread of classical culture to peoples who, not temperamentally inclined to accept it, therefore handled it without inspiration, whatever their native abilities along the lines of their own native cultures. R. C. Collingwood, in his and J. N. L. Myers' Roman Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I936; chap. xv, pp. 245-60), maintains that this happened in Britain; that the normal development of native Celtic art was interrupted by the Roman conquest and that the British during the Roman period produced nothing but dull provincial imitations of classical art, but that the native Celtic genius reasserted itself as the Roman hold weakened. '7 For overland trade, see Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. 142-6i; Heichelheim, I, 690722; appropriate sections of the Economic Survey; M. P. Charlesworth, Trade-routes and Commerce of the Roman Empire (Cambridge: The University Press, I924). ' For piracy, see H. A. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World (Liverpool: The University Press of Liverpool, I924). Piracy was largely suppressed during the later republic, chiefly by Pompey.-Frank in Economic Survey, I, 30I-3. For geographic and climatic factors in navigation, see E. C. Semple, The Geography of the Mediterranean Region (New York: Henry Holt and Company, I931), Part IV, pp. 579-707. Caesar's pursuit of Pompey across the Adriatic in the winter of 49/48 B.C. was seriously, and almost disastrously, interrupted by storms-Bell. Ciu. iii. 25. According to Tacitus (Ann. xv. 46. 3), Nero in 64 A.D. ordered the Italian squadron to return (presumably from Ostia) to its station at Misenum without regard for the weather. It was caught off Cumae in a southwest (Africus) gale and most of the triremes and lesser craft were blown ashore. 'Twenty days from Puteoli to Alexandria is the average given by E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge: The University Press, I928), in his table on p. 50. J. W. Thompson, An Economic and Social History of the Middle Ages (New York: Century Company, I928), p. 3, gives twelve days, presumably for a fast voyage.

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from Judea to Rome.' The delay of the corn fleet by storm occasionally causedriots at Rome which might even result in the fall of ministers.31 During the early empire,two artificialstimuli induceda high degreeof trade throughoutthe Mediterranean basin and beyond. The first was the prosperityof Italy, whichdrewthitherluxuryobjectseven fromthe Baltic, the Congo,or India and China.' The second was the fact that the city of Rome had grownin populationfar beyond the possibility of nourishment from the neighboringareas of Italy and that she had to draw her grain, oil, and even wine from overseas: from Sicily, Egypt, Africa, and Spain.' It used to be argued that Rome's use of supplies from overseas,of which a considerableportion was procuredin the form of taxes in kind, meant the agriculturaldecline of Italy. But this was probablynot so; overland transport was so expensive, particularly in mountainous Italy, that it would have been ruinous,not to say impossible,to tap, for instance, the Po valley for the support of Rome's million or more inhabitants. Seabornesupplieswere the only meansof provisioningthem.' Naturally there bulk of export goods, even in the flush was nothing like a corresponding days of the early empirewhen Italian pottery and metalworkcommanded provincialmarkets.Nor did the populationof Rome, collected there beHeichelheim, I, 730. Paul's journeys in the east are dis'3Acts of the Apostles 27-28; cussed by Broughton in Economic Survey (IV, 858-60). 3 According to Tacitus (Ann. xii. 43), a shortage of grain in Rome during the winter of 5i A.D. led to a riot in which the mob surrounded Claudius and had to be driven away by troops. Only ten days' supply remained in the city but a fortunate spell of good weather (as well as the kindness of the gods) permitted the ships to come from Africa. Tacitus moralizes that formerly Italy had fed not only itself but distant legions; now it was dependent on Africa and Egypt and the life of the Roman people was subject to the chances of shipping. In i89 A.D., on the occasion of a severe famine, the prefect of the grain supply artificially aggravated it in such a way that the pernicious minister of Commodus, Cleander, should seem responsible. Thereupon, the people besieged Commodus in his villa and, despite the Praetorian Guard (the police), forced him to have Cleander and his son executed.-Dio Cassius lxxii (lxxiii in Boissevain and the Loeb ed.). I3; Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Comm. I4. i-3; Herodian i. I2. 3-I3. 6. "Frank in Economic Survey, V, 267-95. The general supplying of grain to Rome was called annona (a term applied also to other aspects of the supplying of grain); the distribution of grain free to the poorer people of Rome was called frumentatio (see Rostovtzeff's article on "Frumentum" in RE, VII (13), I26-87, and the articles in E. de Ruggiero, Dizionario Epigrafico di Antichita Romane, on The dole, as well as the free "Annona" (I, 474-87) and on "Frumentatio" (III, 225-3I5). gifts of money to the people (congiaria or liberalitates, as against donatiua to troops) are frequently alluded to in the imperial coinage.-H. Mattingly, Roman Coins (London: Methuen, I928), p. I5I. See generally H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham, The Imperial and H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Roman Coins (London: Spink and Sons, I923) Empire in the British Museum (London; For the Trustees, I923-). "For the view that Rome could not be supported by grain transported overland but must draw from overseas, see H. M. Last's discussion of the grain bill passed by Gaius Gracchus in I22 B.C. in C.A.H., IX, 4, 57-60.

in the Early RomanEmpire 7 3 EconomicStagnation

cause it was the center of the world, contributeanything economicallyto the empire.' From the time of the Gracchi,in the second century B.C., efforts had beenmadeto drawoff the surplusand idle populationof the capital, but these failed. In the end, the governmentnot only had to take over the supervisionof the provisioningof the city, to preventprofiteering and uncertainties;it was also compelledto supportfree a considerable portion of the population.' Only a few other cities of the empireeven approached Rome in size, perhapsCarthage,Alexandria,Antioch, and, after Constantine, Constantinople. Except for Constantinople, these cities seem to have been supportedlargely from their hinterlands; at least there is no such evidence as there is for Rome that a vast organizationwas necessary to feed them from overseas.' In the case of trade,the territoriallimits of the empirewere overstepped by the economicsystem and brisk commercewas conductedboth overland and by sea with the far east and overlandwith the far north and even with central Africa.' To some extent, bulk trade shows the same, tendency towardregionalismthat was indicatedin the case of industry,in part because of the decentralizationof industry itself and in part because the in the west shifted the supplyingof Rome from of agriculture development Egypt to Africa and Spain. Under the later empire, Egypt fed Constantinople which, like Rome, dependedon overseassupplies."There is little
'SFrank in Economic Survey (V, 2 I8) compares Rome's unfavorable trade balance, met by government expenditures or paid for by income from provincial investments, with those of such modern capitals as Washington or Rome. 3 Even Athens, in the fifth century B.C., routed the import of grain from the Black Sea through the Piraeus, where her citizens had first claim on it. The Gracchan grain law is derived by Last (C.A.H., IX, 57) from Hellenistic precedents. '3 But Rostovtzeff indicates that the administrations of all large cities had to assist and control the food supply.-Roinan Empire, pp. 148-53, esp. p. I49, and p. 532, n. 22). 3 For trade outside the empire, see Frank in Economic Survey, V, 283-90; Johnson in ibid., II, 344-46 (part played by Egypt); Heichelheim in ibid., IV, i98-20I, 203 (part played by Syria). The trade with India and China was very large and is well discussed by Warmington, Commerce. The Chinese sources are translated and discussed by F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient (Leipzig: G. Hirth, i885). Hirth tries to identify the countries and products mentioned in the Chinese sources. He thinks (pp. I73-78) that the famous embassy mentioned as having reached the Chinese court in i66 A.D. from "Antun, ruler of Ta-Ts'in in [Syria?]' was not an official embassy from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus but comprised traders who, having reached Annam, pushed into China in the guise of an official embassy. He points out that their gifts were not typically Syrian products but objects that they could easily have procured in Annam. Oertel, however, in C. A. H. (XII, 235) accepts a view that they were an official embassy which had started from Ctesiphon [Ta Ts'in?]. Hirth (pp. 22I-4I; see below, n. 67) remarks on the high esteem enjoyed by Syrian glass in China. The New York Times (April 26, I946, p. 23) reports the finding in Indo-China of a hoard of coins and precious objects, partly Greco-Roman and partly Hindu, among which was a coin of Antoninus or Marcus. 39Diz. Epigrafico, I, 485 (left col.) under "Annona," citing Codex Theodosianus xiv. 26. I with the comment of Gothofredus (see Heichelheim, I, 799).

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evidence, however, for stagnation in the movement of luxury objects or of thoseproduced in specializedregions.'Pirennewent so far as to maintain that the economic unity of the Mediterranean,as far as this trade was concerned,was not brokenuntil the eighth century,in consequenceof the Moorishoccupationof Sicily and Spain.4" Symptomsof stagnationwith respect to trade, therefore,are not to be found in the normal interchangeof goods of small bulk and high value. Granted,as will be remarkedpresently, that this trade meant a drain of cash out of the empire, this is a financial, not a trade, problem. In the sea-bornemovementof food supplies,the symptomsof stagnation,namely, increasinggovernmentcontroland support,are likewise factors not of the grain trade itself, which was artificial to begin with, but of politics and finance. II From a generalfinancialpoint of view, the early empirewas a periodof great prosperityas regardsboth public funds and private capital.42 This prosperitywas not confined to the upper classes; to judge from the archaeologicalevidence, it extended fairly far down the social scale, particularlyin the townswhosematerialremains, as at Ostia,Pompeii,Timgad, or Delos, show considerablecomfort in simple homes.4' Inscriptionsbear this out, for very simple peoplecould affordto have gravestonescut, much as they do today." But, by the end of the second century, this prosperity
? Heichelheim (I, 796-808) contrasts the continuance of the luxury trade after the barbarian invasions with the decentralization of trade in cheaper goods and thinks that the Byzantine emperors fostered the former. 4 H. Pirenne's view is briefly and recently set forth in his Economic and Social History of Mediaeval Europe (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, I937), Introduction, pp. I-I5. His view is accepted by Thompson, Middle Ages, pp. 2I7-i8. 4 Perhaps the most famous description of the prosperity of the early empire is Gibbon's, in the first three chapters of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the third chapter, after discussing the reign of Marcus, he makes the famous remark: "If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus" (see the edition by Bury, London: Methuen, i896, I, 78; see also Thompson, Middle Ages, chap. i). 'For Rome, Ostia, and Pompeii, see Frank in Economic Survey, V, 2 i8-66; for Rome, J. Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome at the Height of the Empire, ed. H. T. Rowell (New Haven: Yale University Press, I940). In general, see Oertel in C. A. H., XII, 249-50; Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, passim; Friedlinder, Sittengeschichte, passim; S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (2d ed.; London: Macmillan and Company, I905), passim. "The best impression of the character, content, and distribution of Latin inscriptions can be obtained from an examination of H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (3 vols. in 5; Berlin: Weidemann, i892-I9i6).

EconomicStagnationin the Early RomanEmpire 75

had begun to wane. It is true that right down to the end of the empirethe rich got, if anything,richerand lived on a fabulousscale. But the poor got poorer and increasingburdens fell upon the middle classes in the towns. The depressionof peasants into colonyhas already been mentioned; after the second century, inscriptionsmarkedly decline in numbers,which indicates that ordinarytownspeopleno longer had enough wealth to afford them.' Augustusplacedthe publicfinancesof the empireon a sound,if cautious, footing.' Much wealth had pouredinto Italy from the easternconquestsof the last centuries of the republic and from Caesar's conquest of Gaul, whose chiefs had apparentlyhoardeda good deal of gold. Augustusadded to this the treasuresof Egypt, and to some extent those of other eastern of Antony.'7 Moreover,Augustusdevotedthe revenuesof Egypt supporters and of his considerablepersonalestate to the public service.' Even with however,it is clear that he was hard put to it for revenues these resources, adequate to support the restricted administrativemachine which he established.When Varus lost three legions in the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest in 9 A.D., Augustus felt unable to replace them.' Whetheror not -of the Grecobecauseof this defeat,he put a practicalend to the expansion Romanworldwhich had been continuoussince the conquestsof Alexander three and a half centuriesbefore.The next two centurieswere a period of consolidationwithin the frontiers set by Augustus, except for such occasional venturesas Claudius'conquestof Britain which, in all probability never paid for itself, and Trajan's conquest of Dacia, the costs of
'Baynes in C. A. H. (XII, 713) comments on the lack of money for memorials in the third century. ' For Augustus' budget, see Frank in Economic Survey, V, 4-i8. See also in ibid., pp. 3656, for the Julio-Claudians and Flavians, and pp. 65-90, for the Antonines and Severi. 'For the flow of accumulated wealth from the east to Italy, see Rostovtzeff, Roman V, i8, 25-26; Empire, pp. I5-22; Frank in Economic Survey, I, 296-98, 324-26, 338-4i; Johnson in ibid., II, 48i (Egypt). For the wealth of Gaul, see Grenier in ibid., III, 455-64. For the wealth of the west generally, see Heichelheim, I, 695-96. '5Augustus set forth his contributions to the state in his own memorial, the Res Gestae (see the summary in Economic Survey, V, 14-I5). ' For defeat of Varus, see H. M. D. Parker, The Roman Legions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I928), pp. 89-go (see also below, n. ioi). According to Suetonius, Augustus was so upset by the loss of Varus' three legions that for months on end he let his hair and beard grow (a sign of mourning) and occasionally beat his head against doors, crying "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions," and kept the anniversary of the defeat as a day of gloom and mourning.-Aug. 23.2. When the Pannonian legions revolted on the accession of Tiberius in I4 A.D., demanding a reduction of service from twenty to sixteen years (the term for the praetorians) and increased pay, Tiberius refused their demands because the treasury could not stand the expense.-Parker, Legions, p. 77, on the basis of Tacitus Ann. i.I 7.6, 78.2.

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which, in Rostovtzeff'sopinion, far,exceeded the much advertisedbooty therefromor the profit from the new mines.' While it is impossibleto fix any accuratefigurefor the Romanbudget,it is clear that in the opinionof Augustus and his more competent successors the public resourceswere New taxes might be imposed,like those created by Augustus to limited.5' finance veterans' bonuses, and undoubtedlythe increasingprosperity of the westernprovincesmeant added income.'2 But expensesalso increased. Augustusleft an army of twenty-fivelegions which, with the auxiliary
troops, represents some 250,000 to 300,00o men. Vespasian increased the

legions to thirty, at which number they remainedfixed until Septimius addedthreemore.Thus underSeptimiusthe numberof troopswas probably over 330,000 men."The pay of legionariesunderAugustuswas 225 denarii
a year, which Domitian raised to 300. Under the Severi the sum rose to 750

the pay of the simple legionary; auxiliarytroops a year."This represented

' The reasons for Claudius' conquest of Britain are much disputed.-Collingwood and Myers, Roman Britain, pp. 76-78. Wealth, exaggerated by report, was probably one of the reasons. No estimate is possible of the income and expenses of the province but it is probable that the increasing cost of the military establishment was a drain on the central governYet in the third century, Britain ment.-Collingwood in Economic Survey, III, i4-i6. escaped the general anarchy of the empire.-Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, p. 422. Rostovtzeff blames the financial difficulties of the mid-second century on the cost of Trajan's wars against Parthia and Dacia.-lbid., pp. 307-I5. Frank in Economic Survey (V, 65, 67) regards Trajan's finances more favorably and cites a lightening of taxation and the booty from Dacia.-Ibid., p. 65, n. I3. 51 Heichelheim (I, 762-65) regards it as impossible to estimate the Roman budget. The various authors of the Economic Survey have attempted to do so (see esp. Frank in Vol. V, as cited above in n. 46, and, for Egypt, Johnson in Vol. II, 48i-90). 6' New taxes for the aerarium military were established in 6 A.D. to pay the veterans a cash bonus in place of allotments of land.-Frank in Economic Survey, V, 7. Veteran colonies continued to be founded, particularly in the colonies.-Parker, Legions, pp. 246-47; Broughton in Economic Survey, IV, 702-3, for Asia; Frank in ibid., V, 30-32, 62-65, for Italy. But the legionaries tended to settle themselves in the provincial towns near which they had seen service. traces the history of the! legions from the death of Parker, Legions (pp. 92-II7) Augustus to 193 A.D. The basic statement is given by Tacitus (Ann. iv. 5) on the disposition of the Roman forces in 23 A.D. The fundamental discussion is Ritterling's article, "Legio," in of which the first half, to col. I376, is a general discussion, ii86-i837, RE, XII (23-24), and the second half treats the individual legions. Septimius' three new legions, I-III Parthicae, are discussed in Half Vol. 23, cols. I308-9. The normal imperial legion should have had 5,600 legionaries, but is generally figured at 5,ooo, which would give I25,000 legionaries for twenty-five legions. It is usually estimated that there were about an equal number of auxiliaries, making a 250,000 minimum for the whole army. Thirty-three legions with auxiliaries would give a minimum of 330,000 men.-J. E. Sandys, ed., A Companion to Latin Studies (3d ed.; Cambridge: The University Press, I925), pp. 464-68; M. P. Nilsson, Imperial Rome (London: Bell and Sons, I926), p. 285. ' For the pay and extras of legionary soldiers and officers, see Parker, Legions, pp. 2I424 (up to I93 A.D.). For increases under the Severi, see Lammert's article, "Stipendium" in RE2, III (6), 2537. A good table is in M. Durry, Les Cohortes pretoriennes (Paris: Boccard, I938), p. 267. The fundamental work is still A. von Domaszewski, "Der Trup-

EconomicStagnationin the Early RomanEmpire 77

probablygot less, but special troopsand officersgot much more.Also, this pay was supplementedby donatives on such occasions as accessions,victories, or the like, in proportionto the pay and increasedas the pay increased.Thus it is apparentthat the cost of defendingthe empirerose not only as regardspay but as regardsall the other expenses.This was particularly true when, under Marcus, the pressureon the frontiers became heavier.' It may be assumed that the other normal expenses of the government went up correspondingly since it is clear that the numberof civil servants that voluntarypublicserviceby the well-to-do,which steadilyincreased'and had been the rule underthe republic,was graduallyreplacedby paid public service on the part of all classes.' To this increase of administrative expenses must be added the heavy expenses of the court, once the simplicity of the Augustanhouseholdwas replacedby the trappingsof oriental monarchs."7 Finally, the occasionalspendthriftemperorsdissipatedthe capital accumulatedby the businesslikerulers in a whirl of favorites,entertainment, and similarextravagances. The excessesof the so-called"bad" emperorsmay, as is often argued,have had little effect on the empireoutside of Rome, but they certainly constituted a devastating drain on the reservesof the imperialtreasury.' One symptom of the strain on governmentfinancesis the evidence,bepensold der Kaiserzeit," in Neue Heidelberger Jahrbiicher, X (I900), 2i8-4I. Frank in Economic Survey (V, 30I) argues that the confiscations and innovations of Septimius, by reducing a large number of tenants to the position of imperial coloni, made them unavailable for military service because their labor on the imperial estates was "essential," and therefore encouraged the hiring of barbarian mercenaries, which both increased the cost of defense and tended to draw money out of the empire (see below, n. 64). ' For difficulties under Marcus, see Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. 325-27; see also below, n. io6. Frank in Economic Survey (V, 76-77) points out that the imperial treasury (fiscus) contained two billion seven hundred million sesterces at the accession of Marcus in i6i A.D. and was empty at his death in i8o A.D. Marcus was generous in gifts to the troops (donatiua) and to the people (congiaria). ' The best discussion of the Roman civil service is still 0. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian (2d ed.; Berlin: Weidmann, I905); more summary is H. Mattingly, The Imperial Civil Service of Rome (Cambridge: The University Press, igio). For salaries, see Rosenberg's article "Salarium" in RE2, I (2), i847. Hirschfeld (I, 477-80) thinks that the thoroughgoing reorganization of the administrative machine under Hadrian, with its sharp differentiation between the imperial household and the imperial officials, meant a considerable increase of personnel. Septimius introduced further fundamental reforms, chiefly to the disadvantage of the senatorial class (see pp. 48o-82). ' For the court, Hirschfeld, Verwaltungsbeamten, pp. 307-I7; Friedlinder, Sittengeschichte, II, 32-Io2. ' For extravagances of "bad" emperors, see Frank in Economic Survey, V, 39-40 (Gaius Caligula), pp. 43, 45 (Nero), pp. 55-56 (Titus and Domitian). He does not give details for Commodus, Caracalla, or Elagabalus. Thompson agrees that their faults had little adverse effect on the empire as a whole.-Middle Ages, pp. 6-7.

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ginning at least with Trajan, that the governmentwas forced from time to time to cancelthe recordsof unpaidtaxes.' Even moresymptomaticis the gradualdepreciation of the coinage.' This first occurredunderNero. His reductionof the weight of the gold aureus may have been justifiedby a rise in the value of gold in relation to other metals.61 More dangerous,in the exampleit set, was his increaseof alloy in the silver coinage,an increasewhich continuedduring the second century, became severe under Caracalla,and proceededrapidly throughout the rest of the third century.62 This depreciation of the silver content of the coinage suggests that even during the second century the income of the governmentwas inadequateto meet its expensesunless the supply of precious metals was spread more thinly. In a society which estimated the value of coins in termsof their content of preciousmetals and not in terms of an arbitrary(or token) value set upon them by the government,depreciation was boundto lead to public loss of faith in the coinageand thus to such inflationaryeffects as the ruin of capital values, the dislocation of rates of pay, and a trend toward barter and payment of taxes in kind.'
" Cancellation of delinquent taxes by the emperors was much praised during the second century but it proves either that people were increasingly in default or that the government collection agencies were inadequate. See Frank in Economic Survey (V, 65 and 70, n. 23) for the burning of records under Trajan as portrayed on one of two balustrades now in the Forum (photograph in Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, p. 3I4), ibid., p. 70 for Hadrian (from Dessau, Ins. Lat. Sel. no. 309), p. 77 for Marcus (from Dio Cassius lxxi [lxxii]. 32.2, of i78 A.D.). Egypt had difficulty meeting the burden of taxes in the third century.-Johnson in Economic Survey, II, 354. " The content of the coins is conveniently presented by Frank in Economic Survey, V, 90-93; see also Heichelheim, I, 682-89. "This interpretation of Nero's changes is Mattingly's in his Roman Coins (pp. I2I-32). Frank in Economic Survey (V, 35) justified Nero even for silver. Nero reduced the aureus from I/42 to I/46 of a Roman pound and changed the silver from practical purity to io per cent alloy. ' Silver was alloyed I5 per cent under Trajan, 25 per cent under Marcus, and 40 per cent under Septimius.-Mattingly, Roman Coins, p. I25; Frank in Economic Survey, V, 9I-92. Caracalla "reformed" the coinage by displacing the silver denarius (legally 25 to the aureus) by a new coin, the antoninianus, supposedly worth two denarii but slightly less than twice the size of the denarius and so alloyed as to have only two thirds the silver of the Neronian denarius. Even this coin was soon debased and the gold aureus continued also Frank in Economic Survey, V, 93. to lose weight.-Mattingly, Roman Coins, pp. I25-26; in Asia, 'For depreciation in Syria, see Heichelheim in Economic Survey, IV, 2I9-23; Broughton in ibid., IV, 906-7. For depreciation and rise of prices, see Rostovtzeff, (Egypt). For reRoman Empire, pp. 4I9-2I; Johnson in Economic Survey, II, I47-48 version from a money to a natural economy in the third century, see Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, p. 6I2, n. 57; Heichelheim, I, 784. Naturally, the "bad" money drove the "good" money out of circulation into hoarding or the melting pot. Ancient politicians had neither the ingenuity to devise nor the control of public opinion to enforce a "managed" currency. And excessive depreciation can destroy faith even in token money, as in Germany in the inflation of 1920.

EconomicStagnation in the Early RomanEmpire 79

However, these results of the depreciationof the coinage only became disastrous during the third century and therefore lie outside the limit of this discussion. Depreciationof the coinagemay have had a second purpose,to increase the amount of coinage in circulationin order to provide for the needs of developingtrade, rising prices, and similar results of the prosperitywhich the early empirewitnessed.If so, it wouldseem that when the accumulated reservesof cash which Rome had acquiredfrom the Hellenistic monarchies were exhausted,the normalproductionof the mines would not suffice to, increase the amount of precious metals in circulation.' The coinage in circulationwas subject to at least two constant drains.A certain amount was hoarded,but how much cannot be even guessed at.' More significant was the export of coinage outside the empire,particularlyto the east, to pay for raw materialsor luxury goods. This export has been estimatedby some as a serious inroad on the available supply of precious metals, but most scholars do not think that it reachedsufficientproportionsto constitute by itself a primarycause of economicstagnation.' While the export
' Heichelheim (I, 683-84) apparently regards the supply of metal as inadequate and connects the shortage not only with the exhaustion of reserves but with the flow out of the empire to pay for imports (see p. 7i7) and later with the tribute payments to barbarian tribes (see p. 689 and Frank, as cited above in n. 54). Frank in Economic Survey regards the supply of metal as adequate under Caesar and Augustus (I, 349, and V, 20-2i) because of influx of capital from the east (see above, n. 47). But coinage was severely restricted under Tiberius and the more liberal coinage of his successors may have been economically unsound.-Ibid., V, 32-36. Under hoarding might be included the wear and tear on coinage through use (Warmington, Commerce, p. 3i6, under item III b, and n. 66 below); and use for ornamentation (Thompson, Middle Ages, pp. 40-4I). ' Estimates of the flow of coinage out of the empire in connection with the eastern trade (see above, n. 38) are based on two statements by Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. vi. 23[261.IoI) in connection with the sea route from Egypt to India: "India in no year gold) from our empire and sends back absorbs less than 50,000,000 sesterces ($2,2I3,200 in connection goods which are sold with us at a hundredfold profit"; and (xii.i8[4f].84) with the spice and pearl trade from Arabia Felix: "By the lowest reckoning, each year sesterces India and China and the [Arabian] peninsula take from our empire iooooOoo ($4,426,400 gold). So much do our luxuries and our women cost us." The above equivalents are figured on a Neronian gold aureus weighing 7.39 grams and worth 25 denarii or ioo sesterces (Frank in Economic Survey, V, 9i) and a gold dollar weighing i.67i8 grams, which gives $4.4264 per aureus. The amounts would be somewhat less on a Flavian aureus weighing 7.3 grams. Frank in Economic Survey (V, 32) thinks that the drain was considerable under the Julio-Claudians but that Vespasian (see p. 283) restricted the export of bullion. He feels, however (pp. 298-99), that a considerable flow continued. Warmington (Commerce, pp. 39-40) says that finds of coins indicate a high rate of flow to India from that in Ceylon Augustus to Vespasian but less thereafter. Yet he says later (pp. 120-24) coin finds are of late imperial pieces. Warmington surveys the question generally in his Commerce, pp. 272-3i8, "The Adverse Balance," and concludes that, though the outflow was always considerable, its ultimate effect was at most to hasten a financial collapse which

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seems to have been considerableduring the first half of the first century A.D., findsin India suggest that it fell off after the reign of Vespasian,who may have tried deliberatelyto check it. Nevertheless,the sustainedvolume of the easterntradedownto the end of the empireindicatesthat the export of coinagemust have continued,since, for the most part, India and China did not desirewesternmanufactured goods or raw materials.67 The two symptoms of economicstagnation which have just been considered under the head of finance are, in fact, symptoms of general economicdifficulty.They emphasizewhat were the fundamental shortcomings of the ancient financialsystem: it was based primarilyon hard cash, since the public was not conditionedto accept coinage at a token value, and it did not providefor any extensivesystem of credit,and particularlynot for any long-termpublic debt. Just as the possibilitiesof expansionin agriculture, trade,and industrywere only geographical-the extensionof existing techniques, tools, and operations outward toward the frontiers-so, in finance,expansionwas restrictedwithin the availablesupplies of precious metals. When the expenses of governmentincreased,and increased unproductively,more and more of the profitgained by the individualhad to be drawnoff in taxation and dissipatedin ways that did not increase the individual's or the state's productive capacity or their potentiality for creatingcredit.' Anotherproblemwhich had significancebeyond a single field was that of labor. In agriculture,as has been said, the absorptionof small farms workedby free peasantsinto large estates workedfirst by slaves and later by tenants, for whomconditionsof labor becameincreasinglyunfavorable, constitutes a serious symptom, not to say cause, of economicstagnation. of laborand, so far as can In other fields, therewas no great concentration
would have come in any case. His sequence of economic causes for the collapse (p. 3i6) is: (i) lack of sufficient regular substitute for "spoils of war" as source of metal; (2) unproductive use of money and selfishness of the rich; (3) failure to maintain a good supply of silver coinage because: (a) mines were wastefully worked and slave labor fell off, (b) coinage in circulation wore out and was lost, and (c) coins were drained out of the empire. ' Syrian glass products were exported to. China in considerable quantities and sold at great profit (see above, n. 38). ' G. Salvioli, Le Capitalisme dans de monde antique (Paris: Girard and Briere, i906), gives in his two last chapters (ix, "Le grand ebranlement economique," and x, "L'Economie antique") the most forceful presentation of the effects of the shortage of coinage and the waste of capital in luxury and other unproductive manners. He emphasizes the fundamental difference between classical capitalism, based on commerce and usury, and modern capitalism, based on industrial production, with its divorce between capital and labor and its monopolization of the means of production. This view is rejected by Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. 302-3, 585, n. 9I, 482-85, and by Frank in Economic Survey, V, 299.

in the Early RomanEmpire 8i EconomicStagnation

be judged, slave and free labor competed on more or less equal terms.' Under the empire, in fact, the number of slaves seems steadily to have Heightened moral standards not only imdeclined for various reasons.70 provedthe lot of the slave, particularlythe domesticand industrialslave, but led to his manumissioneither during the lifetime of his owner, or, more frequently,at the latter's death. The domestic and industrial slave could maintain a stable family and raise children. He could also accumulate capital and purchasehis and his family's freedom if he did not have a generousmaster. Conditionsof work for slaves engagedin agriculture, herding, and mining were not conducive to long life or having a family. On all these counts, it is likely that the slave populationdid not maintainitself by reproduction.'Moreover,duringthe empire,the earlier sources of slaves, conquestand kidnapping,were seriously reduced. The decline in the numberof slaves would not be a serioussymptom of stagnationif the numberof free or tenant laborershad maintaineditself or increased.How far therewas an over-allshrinkageof populationin the early empire it is impossibleto estimate.' The populationof Greecehad
8' The best discussion of slavery in the ancient world is Westermann's article, "Sklaverei," in which slavery during the early empire is treated in cols. in RE, Suppl. 6, pp. 894-i068, See also R. H. Barrow, Slavery in the Roman Empire (London: Methuen, I928), 994-I063. and A. M. Duff, Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I928). W. W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge: The University Press, i908), treats the legal, not the social and economic, aspects of slavery. Barrow (p. 97) regards slave and free labor as not incompatible on farms and thinks that slavery failed because it was expensive and inefficient. He does not think (p. I29) that slavery prevented technological advance in trade and industry, since slave and free labor competed on equal terms. He draws an interesting comparison (pp. 230-36) between slavery in antiquity and in the United States and concludes that slavery is profitable only in a large-scale operation with one crop (or grazing) which requires organization but not individual skill or initiative. See above, n. 9, for Heitland's similar view in his Agricola; also Frank in Economic Survey, V, I75-82, 235-36, 297. ""The ever increasing decline of slavery under the empire is to be regarded as the consequence, not as the cause, of the economic and political changes during this period."Westermann, "Sklaverei," RE, Suppl. 6, p. io62, col. IOI4. He gives as reasons for the decline: (I) the high cost of slave labor; (2) the risk of loss of property in slave by death; (3) the reduction of the free peasant, who might own a slave or two, to the colonate status, where he was too poor to do so; (4) the shift of industry to the newer western provinces where industrial slavery was not common; and (5) the ease of transition from slavery to freedom (see also Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, p. 3I3; Heichelheim, I, 756-57). a' Duff thinks that agricultural slaves did not reproduce where the urban ones did, but urban slaves in particular were benefited by manumission and humanitarian legislation so that they too did not maintain their numbers.-Freedmen, pp. 3-5. 2 J. Beloch, Die Bevilkerung der Griechisch-rdmischen Welt (Leipzig: Duncker and Humbolt, i886), is still fundamental for population in the classical world. See also the various volumes of the Economic Survey. Beloch (pp. 496-505) thinks that an absolute decline of population began in Greece during the second century B.C. and in Italy after the time of Claudius. He connects this with the spread of slavery.

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probably declined throughoutthe Hellenistic period because men were lured elsewhereby the greater opportunitieswhich Alexander'sconquests had openedup."It is possiblethat the Romanconquestof the west had the same effect on Italy; at least the establishmentof private and state funds for the supportof orphansin Italy, attested about ioo A.D. underNerva, has been taken to indicate a concernwith the problemof depopulation." It has also been arguedthat the settlement of barbarianswithin the frontiers,whichbecamecommonfromthe middleof the secondcentury,signals a desire to make up for losses of populationelsewhere,especiallyalong the frontiers."These are not, however, convincing evidences of a shrinkage of population; decline cannot be proved, at least before the late empire, save in certain areas, like Greeceand Italy, or in some cities.7'Nevertheless, it is likely that the populationtended to level off at a limit set by available food supplies and similar economicfactors. It is probable,also, that losses which resultedfromseriousplagues,like that in i66 A.D. under Marcus,or from invasionswere never made up.7'The factors that caused the populationto becomestatic, if not to decline,were not only economic but also biologicaland sociological,so that they lead outside the scope of this discussion.Nevertheless,the static conditionof the populationis not only a symptomof economicstagnation; insofaras it meanta limited supply of labor, it may be regardedas a cause of that stagnation'
'For depopulationof Greece,see Beloch, Bevilkerung, pp. 496-500; Rostovtzeff,HelII, 623-25. lenisticWorld, Rostovtzeff,Roman 74For depopulationof Italy, see Beloch, Bevdlkerung, pp. 4i8-i9; Empire, p. 3II (under Trajan). State funds for orphans (alimenta) are attested only for as well, since the capital was put out on loan Italy and were aimed at helpingagriculture to farmers.In the end, this probablyhad a disastrouseffect, since the loan was on a permanentbasis and the interestactually constituteda permanentadded tax on the farms in question. By the time of Septimius,the state funds were in financialdifficultyand they vanishedduringthe third century.Private alimentaare attestedin the provincesas well as in Diz. Epigrafico,I, 402-II, which is fuller than that in Italy. See the article,"Alimenta," in RE, I(2), I484-89; also Frankin Economic Survey, V, 65-67, 70, 75, 86, n. 50, 88, ioi, Rostovtzeff,Roman Empire, pp. 3II-I3, 314 (balustradeof Trajan from i06-7, I73-74; Forum), 356, 544, n. 4, 587, n. 6.
75 7

see Nilsson,ImperialRome, pp. 35I-52, For settlementof barbarians,

and above, n. i9.

I928-),

E. Stein, Geschichte der Spitrimischen Reiches (Vienna: Seidel and Sohn,

pp. I, 3, statesthat the generalpopulationof the empirefell fromaboutseventymillionat the birth of Christto about sixty million at the end of the third century. Oertelin C. A. H. (XII, 267-68) acceptsthis view. Johnsonin Economic Survey (II, 246) accepts a decline in Egypt in the third century; Collingwoodin ibid. (III, 77) adducesevidencefor infanticide in Britain; Scramuzzain ibid. (III, 368) thinks that the population of Sicily was static ratherthan declining(see below, n. 78). 'For plagueunderMarcus,see Rostovtzeff,Roman Empire, p. 325; Frankin Economic Survey, V, 76, with references. 8Rostovtzeffdisputesthe view of Seeckand others (see above, n. 76) that depopulation was generalthroughoutthe empire and a cause of the collapse of ancient civilization.It is equally difficultto blame Roman Empire, pp. 328-29, 59i, nn. 30-3I, for references.

EconomicStagnationin the Early RomanEmpire 8 3

One aspect of the populationproblem, the failure of the Roman aristocracy to perpetuate itself, had particularlydeep economic, as well as politicaland social, effects.9The tendencyof Romansenatorsto limit their familiesbelow the numbersnecessaryfor maintenanceof the class, a tendency natural to all aristocracies,had become so acute at the beginning of the empire that Augustus legislated against it fiercely but futilely.' Appearance of "newmen"in the senatorialclass was very rapidduringthe first two centuries, more because of "race suicide" than through actual The effect was not at first entirely bad; suicides or political executions.8" were eliminated and newer the old republicanstiff-neckedirreconcilables families, drawn from provincial aristocraciesand raised in the imperial service, took their places. But the interests of these families fell outside
the collapseon the mixtureof races,as is done by Nilsson, ImperialRome, in his chapter on "The PopulationProblem,"pp. 3I7-67 (see below, n. i04). Press, I939), chaps.xxxi-xxxxiii, 7 R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford:Clarendon noble pp. 476-524, gives a vigorouspicture of the oppositionand doom of the republican by "newmen"underAugustusand his immediatesuccessors. familiesand their replacement Syme'spictureof Augustusas the comingpoliticianis perhapsoverdrawn.-M. Hammond, TheAugustanPrincipate(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, I933), pp. II7-20; H. S. Jones in C. A. H., X, I76-8i. Augustus'policy was to maintain the supremacyof the Romano-Italicelements against the provincial (Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. 47-49) until the Flavians,despite how far this policywas seriouslyabandoned and it is questionable Claudius'admissionof certain Gallic chiefs to the Senate.-V. Scramuzza,The Emperor For Vespasian'sadClaudius (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, I940), pp. 99-iio. missionof provincials,see Last in C. A. H., XI, 418-20. During the Flavian and Antonine period, not only were provincialsincreasinglyadmitted to the senatorial class and high positions (see below, n. 8i) but also citizenshipwas widely extended and administrative Finally, its privilegescame to count for little while its obligationsbecamemoreburdensome. by an edict in 2I2 A.D. (the ConstitutioAntoniniana),extendedcitizenshipto Caracalla, all who were then inhabitantsof the empire.At least one ancientauthor,the conpractically desireto collect temporaryDio Cassius (lxxvii [lxxviii]. 9.5) gives as a reasonCaracalla's from everybody the taxes previouslypaid by Roman citizens only, presumablysince the exemptionswhich citizenshad originallyenjoyed from other taxes (such as that on land) had been forgotten. Dio's explanationhas not, however, been unanimouslyaccepted.See The Roman Citizenship(Oxford: ClarendonPress, I939), Part II, A. N. Sherwin-White,
pp.
i67-230,

passim. For the edict, ibid.,

pp.

220-27;

Miller in C. A. H., XII, 45-47 and

bibliographyon p. 734. The fullest study of the edict is V. Capocci,"La ConstitutioAntoniniana,"in Studi di papirologiae di diritto pubblicoRomano, Memoriedelta R. AccademiaNazionaledei Lincei, classedi sciencemorali,storichee filologiche,anno CCCXXII, SerieVI, Vol. I, Fasc. I (Rome: Bardi, I925). 80For the social policy of Augustus,see Last in C. A. H., X, 425-64; for the "eugenic" purposeof the Leges Iulia et Papia Poppaea,see J. A. Field, "The Purposeof the Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea,"The ClassicalJournal,XL (I945), 398-4i6. of the senate,see J. Willems,"Le Senat romainen l'an 8 For studies of the composition usquead Traianiexitum,"Klio, Beiheft X Romaniqui fuerintinde a Vespasiano "Senatores La Compositiondu Senat romainde l'accessionau throne P. Lambrechts, 70-II7; (1910), d'Hadriena la mort de Commode(Antwerp: De Sikkel, I936), pp. II7-92, and idem, La Compositiondu Senat romain de Septime Slv~re a Diocletien, DissertationesPannonicae (Budapest: Inst. de Num. et d'Arch.de l'Univ. P. Pazmany, I937), Serie I, Fasc. 8, pp. See Duff in C. A. H. (XI, 746-48) for a brief statement of the position of the I93-284. senate in the second century.
65," Le Musge Belge, IV
(I900),

236-77;

(i9oi),

82-I26;

VI

(I902),

I0-5I;

B. Stech,

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of Rome and of participation in the old republicaninstitutions. They served the emperorand often their service was largely military or provincial. Their landed properties also lay in the provinces, not in Italy. Politically, this changed the senate from an active political organ to an that absenteelandlordismand economicclass; economically,it encouraged drainingoff of local wealth which has already been mentionedas one of the most serioussymptomsof economicstagnation.82 Referencehas alreadybeen made to the most significantover-allsymptom of economicstagnationduringthe early empire,the trend towardgovernment regulation of the whole economic system.' This must not be thoughtof as a consciouseconomicpolicy, in the sense that it would be in a modernsocialist state, but only as an attempt to stem, if not to remedy, the increasingfinancialand political difficultiesin which the government It is very questionable whetherthe Romanemperorshad any founditself.8' realizationof economicproblemsas such. It does not seem, for instance, that there was any deliberatepolicy favorableto trade or opposed to the exportof currencyto the east; such steps as were taken were either ad hoc attempts to meet some immediatedifficulty,or simply methodsof raising govtaxes,or the incidentalresultof politicalpolicies.' Similarly,regarding ernment regulation,Hadrian'sattempt to secure tenants for the African estates and to encouragethe cultivationof the uncultivatedfields may well
'For the senate of the third century,see Ensslinin C. A. H., XII, 375-76. For a picture of the great Roman and provincialsenatorsof the later empire,see Samuel Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (2d ed.; London: Macmillanand Company, i899), Bk. II, pp. II5-223. see Rostovtzeff, into a system of state compulsion, 3For the developmentof "litourgies" public seris the Greekword for uncompensated Roman Empire, pp. 333-43. "Litourgy" vice (other than military) expectedfrom the individual. 8 It is noted by one of the editorialreadersfor this JOURNALthat governmentcontrolas between about I55o and i8oo did not prevent the great exexpressedin "mercantilism" pansionof the Europeaneconomicsystem. ' Frankin EconomicSurvey (V, 2 i) holds that Augustuspromotedcommerceonly to policy on increaseport dues and (pp. 294-95) denies in generalany consciouscommercial thinks on the contrarythat there was the part of the Roman government.Charlesworth conscious encouragementof commerce.-Trade-routes,pp. 228-34. Rostovtzeff praises of the economicproblemsof his day and the measuresthat highly Hadrian'sappreciation taxation,and municipal to agriculture, with reference he took to combat them, particularly expenditures.-RomanEmpire, pp. 3I5-25. Heichelheim(I, 678-82) regardsAugustus as too conservativeand reactionaryin his economicprogram,as against Caesar (see above, n. I3). Consciouseconomic policy was familiar to the Greek world, particularlyin the states of Carthageand Rhodes.-C. J. monopolisticPtolemaicstate and in the commercial Bullock, Politics, Finance, and Consequences (Harvard Economic Studies, LXV, I939). But Frank arguedin his Roman Imperialism (New York: The MacmillanCompany,I9I4) of the was not guidedby economicmotives until the emergence that the Romanaristocracy by Pompey. equestrianclass in the first centuryB.C., whose policiesare chiefly represented The Augustanreactionfavoredthe senatoriallandowningclass, with its Junkerprejudices, into governmentservice the equestrians, and tended to shepherdthe republicanfinanciers, and to reduce their opportunitiesfor gain in handlingthe collection of taxes (see below, n. 88).

in the Early RomanEmpire 85 EconomicStagnation

have had the purely political motive of building up the agriculturalclass and securing a good return from the imperial estates." The government subsidies to shipownerswhich began under Claudius were intended to assurea regularsupply of grain for Rome. Since this trade probablygrew less and less profitable,while the demandsof the Romanmob grewgreater, the governmentincreasingly assumed direct control of the associations of merchantsand shippersengagedin the variousaspects of the provisioning of Rome in order to ensure the fulfillmentof their functions. Government regulationthen extendedto the distributors-the bakers,the oil and wine merchants,and so on.8'But this growth of governmentinterference in private enterprisedoes not reflectany theory of state socialism; it was simply an attempt to cope with practical problemsof agriculturallabor and food supply. Anotheraspect of the same regulatorytrend is to be seen in the collection of taxes. The Roman state never had an adequatefiscal organization. Under the republic,it had farmed out the collection of taxes to private bankers.' These abused their position not so much by extortingmore than was due in taxes as by lending money at extortionaterates to permit the communitiesto pay their taxes in anticipation of their own collections or duringperiods of financialstress. Because of the evils of this-system, Augustusso curtailedit that it graduallyvanishedduringthe early empire.' To some extent, direct collection by governmentagents was substituted, whichin fact meant,underthe oligarchic the municipalities, but increasingly the municipal councils composed of well system encouragedby Rome, to do, were saddled with the responsibilityfor the collection.' When fiSee above, n. i6. 87Subsidies to shipowners under Claudius.-Suetonius Cl. i8.2; Scramuzza, Claudius, pp. i67-69. In general, see Rostovtzeff, RomanEmpire,pp. I49 and 532, n. 22 (with further references), 336, 359, 36i, 379-80, 397, 408-9, 474, 592, n. 37; Heichelheim, I, 711-I2;
8'

Thompson,Middle Ages, pp. 26-28. J. P. Waltzing,Etude historiquesur les corporations is still the fundachez les Romains (4 vols.; Louvain: Peeters, i895-I900) professionelles
mental study of the collegia. 8 For the contract system of tax collection under the Republic, see Last in C. A. H., IX, 65-66 (Gracchan period) and Stevenson in ibid., IX, 469-7i (Ciceronian period); for the Augustan reforms, see Stevenson in ibid., X, 190-93. Cf. Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, till the Age of the AnG. H. Stevenson, Roman Provincial Administration pp. 159-60;

tonines (Oxford:B. Blackwell,I939),

chap. v, pp. I33-55.

9 For public contracting of the collection of taxes and the management of public properties, such as estates and mines, see M. Rostovtzeff (Rostowzew) "Geschichte der Staatspacht in der romischen Kaiserzeit bis Diocletian," Philologus, Supplementband IX (i9oiIn pp. 367-74, he discusses briefly the publicani under the later 4), Heft 3, pp. 329-5I2. republic. '9For the collection of taxes by municipalities and the responsibility of the members (curiales) of the municipal councils (curiae), see Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire,pp. I59-60, 339-43, 593-95, nn. 4o-46; F. F. Abbott and A. C. Johnson, MunicipalAdminis3i7-i8, tration in the Roman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1926), chap. ix, pp.
117-37.

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nancial stringencyincreased,the rich themselveswere expected to make Towardthe end of the first century,the municipalities up any deficiencies. of the Hellenistic east began to find themselvesin financialdifficulties.In and to competitive extravagance part these were due to mismanagement in public buildings, shows, poor relief, and the like; in part they were symptomatic of the general economic stagnation which was overtaking the Mediterranean world.' Thus the burden of making up on behalf of the municipalitiesthe deficienciesof taxes bore more and more heavily on the municipalwell to do who could seldom recoverthis outlay. Under the later empire, this class, Rostovtzeff'smiddle class, were as much serfs of the state as were the agriculturalworkers, and equally eager to escape from their intolerableposition by securinga governmentjob, by entering the army, by fleeingfrom their native place, or by joining the church.9' The problem of collecting taxes led the governmentto interfere more of local affairs.Even underAugustus, and moredirectlyin the management imperial agents were dispatched to solve local difficulties,like a certain Scaevawho was sent to Cyprus.' WhenVespasianrevisedthe easternfronhe shifted the tier by moving the defense forces from Syria to Cappadocia, from the southernpart of Asia Minor to the main line of communications northern.'In the reign of Trajan,Pliny the Youngerwas sent as a special imperial governorto the senatorial provinceof Bithynia, throughwhich from Byzantiumto the legionspassed,with the particular communications mission of restoringthe financesof the municipalities.'A similar special imperial agent, Maximus, is found somewhatearlier in Greece.' Toward the middleof the secondcentury,specialcuratorsof cities begin to appear.' These instances foreshadowthe direct control of local affairs by the central governmentwhich was made general by Diocletian.' Diocletian was
"'For the decay of municipalities, see Abbott and Johnson, Municipal Administration,

chap. xiv, pp. I I 7-3 7. 9For plight of curiales, see Rostovtzeff,Roman Empire, pp. 469-77; Thompson,Middle Ages, pp. 45-46; Dill, Roman Society, pp. 245-8i. " For Scaeva,see Dessau,Ins. Lat. Sel. no. 915. 9 For Vespasianand the eastern frontier,see C. A. H., XI, I40-41. of cities, see Rostovtzeff,Roman Empire,pp. 9For Trajan and the financialdifficulties for Pliny, see C. A. H., XI, 2i8-20; for Pontus and Bithynia,see ibid., pp. 575-80. 3I3-I5; '9 For Maximusin Greece(provinceof Achaea), see Pliny the YoungerEp. Viii.24.2. ' Articleson "Curatores," in Sec. io in RE, IV (8), i8o6-ii and "Curatorrepublicae" Diz. Epigrafico,II, 2, 1345-86. of the later empire,see Oertelin C. A. H., XII, 270-8i. The '9For the "statesocialism" most interestinginstance of the attempt of the governmentto regulateeconomicactivity was Diocletian'sedict in 30I which fixed maximumprices (anticipatingthe O.P.A.?). The by E. R. Graserin an appendixto Economic Survey, V, 305-42i. Frank text is reconstructed (in ibid., pp. 299-300) thinks that the effort was justified,but this is not the generalview and certainlythe attempt was short-lived; see Heichelheim,1, 788-9i, and II, 1202, n. 9, who finds parallelsin the near easternmonarchies;Ensslinin C. A. H., XII, 405 and bibin RE, V (Io), 1941-57. article,"EdictumDiocletiani," liographyon p. 762; and BlUmner's

EconomicStagnationin the Early RomanEmpire 87

not, however,a national socialist; he was simply an earnest but limited generalwho thoughtthat the deep-seatedpolitical and economicills could be checked by centralizationand discipline. III The precedingdiscussionhas shown that in the four major divisions of economic activity, agriculture,industry, trade, and finance, the Roman empirebegan,so to speak, with a stagnant conditionwith respect to basic technologicaldevelopment.'Growthwas possible only throughgeographic limits areas.'?Oncethe geographical expansioninto previouslyundeveloped were reached and the economic possibilities of exploitation under the existing techniquesmore or less fully attained in the new areas, economic It was characterizedby a trend toward destagnation was inevitable.'0' centralization;Italy and the HellenizedNear East lost the primacywhich they had enjoyed and showed symptoms not only of stagnation but of decay; newer areas, like Africa, Gaul, Germany,Britain, the Danubian provinces,and even the hinterlandsof Asia Minor and Syria, flourished and reached the height of their development under the later empire.'02 Certainof the symptomswhichhave been discussedwere at the same time at least secondarycauses. But scholarsare not agreed that there occurred a basic exhaustionof economicresourcesto which may be attributed the economic-and general-stagnation characteristicof the later empire.The soil does not appear to have been exhausted; local industry continued to meet the needs for ordinarymanufacturedgoods; trade supplied the desired luxuries.There may have been a shortageof coinage but this is disputed. Certainly there was great, though badly distributed,wealth in the
" That progressin the Roman economicsystem was in extension,not depth, is the view
of Oertel in C. A. H., XII, 237-42. In pp. 252-56, he attempts to explain the failure in

respect to technologicalprogress: (i) by the unstableand limited system of capital; (2) power of the masses (Rostovtzeff'sreasonfor the lack of industrial by the low purchasing
development, Roman Empire, pp. 303-5); (3) by slave labor which made economy

of labor unnecessary;(4) by lack of creativeenergy (see Frank in EconomicSurvey, V, and not by mass 298), which meant that increaseddemandwas met by decentralization large estates at the production; (5) by the emergenceof the economically-self-contained expenseof the towns; and (6) by the developmentof state socialism.See above, n. 68, for the view of Salvioli (and others) that the failurewas due to inability to developbeyond a houseeconomyand for the rejectionof this view by Rostovtzeffand Frank.
00Oertel in C. A. H., XII, 250-54.

Augustusdefinitely turned his back on geographicalexpansion,but his motives are I, 679) or because unknown.He may have done so becauseof innate caution (Heichelheim, he felt that the empirecould not affordthe men or money necessary(see above, n. 49) or becausehe realizedthat the empirehad reachedthe natural limits of the Mediterranean of peace demandeda stable frontier.basin; or becausehe realizedthat the maintenance
Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. 52-53. 102 Oertel in C. A. H., XII, 237-42.

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later empire.The labor supply seems to have been adequate,even though conditions of economic organization,particularlyin agriculture,became worse and possibly populationbecame static or even fell off. Despite the difficultyof detectingeconomiccauses of stagnationduring the early empirein any one of these major economicfields, the fact that stagnationhad set in and the measureof its scale appearsfrom one very simple contrast. During sixty years of the first century B.C., from the outbreakof the Mithridaticand Social Wars in about go to the Battle of Actiumin 3I, not only Italy but the whole Mediterranean basinwas subject to almost continuouswarfare,with the attendantevils of piracy and confiscation and proscriptions.Yet, once Augustus had established peace, prosperitynot only was restored,it surpassedthat previouslyattained in the Hellenistic period.During fifty years of the third century A.D., from
the murder of Alexander in 235 to the accession of Diocletian in 284, the

somewhat larger area then covered by the Roman empire was similarly subject to war, barbarianinvasion, and their attendant evils. Classical civilization showed no such recuperativepower after this disease as it had after the previousone and the later empiresucceededat best in staying, rather than curing, its decay.' The cause of this inner weakness which social system duringthe period had developedin the outwardlyflourishing from Augustusto Alexandermust have been somethingmore fundamental than the economicsymptomsalready discussed. of space do not permita discussionof the many explanaConsiderations the declineand fall of the Romanempireand, in particular, tions given for prevent quotation of the conclusions of the economic historians Frank, Rostovtzeff,and Heichelheim,to whom this discussionhas been so much indebted.' Sufficeit to say that theirviews, like so many previousattempts
103On the crisis of the third century and the economic restoration, see Oertel in C. A. H., XII, 259-70. In pp. 279-80, he argues that the fourth century witnessed a considerable degree of recovery but that this was not adequate and was purchased at the price of state socialism. See also Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, chaps. x-xii, pp. 381-478; Frank in Economic Survey, V, 302-3; Thompson, Middle Ages, p. 42. IA popular but interesting summary of various explanations which have been given for the decline and fall of the Roman empire is E. L. White, Why Rome Fell (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, I927), pp. 260-323. White agrees with Gibbon that the introduction of Christianity, with its otherworldliness, undermined the will of the Romans to resist the barbarians. Nilsson (Imperial Rome, p. 299) blames the fall on the barbarization of the army because of the growing disinclination of the more civilized populations for military service and (pp. 360-67; see also above, n. 78) on the loss of the superiority of the Greco-Roman stock in consequence of "mongrelization." For wealth as a factor in the fall, see above, n. I7. For Frank's general conclusion, see his concluding essay in Economic Survey, V, 296-304; for Rostovtzeff's, his two concluding paragraphs, Roman Empire, pp. 486-87; for Heichelheim's, his concluding paragraph, I, 859.

EconomicStagnationin the Early RomanEmpire 89

to generalizeon this problem,reflectnot only conclusionsdrawnfrom their conditions.Each in studies but also their attitudes toward contemporary his own way blamesthe collapseon the aristocratic,or oligarchic,character of ancient society and on the failure of the favored few to measureup to their responsibilities.Whetheror not this explanationis correct,it is significant that these economichistorians of the Roman empire found that the search for the causes of economic stagnation led beyond economics into politics, sociology, intellectual history, and philosophy.The present discussion must refrain from following their lead into these tantalizing areas of speculation.Perhaps,however,three generalobservationsmay be permitted. First, economic stagnation itself, whether, as has been argued here, inherentin the ancient economicsystem or induced by conditionsduring the Romanempire,wouldnot have necessitatedthe collapseof that empire PharaonicEgypt survived for thousands of without some other cause.'05 economicsystem. China years with a self-containedand almostunchanging progresswithout ever of stagnation and has through periods passed equally falling into completedecay. The existenceof a stagnant nation would perhaps be unenviable,as is life in a beehiveor an anthill, but if an economic system reachesa balancethereseems to be no reasonwhy it should not go on endlesslyin its drearyround.The survivalof Egypt and Chinawas due And to the same factor, their relativeimmunityfrom externaldisturbance. the failure of the economicsystem of the classical world to achieve unilimits ficationand balanceunderthe Romanempirewithin the geographical of the Mediterraneanbasin was due to its exposure to outside pressures both from north and east.'? Secondly,the result of these pressureswas, as has been suggested,that the governmentwas compelled to maintain forces and an organization beyond what the economicsystem, capable of only limited development, could bear. Increasingexpensesmeant increasingtaxation, and increasing taxation meant increasingcontrol by the governmentto ensure that the
'So Thompson (Middle Ages, pp. 55) citing the survival of the Byzantine state, the even more corrupt,stagnant,and oppressivesuccessorto the later empire.He concludes: "Whydid the RomanEmpirepass away? To this questionCliovouchsafesno clearanswer." It is symptomaticof the fascinationwhich the fall of the Roman empireexercisedover the medievaland modernmind that thinkersfrom Augustineand Orosiusto the presenthave neverthelesscontinuedto plague Clio for an answer. ' This pressurebecame acute under Marcus (see above, n. 55) just at the time when the internal difficultieshad become apparent under Trajan and Hadrian.-Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire,pp. 306-25. It seems like a turn of the tide from the high-watermark of Trajan'sadvancesinto Dacia and Parthia.

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revenueswould be forthcoming.This in turn meant the impoverishment laborer,the drawingoff of both of the city dwellersand of the agricultural channels,and the killing of initiative. The later wealth into unproductive emperorscame to feel that the individual existed for the state, not the state for the individual.Everythingwas sacrificedto the maintenanceof a politicalstructurewhichwas no longerfulfillingany functionbeyondthat of its own preservation.' This is not to say that the economicstagnation was the cause of the culturalstagnation; the history of Roman literature and art shows that the loss of cultural initiative and inventiveness accompanied,if it did not precede, the economic stagnation. The external pressuredid, nevertheless,prevent the state from establishinga self-contained economicsystem which might have survivedchangelesslylike that of Egypt, howeverstagnant itself and uncreativein its culturallife. Finally, it would be easy to find symptoms of economic stagnation in the Roman empirethat could be paralleledby symptomsin later and parhistoricalperiods.But such comparisonswould ticularly in contemporary have little real value except on very generallines. Perhapsit is true that in world the economicexpansionwhich began in the great our contemporary limits and fillingup the undeage of discoveriesis reachingits geographical velopedareas; that alreadythereare signs of the economicdecentralization which was a symptom of stagnation in the Roman empire. Nevertheless, there is no reasonto supposein this day of atomic power that the impetus is flagging; that in agritoward technologicalinventionand improvement not and will be hence largerpopulapossible culture greaterproductivity tions and more individual profit; that in industry mass productionwill not continueto providefor an improvedstandardof living with less labor; that in trade there will cease to be an interchangeof raw materials and basic necessitiesin bulk; and that in financea credit system, token media and an adjustablepublicdebt will not allow the financialstrucof exchange, ture to cope with the needs of an expandingand developingeconomicsystem. Thus the possibility of technologicalprogress differentiatesabsolutely the moderneconomicsystem from the classical and rendersdifficult any applicationof the lessons of the Romanempireto our own times. Harvard University
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Rostovtzeff, Roman Empire, pp. 452-53; Frank in Economic Survey, V, 303-4.