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The state’s contribution was arguably crucial for creating and sustaining
' this dynamic economy. The Neo-Babylonian empire, and later the Persian
empire, mostly managed to maintain peace in the land, the decisive predomdi:
tion for the economic development of the long sixth century. Second, large-
schemes of the seventh and early sixth centuries gave the initial impetus for
the reclamation of the barren or underused land around the cities after
decades of war and unrest. The Crown shaped the institutional. administra-
tive, and technical foundations of Nee-Babylonian agriculture. It promoted
commercial development by furthering entrepreneurial activities at the inter-
face between the institutional and the private economy. It also interfered with
the monetary system, by introducing various means for safeguarding the
quality of silver (and by attempting to set fixed interest rates). Next to their
investments in the agrarian infrastructure, the most important contribution of
the Neo-Babylonian kings to the economic expansion during their reign
consisted in their extravagant building activities. The huge new temples,
palaces, city walls, and cross-country defense structures were financed to a
large degree with tribute and booty from Assyria, Syria, and the Levant. These
building undertakings brought large amounts of bullion into circulation and
temporarily allowed many urban unskilled laborers to subsist largely on
money wages because they could find employment for much of the year.
Imperial domination is thus at the root of the inflationary process that caused
the value of silver to fall to about a third of what it had been in the second
millennium BCE, allowing silver to function as an all-purpose money for the
first time in Mesopotamian history. Furthermore, royal demands for (cash)
taxes and for labor and military service contributed to the increasing mone-
tization of economic exchange: willingly or unwillingly, taxpayers were forced
into the monetary economy. -
in conclusion, the narrative that results from the reading of the evidence
that is proposed here is that of a limited Smithian success story, as
occasionally
occurs also in other pre—modern economies. The interest of this case lies in its
early date and in its particularities, in the combination of longue-durée
factors of
demography and climate with certain much more transient elements of
l'histoire conjoncturellr and événementielle, to use the Braudelian terms. In
particular, it was imperial domination that fiirthered agrarian development
and the monetization of exchange that led to economic growth and increased
prosperity. Correspondingly, it was also through political change, as an
indirect consequence of the conquest of Babylonia by the Persians (539 ace),
38
that the particularly prosperous long sixth century came to an end; the
. Islamic period. The development was not linear, however. The exceptional
References
Adams, IL McC. (1981). Headland ofCilies: Survey: ofAncicnt Settlement and Land
Use on the
Central floodplain on the Euphrates. University of Chicago Press.
Andreau, J. et al., eds. (1997). Economic antique. Prix at fornication dc: pn’x
dam les tconomies
antiques. Entretiens d’archéologie et d'histoire 3. Saint-Bertrand-de~Comminges:
Musée Ardiéologique DEpartemental.
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