- Department of History
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Ghent University
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35
BE-9000 Ghent
Belgium - +32 (0)9 3310174 (office)
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Ghent University, History, Faculty Member
- Ancient History, Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor, Food in antiquity, Roman social and economic history, Euergetism, Roman Population dynamics, and 20 moreComparative urban history, Gift Exchange, Roman Economy, Roman Empire, Urban History, History, Gift Giving (Economic Anthropology), Ancient Greek Politics, Roman East, Ancient Demography, Public Buildings, Ancient economies (Archaeology), Preindustrial Urbanism, Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Roman Asia Minor, Roman Cities, Third Century, Greek cities, Politics in the Greek cities of the Roman East, and New Models Of Participatory And Direct Democracyedit
- I’m an ancient historian based at the History Department of Ghent University, Belgium. My research interests encompas... moreI’m an ancient historian based at the History Department of Ghent University, Belgium. My research interests encompass several broad areas:
1) Civic life in the Hellenistic and Roman East, primarily Asia Minor. Among (too many) other things, I’m interested in Greek civic politics, civic ideology and institutions under Hellenistic and Roman rule, popular participation in the post-Classical poleis, elite/non-elite relations, civic munificence (euergetism), urban public space/public buildings, the urban food supply, civic finances, and the role and functioning of civic sub-groups such as associations;
2) The ancient economy. Here my interest lies primarily with economic performance, the economic role played by cities, the production, distribution and consumption of food, social inequality, social mobility and demography;
3) The comparative study of (ancient) urbanism;
4) Internal conflicts in Greek cities, from Archaic to Roman times.edit
How were space and movement in Roman cities affected by economic life? What can the study of Roman urban landscapes tell us about the nature of the Roman economy? These are the central questions addressed in this volume. While there... more
How were space and movement in Roman cities affected by economic life? What can the study of Roman urban landscapes tell us about the nature of the Roman economy? These are the central questions addressed in this volume.
While there exist many studies of Roman urban space and of the Roman economy, rarely have the two topics been investigated together in a sustained fashion. In this volume, an international team of archaeologists and historians focuses explicitly on the economics of space and mobility in Roman Imperial cities, in both Italy and the provinces, east and west. Employing many kinds of material and written evidence and a wide range of methodologies, the contributors cast new light both on well-known and on less-explored sites. With their direct focus on the everyday economic uses of urban spaces and the movements through them, the contributors offer a fresh and innovative perspective on the workings of Roman urban economies and on the debates concerning space in the Roman world.
This volume will be of interest to archaeologists and historians, both those studying the Greco-Roman world and those focusing on urban economic space in other periods and places as well as to other scholars studying premodern urbanism and urban economies.
While there exist many studies of Roman urban space and of the Roman economy, rarely have the two topics been investigated together in a sustained fashion. In this volume, an international team of archaeologists and historians focuses explicitly on the economics of space and mobility in Roman Imperial cities, in both Italy and the provinces, east and west. Employing many kinds of material and written evidence and a wide range of methodologies, the contributors cast new light both on well-known and on less-explored sites. With their direct focus on the everyday economic uses of urban spaces and the movements through them, the contributors offer a fresh and innovative perspective on the workings of Roman urban economies and on the debates concerning space in the Roman world.
This volume will be of interest to archaeologists and historians, both those studying the Greco-Roman world and those focusing on urban economic space in other periods and places as well as to other scholars studying premodern urbanism and urban economies.
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Historians generally study elite public gift-giving in ancient Greek cities as a phenomenon that gained prominence only in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. The contributors to this volume challenge this perspective by offering... more
Historians generally study elite public gift-giving in ancient Greek cities as a phenomenon that gained prominence only in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. The contributors to this volume challenge this perspective by offering analyses of various manifestations of elite public giving in the Greek cities from Homeric times until Late Antiquity, highlighting this as a structural feature of polis society from its origins in the early Archaic age to the world of the Christian Greek city in the early Byzantine period. They discuss existing interpretations, offer novel ideas and arguments, and stress continuities and changes over time. Bracketed by a substantial Introduction and Conclusion, the volume is accessible both to ancient historians and to scholars studying gift-giving in other times and places.
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Greece and Rome were quintessentially urban societies. Ancient culture, politics and society arose and developed in the context of the polis and the civitas. In modern scholarship, the ancient city has been the subject of intense debates... more
Greece and Rome were quintessentially urban societies. Ancient culture, politics and society arose and developed in the context of the polis and the civitas. In modern scholarship, the ancient city has been the subject of intense debates due to the strong association in Western thought between urbanism, capitalism and modernity. In this book, Arjan Zuiderhoek provides a survey of the main issues at stake in these debates, as well as a sketch of the chief characteristics of Greek and Roman cities. He argues that the ancient Greco-Roman city was indeed a highly specific form of urbanism, but that this does not imply that the ancient city was somehow 'superior' or 'inferior' to forms of urbanism in other societies, just (interestingly) different. The book is aimed primarily at students of ancient history and general readers, but also at scholars working on urbanism in other periods and places.
* Offers a brief and accessible survey of some of the main scholarly debates on the ancient city;
* Provides an overview of the main characteristics of Greek and Roman cities (their politics, society, economics, urban space, and so on);
* Argues for the historical specificity of the ancient city in comparison with cities in other periods and places and thus contributes to the ongoing debates concerning the nature of the ancient city and pre-modern cities more generally.
* Offers a brief and accessible survey of some of the main scholarly debates on the ancient city;
* Provides an overview of the main characteristics of Greek and Roman cities (their politics, society, economics, urban space, and so on);
* Argues for the historical specificity of the ancient city in comparison with cities in other periods and places and thus contributes to the ongoing debates concerning the nature of the ancient city and pre-modern cities more generally.
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In the first two centuries AD, the eastern Roman provinces experienced a proliferation of elite public generosity unmatched in their previous or later history. In this study, Arjan Zuiderhoek attempts to answer the question why this... more
In the first two centuries AD, the eastern Roman provinces experienced a proliferation of elite public generosity unmatched in their previous or later history. In this study, Arjan Zuiderhoek attempts to answer the question why this should have been so. Focusing on Roman Asia Minor, he argues that the surge in elite public giving was not caused by the weak economic and financial position of the provincial cities, as has often been maintained, but by social and political developments and tensions within the Greek cities created by their integration into the Roman imperial system. As disparities of wealth and power within imperial polis society continued to widen, the exchange of gifts for honours between elite and non-elite citizens proved an excellent political mechanism for deflecting social tensions away from open conflicts towards communal celebrations of shared citizenship and the legitimation of power in the cities.
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Investment in capital, both physical and financial, and innovation in its uses are often considered the linchpin of modern economic growth, while credit and credit markets now seem to determine the wealth - as well as the fate - of... more
Investment in capital, both physical and financial, and innovation in its uses are often considered the linchpin of modern economic growth, while credit and credit markets now seem to determine the wealth - as well as the fate - of nations. Yet was it always thus? The Roman economy was large, complex, and sophisticated, but in terms of its structural properties did it look anything like the economies we know and are familiar with today?
Through consideration of the allocation and uses of capital and credit and the role of innovation in the Roman world, the individual essays comprising this volume go straight to the heart of the matter, exploring such questions as how capital in its various forms was generated, allocated, and employed in the Roman economy; whether the Romans had markets for capital goods and credit; and whether investment in capital led to innovation and productivity growth. Their authors consider multiple aspects of capital use in agriculture, water management, trade, and urban production, and of credit provision, finance, and human capital, covering different periods of Roman history and ranging geographically across Italy and elsewhere in the Roman world. Utilizing many different types of written and archaeological evidence, and employing a range of modern theoretical perspectives and methodologies, the contributors, an expert international team of historians and archaeologists, have produced the first book-length contribution to focus exclusively on (physical and financial) capital in the Roman world; a volume that is aimed not only at specialists in the field, but also at economic historians and archaeologists specializing in other periods and places.
Through consideration of the allocation and uses of capital and credit and the role of innovation in the Roman world, the individual essays comprising this volume go straight to the heart of the matter, exploring such questions as how capital in its various forms was generated, allocated, and employed in the Roman economy; whether the Romans had markets for capital goods and credit; and whether investment in capital led to innovation and productivity growth. Their authors consider multiple aspects of capital use in agriculture, water management, trade, and urban production, and of credit provision, finance, and human capital, covering different periods of Roman history and ranging geographically across Italy and elsewhere in the Roman world. Utilizing many different types of written and archaeological evidence, and employing a range of modern theoretical perspectives and methodologies, the contributors, an expert international team of historians and archaeologists, have produced the first book-length contribution to focus exclusively on (physical and financial) capital in the Roman world; a volume that is aimed not only at specialists in the field, but also at economic historians and archaeologists specializing in other periods and places.
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In recent years, the debate on Romanisation has often been framed in terms of identity. Discussions have concentrated on how the expansion of empire impacted on the constructed or self-ascribed sense of belonging of its inhabitants, and... more
In recent years, the debate on Romanisation has often been framed in terms of identity. Discussions have concentrated on how the expansion of empire impacted on the constructed or self-ascribed sense of belonging of its inhabitants, and just how the interaction between local identities and Roman ideology and practices may have led to a multicultural empire has been a central research focus. This volume challenges this perspective by drawing attention to the processes of identity formation that contributed to an imperial identity, a sense of belonging to the political, social, cultural and religious structures of the Empire. Instead of concentrating on politics and imperial administration, the volume studies the manifold ways in which people were ritually engaged in producing, consuming, organising, believing and worshipping that fitted the (changing) realities of empire. It focuses on how individuals and groups tried to do things 'the right way', i.e., the Greco-Roman imperial way. Given the deep cultural entrenchment of ritualistic practices, an imperial identity firmly grounded in such practices might well have been instrumental, not just to the long-lasting stability of the Roman imperial order, but also to the persistence of its ideals well into (Christian) Late Antiquity and post-Roman times.
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Provides an overall view of, and original insights into, the economics of land and resources in the Roman world Features a range of different methodologies and theoretical perspectives Relevant to the economic history of medieval... more
Provides an overall view of, and original insights into, the economics of land and resources in the Roman world
Features a range of different methodologies and theoretical perspectives
Relevant to the economic history of medieval and early modern Europe, and therefore appeals to a wide scholarly audience of historians and economists
Explanation of the success and failure of the Roman economy is one of the most important problems in economic history. As an economic system capable of sustaining high production and consumption levels, it was unparalleled until the early modern period.
This volume focuses on how the institutional structure of the Roman Empire affected economic performance both positively and negatively. An international range of contributors offers a variety of approaches that together enhance our understanding of how different ownership rights and various modes of organization and exploitation facilitated or prevented the use of land and natural resources in the production process. Relying on a large array of resources - literary, legal, epigraphic, papyrological, numismatic, and archaeological - chapters address key questions regarding the foundations of the Roman Empire's economic system. Questions of growth, concentration and legal status of property (private, public, or imperial), the role of the state, content and limitations of rights of ownership, water rights and management, exploitation of indigenous populations, and many more receive new and original analyses that make this book a significant step forward to understanding what made the economic achievements of the Roman empire possible.
Readership: Scholars and students interested in the ancient Roman economy and the institutional structure of the Roman Empire, in particular the role played by land and resources, as well as classical studies, economic history, and classical archaeology.
Features a range of different methodologies and theoretical perspectives
Relevant to the economic history of medieval and early modern Europe, and therefore appeals to a wide scholarly audience of historians and economists
Explanation of the success and failure of the Roman economy is one of the most important problems in economic history. As an economic system capable of sustaining high production and consumption levels, it was unparalleled until the early modern period.
This volume focuses on how the institutional structure of the Roman Empire affected economic performance both positively and negatively. An international range of contributors offers a variety of approaches that together enhance our understanding of how different ownership rights and various modes of organization and exploitation facilitated or prevented the use of land and natural resources in the production process. Relying on a large array of resources - literary, legal, epigraphic, papyrological, numismatic, and archaeological - chapters address key questions regarding the foundations of the Roman Empire's economic system. Questions of growth, concentration and legal status of property (private, public, or imperial), the role of the state, content and limitations of rights of ownership, water rights and management, exploitation of indigenous populations, and many more receive new and original analyses that make this book a significant step forward to understanding what made the economic achievements of the Roman empire possible.
Readership: Scholars and students interested in the ancient Roman economy and the institutional structure of the Roman Empire, in particular the role played by land and resources, as well as classical studies, economic history, and classical archaeology.
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In Roman imperial Asia Minor, urban elites first appear to have grown steadily wealthier and to have broadened during the first and much of the second century CE, then stopped growing richer and seem to have shrunk again in the third.... more
In Roman imperial Asia Minor, urban elites first appear to have grown steadily wealthier and to have broadened during the first and much of the second century CE, then stopped growing richer and seem to have shrunk again in the third. Alongside the elites, urban professional middling groups first grew more prosperous, then mostly seem to disappear from view during the later third century. At the same time, we can discern a profound shift in civic political culture during the first decades of the third century CE, from a situation in which urban elites appear to have been extraordinarily devoted to the flourishing of civic public life, to one in which they seem to have become aloof and more focused on predation. In this chapter I explore the connections between these various developments and highlight the effects of changing elite responses to the enduring social inequality that characterised urban provincial society.
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What determined the shape of economic space in Greco-Roman cities? I argue that elite intervention in the civic landscape, in the form of building munificence, was one important factor. After brief discussions of the relation of economic... more
What determined the shape of economic space in Greco-Roman cities? I argue that elite intervention in the civic landscape, in the form of building munificence, was one important factor. After brief discussions of the relation of economic space with economic structure and of elite views of the civic landscape as perceptible in literary sources, I turn to the evidence for building munificence in Roman imperial Asia Minor. I argue that much economic space created by elites remained ‘embedded’ within the civic structures to which they contributed as magistrates and benefactors. I close with a discussion of the changing urban landscapes of Asia Minor in the third century ce, and the link with the decline in civic munificence in the east during much of this century.
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In this chapter I discuss the chief continuities and changes in civic munificence in the poleis under Roman imperial rule in comparison with the previous periods of Greek history. To do so, I develop a model to answer the question of why... more
In this chapter I discuss the chief continuities and changes in civic munificence in the poleis under Roman imperial rule in comparison with the previous periods of Greek history. To do so, I develop a model to answer the question of why elite public giving was a such an enduring element of polis society in the first place. I identify three structural features of polis society that can explain the centrality of elite public giving: the specific way wealth, fame, power and authority needed to be legitimated in the polis; the particularity of the Greeks’ idea of politics; and the stateless character of the polis. To test this model, I then apply it to explain two specific characteristics of civic euergetism in the Greek cities under the Roman empire, namely, its unprecedented proliferation during the first, second and early third centuries CE, and the extent to which munificence started to transcend the benefactor’s own civic community, that is, the increasing tendency of benefactors to include non-citizen groups in the poleis in their munificence as well as to give to cities other than their own.
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Research on the Roman economy and the possibility of Roman economic growth has focused on demographic structures, on market integration, on credit facilities, on technology and modes of organization, and on institutions and mentalities. A... more
Research on the Roman economy and the possibility of Roman economic growth has focused on demographic structures, on market integration, on credit facilities, on technology and modes of organization, and on institutions and mentalities. A factor that has received less attention is investment in capital goods. Economists have found, however, that among all the different variables that might play a role in economic performance, investment in production equipment (tools, machinery) stimulates economic growth particularly strongly. This chapter focuses on three case studies: (1) agricultural tools, equipment, and workspaces; (2) capital goods used in riverine and maritime transport, i.e. ships and the tools and workspaces needed for shipbuilding; and (3) workspaces and tools employed in urban production and service provision. It asks who invested in these capital goods, who owned them, who produced them, and how production was organized. Most importantly, it investigates how capital goods were allocated among those who needed them, i.e. the people producing and transporting goods and services for consumption. It is concluded that, given the levels of wealth necessary to invest in the production of the types of capital goods discussed here, ownership of such capital goods would overwhelmingly have been concentrated in the hands of social and political elites, and it is argued that the social and legal ties that connected ordinary producers and distributors of consumption goods and services to these elites played a crucial role in determining the level of access they had to these capital goods.
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In this essay, I argue that to come to a better understanding of social differentiation in the imperial Greek poleis (and perhaps in Greek and Roman cities more generally), we need to move beyond the traditional models of orders, class... more
In this essay, I argue that to come to a better understanding of social differentiation in the imperial Greek poleis (and perhaps in Greek and Roman cities more generally), we need to move beyond the traditional models of orders, class and status. Using the cities of Roman Asia Minor as a case study, I argue that the variety of configurations of hierarchy that can be perceived among civic elites, non-elite citizens, and even non-citizen inhabitants were the result of dynamic processes of status bargaining in the context of the civic sphere of the polis. To search for a clearly delineated and fixed middle stratum in the poleis is therefore not very fruitful, and historians should rather concentrate on the strategies actors developed in these processes of status bargaining.
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In this chapter, I discuss civic munificence in the Roman imperial East as a form of extramercantile exchange. Following the lead of recent social scientific research into gift exchange, I explore the various interactions between... more
In this chapter, I discuss civic munificence in the Roman imperial East as a form of extramercantile exchange. Following the lead of recent social scientific research into gift exchange, I explore the various interactions between euergetism and the urban economy, as well as its contribution to the generation of macrosocial trust. Competitive gift giving, however, does not only create social bonds, but can also lead to fierce and potentially destructive conflicts between donors. Hence, in the final part of the chapter, I investigate the societal ramifications of intra-elite euergetic competitiveness, the conditions that stimulated it, and the factors that arguably prevented it from getting out of hand.
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Ancient historians traditionally view the Greek cities of the later Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods as strongly oligarchic communities, in which powerful elites of wealthy citizens dominated almost every aspect of public life.... more
Ancient historians traditionally view the Greek cities of the later Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods as strongly oligarchic communities, in which powerful elites of wealthy citizens dominated almost every aspect of public life. Modern theoretical discussions of urban public space and the materialization of ideology would lead one to expect that such dominance of civic society by one particular social group would have found a clear expression in the urban landscape. In fact, however, when we take a closer look at the types of public buildings constructed or contributed to by elite benefactors or civic governments in Roman Asia Minor, we find that these building types mostly belonged to an architecture expressing the age-old collectivist, participative ideals of the Greek polis. I argue that the traditional oligarchic interpretation of post-Classical civic politics is too simplistic, and that the structure of the urban landscape in the imperial Greek poleis was the outcome of complex political negotiations in which, along with the civic elite and the imperial government, the people, that is, the ordinary citizens in the popular assemblies, still had an important part to play.
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This paper introduces, and briefly discusses, some of the main theories that have been formulated on labour relations and the exploitation of labour in classical antiquity. Each of these theories approaches labour from a totalizing... more
This paper introduces, and briefly discusses, some of the main theories that have been formulated on labour relations and the exploitation of labour in classical antiquity. Each of these theories approaches labour from a totalizing perspective, with the market, class, or status taking a central place. As an alternative, it is suggested here that an institutional-economic analysis of ancient labour might be a profitable way forward.
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To many of their contemporaries, the Classical Greeks must have seemed a deeply weird people. Where most states at the time (c. fifth and fourth centuries BCE) were ruled by kings or powerful aristocracies, the Greeks in their city-states... more
To many of their contemporaries, the Classical Greeks must have seemed a deeply weird people. Where most states at the time (c. fifth and fourth centuries BCE) were ruled by kings or powerful aristocracies, the Greeks in their city-states (poleis, singular: polis) had taken the extraordinary step of allowing not just the wealthy or the well-born but every adult male citizen regardless of property or descent to have a voice in political decision-making...
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Urban elites in the Hellenistic and Roman East often contributed as benefactors to public buildings in their cities. In this paper, I argue that the historical importance of these contributions does not lie primarily in the economic... more
Urban elites in the Hellenistic and Roman East often contributed as benefactors to public buildings in their cities. In this paper, I argue that the historical importance of these contributions does not lie primarily in the economic sphere but in the sphere of politics. Hellenistic and Roman-era Greek cities have often been portrayed as stifling oligarchies. If this view is correct, one would expect elite contributions to public buildings to reflect such an oligarchic political culture. Closer inspection of elite gifts towards buildings in the Roman East has revealed, however, that civic elites primarily contributed to the upkeep of a public “architecture of collectivism” that reflects the traditional political and cultural ideals of the Greek polis.