Books by Koenraad Verboven
This book aims at investigating the significance of instrumental friendship (amicitia) and patron... more This book aims at investigating the significance of instrumental friendship (amicitia) and patronage for the ancient Roman economy. Patronage and amicitia are phenomena that enjoyed much attention in historical research of Roman antiquity, but which have not yet been systematically analysed in full from an economical point of point.
This book analyses the influence amicitia and patronage excercised on the allocation of scarce resources (part II) and on the organisation of economic activities (part III). After a short introduction surveying the central questions and problems adressed in this book, Part I serves as an introduction to the phenomena of Roman instrumental friendship and patronage. The principles of (instrumental) amicitia are reviewed in chapter 1: ‘The Moral Matrix of Amicitia’. Chapter 2 deals with the distinction between amicitia and patronage, arguing that viewed from a sociological point patronage can be analysed as a form of unbalanced amicitia, although viewed from an ‘emic’ cultural point of view, Roman patronage was a phenomenon sui generis, with its own ethos, foundation myth etc. Chapter 3 briefly reviews a few evaluations of the ‘economic’ use amicitia by contemporary authors, thus serving as a bridge to part II.
Part II (Amicitia and the allocation of scarce resources) tries to show that although amicitia and patronage generated their own circulation system of scarce resources, they also (and perhaps more importantly) influenced the allocation of scarce resources through markets. In so arguing I try to bridge the gap between substantivism/minimalism and modernism in economic history research. Although market principles were familiar in ancient Rome, the market economy itself continuously interacted with the patronal-amical allocation system. The argument is based on the detailed analyses in three chapters of amicitia / patronage as generating gifts (chapter 4), loans and sureties (chapter 5) and inheritances and legacies (chapter 6).
Part III analyses the use of instrumental friendship and patronage in the organisation of economic activities. The Roman economy if often branded as primitive because it lacked the fundamentals of moderen business law. Direct agency by free persons was not possible and economic organisations could not acquire legal capacity. Roman traders and financiers primarily used amici, patrons and protégés to organise their business enterprises. From an organisational point of view therefore, the Roman economy should be analysed using the conceptual frameworks of social and personal networks. The paradigm of the ‘firm’ is not very relevant. The main forms of organisation involving free persons according to Roman law were procuratio / mandatum on the one hand and societas on the other. The first regulates the ‘delivery’ of free services (usually between family, amici, patron-client or patron-freedman), the second regulates redistribution of gains and losses between partners, who were expected to entertain relations of mutual trust and solidarity typical of amicitia / patronage. It is no coincidence that organisations operating by means of slaves enjoyed a fundamentally different legal support, recognising direct agency and allowing a kind of pseudo-legal capacity.
The last chapter of part III is devoted to recommendations and influence. Through amicitia and patronage, business men could influence decision making by political authorities and thus gain privileges and control and solve conflicts. The strategies revealed in the letters of recommendation show that these were part and parcel of an organisation system based not on ‘corporate’ or pseudo-corporate enterprises, but on informal networks.
This book offers critical analyses of the dynamic relation between legal regulations, institution... more This book offers critical analyses of the dynamic relation between legal regulations, institutions and economic performance in the Roman world. It studies how law and legal thought a fected economic development, and vice versa. Inspired by New Institutional Economics scholars the past decades used ancient law to explain economic growth. There was, however, no natural selection process directing legal changes towards macroeconomic e ciency. Ancient rulers and jurists modi ed institutions to serve or safeguard particular interests-political, social, or economic. Nevertheless both economic performance and legal scholarship peaked at unprecedented levels. These were momentous historical developments. How were they related? Readership This book aims primarily for a scholarly audience, ranging from PhD students to senior experts, interested in and working on ancient economic history.
Explores how economic historians of the Roman world can integrate economic models and archaeologi... more Explores how economic historians of the Roman world can integrate economic models and archaeological data Engages with various theoretical debates in Roman economic history Provides case studies from Italy and the highly urbanized eastern half of the empire Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. The former thanks to greatly enhanced techniques to identify, collect, and interpret material remains as proxies for economic interactions and performance; the latter by embracing the frameworks of new institutional economics. Both disciplines, however, still have great difficulty talking with each other. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history. In turn, the shared cultural belief-systems underlying institutions and the symbolic ways in which these are reproduced remain invisible in the material record. This book explores ways to bring both disciplines closer together by building a theoretical and methodological framework to evaluate and integrate archaeological proxy-data in economic history research. Rather than the linear interpretations offered by neoclassical or neomalthusian models, we argue that complexity economics, based on system theory, offers a promising way forward.
Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its im... more Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. This book explores the link between climate and society in ancient worlds, focusing on the ancient economies of western Eurasia and northern Africa from the fourth millennium BCE up to the end of the first millennium CE.
This book contributes to the multi-disciplinary debate between scholars working on climate and society from various backgrounds. The chronological boundaries of the book are set by the emergence of complex societies in the Neolithic on the one end and the rise of early-modern states in global political and economic exchange on the other. In order to stimulate comparison across the boundaries of modern periodization, this book ends with demography and climate change in early-modern and modern Italy, a society whose empirical data allows the kind of statistical analysis that is impossible for ancient societies.
The book highlights the role of human agency, and the complex interactions between the natural environment and the socio-cultural, political, demographic, and economic infrastructure of any given society. It is intended for a wide audience of scholars and students in ancient economic history, specifically Rome and Late Antiquity.
Investment in capital, both physical and financial, and innovation in its uses are often consider... 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.
Olivier Hekster and Koenraad Verboven (eds.), The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Gent, June 21-24, 2017), (Impact of Empire, Volume: 34), Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019., 2019
The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire discusses ways in which notions, practice and the ideol... more The Impact of Justice on the Roman Empire discusses ways in which notions, practice and the ideology of justice impacted on the functioning of the Roman Empire. The papers assembled in this volume follow from the thirteenth workshop of the international network Impact of Empire. They focus on what was considered just in various groups of Roman subjects, how these views were legitimated, shifted over time, and how they affected policy making and political, administrative, and judicial practices. Linking all of the papers are three common themes: the emperor and justice, justice in a dispersed empire and differentiation of justice. (https://brill.com/abstract/title/55041)
The economic success of the Roman Empire was unparalleled in the West until the early modern peri... more The economic success of the Roman Empire was unparalleled in the West until the early modern period. While favourable natural conditions, capital accumulation, technology and political stability all contributed to this, economic performance ultimately depended on the ability to mobilize, train and co-ordinate human work efforts. In Work, Labour, and Professions in the Roman World, the authors discuss new insights, ideas and interpretations on the role of labour and human resources in the Roman economy. They study the various ways in which work was mobilised and organised and how these processes were regulated. Work as a production factor, however, is not the exclusive focus of this volume. Throughout the chapters, the contributors also provide an analysis of work as a social and cultural phenomenon in Ancient Rome.
Provides an overall view of, and original insights into, the economics of land and resources in t... 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.
Papers by Koenraad Verboven
SSRN, 2024
In this paper, we demonstrate that approximately a fourth of the annual variability in anthropoge... more In this paper, we demonstrate that approximately a fourth of the annual variability in anthropogenic lead pollution recorded in Greenland ice cores can be explained by a small set of variables derived from paleoclimatic data, archaeological evidence, and historical records. We argue that these variables are likely correlated with the economic performance of the Early Roman Empire. On the one hand, we provide formal statistical support for the hypothesis that lead pollution contains valuable information about the level of economic activity in Western Europe during ancient times, thereby corroborating a debated claim in the literature. On the other hand, by examining the relationships between summer temperatures, coin output, and wartime periods with income dynamics, we enhance our understanding of how these factors were correlated with economic fluctuations. Our results suggest that warmer summers, which likely boosted agricultural surplus, positively correlated with economic activity, while increased silver coin output and wartime periods were associated with economic slowdowns. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of integrating high-resolution paleoclimatic and cliometric data to deepen our understanding of the economic dynamics of ancient societies.
Handelingen, 1970
Information is a slichery concept, 'information-bearer' possibly even more so. In this paper I wi... more Information is a slichery concept, 'information-bearer' possibly even more so. In this paper I will discuss various ways in which ancient coins serve as historica! information-bearers and generate (mainly but not solely through hoards) emergent information. We will see how this information may be 'virtualized' through computer applications and what the possible advantages of this are. I will present a few existing online databanks and other facilities chat are useful for numismatic research and suggest how these facilities may be improved and complemented. WAT ZIJN INFORMATIEDRAGERS? De Grote Van Dale definieert het begrip informatiedrager als volgt: 1 ° middel tot het overdragen van informatie, zoals kranten, boeken, cd's 2° middel tot het overdragen van informatie aan een informatieverwerkende machine, bv. diskettes, ponsbanden, cd-roms => 1 Voor lezers die die komisch neologisme (in feite een dubbelopisme) niet zouden kennen: een banderolleerband is een papieren of plastic bandje mee productinformatie en reclame dat rond verkoopsartikelen wordt geplakt. Hee is afgeleid van het Franse 'banderole (publicitaire)' ((reclame-)vaan) , dat reeds tot het erkende Nederlandse 'banderol' aanleiding gaf, zelf een weinig bekend synoniem van het 'sigarenbandje'. 2 ZOUTEWELLE Tom, Ontwerp of toeval: verwondering in de wetenschap, in: Groei. Magazine voor geestelijke vorming en vernieuwing, http://www.groei.org/ > 'Magazine' > 'Archief.
Tijdschrift Voor Geschiedenis, Jun 1, 2018
Mercantile Communities in the Roman World. Networks, Cult Associations, or Guilds? In this articl... more Mercantile Communities in the Roman World. Networks, Cult Associations, or Guilds? In this article I argue that the recent focus on merchant and shipping collegia in the ancient Roman economy is too one-sided. Long-distance merchants and shippers needed networks to gather information and find partners. In some cases these networks were structured in closed formalised groups (as guild-like collegia), but in other contexts networks remained informal configurations of personal relations based on instrumental friendship or family alliances. Rather than focus on collegia I argue that we should study how mercantile communities were structured and organised and why different solutions were reached in different communities, with some opting for formalised groups and others for informal networks. I make my case by presenting three case-studies of important trade hubs in different periods and places in the Roman world: late Hellenistic Delos, early imperial Puteoli, and second and third century Ganuenta.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Sep 3, 2020
Topoi-an International Review of Philosophy, 2006
... Française de Rome 297). Related information at UGent | Mark. Author KoenraadVerboven UGent Pu... more ... Française de Rome 297). Related information at UGent | Mark. Author KoenraadVerboven UGent Publishing year 2006 Type misc Miscellaneous type bookReview Publication status published Subject: Languages and Literatures. ...
... History and composition of the ghent university coin collection "De Bast". ... more ... History and composition of the ghent university coin collection "De Bast". Autores: KoenraadVerboven; Localización: Revue belge de numismatique et de sigillographie, ISSN 0774-5885, Nº 150, 2004 , págs. 169-202. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. ...
... Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: Record Details. Record ID, 321121. R... more ... Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: Record Details. Record ID, 321121. Record Type, journalArticle. Author, Koenraad Verboven [801000835974] - Ghent University Koen.Verboven@UGent.be. Title, Fides en financiën. ...
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Books by Koenraad Verboven
This book analyses the influence amicitia and patronage excercised on the allocation of scarce resources (part II) and on the organisation of economic activities (part III). After a short introduction surveying the central questions and problems adressed in this book, Part I serves as an introduction to the phenomena of Roman instrumental friendship and patronage. The principles of (instrumental) amicitia are reviewed in chapter 1: ‘The Moral Matrix of Amicitia’. Chapter 2 deals with the distinction between amicitia and patronage, arguing that viewed from a sociological point patronage can be analysed as a form of unbalanced amicitia, although viewed from an ‘emic’ cultural point of view, Roman patronage was a phenomenon sui generis, with its own ethos, foundation myth etc. Chapter 3 briefly reviews a few evaluations of the ‘economic’ use amicitia by contemporary authors, thus serving as a bridge to part II.
Part II (Amicitia and the allocation of scarce resources) tries to show that although amicitia and patronage generated their own circulation system of scarce resources, they also (and perhaps more importantly) influenced the allocation of scarce resources through markets. In so arguing I try to bridge the gap between substantivism/minimalism and modernism in economic history research. Although market principles were familiar in ancient Rome, the market economy itself continuously interacted with the patronal-amical allocation system. The argument is based on the detailed analyses in three chapters of amicitia / patronage as generating gifts (chapter 4), loans and sureties (chapter 5) and inheritances and legacies (chapter 6).
Part III analyses the use of instrumental friendship and patronage in the organisation of economic activities. The Roman economy if often branded as primitive because it lacked the fundamentals of moderen business law. Direct agency by free persons was not possible and economic organisations could not acquire legal capacity. Roman traders and financiers primarily used amici, patrons and protégés to organise their business enterprises. From an organisational point of view therefore, the Roman economy should be analysed using the conceptual frameworks of social and personal networks. The paradigm of the ‘firm’ is not very relevant. The main forms of organisation involving free persons according to Roman law were procuratio / mandatum on the one hand and societas on the other. The first regulates the ‘delivery’ of free services (usually between family, amici, patron-client or patron-freedman), the second regulates redistribution of gains and losses between partners, who were expected to entertain relations of mutual trust and solidarity typical of amicitia / patronage. It is no coincidence that organisations operating by means of slaves enjoyed a fundamentally different legal support, recognising direct agency and allowing a kind of pseudo-legal capacity.
The last chapter of part III is devoted to recommendations and influence. Through amicitia and patronage, business men could influence decision making by political authorities and thus gain privileges and control and solve conflicts. The strategies revealed in the letters of recommendation show that these were part and parcel of an organisation system based not on ‘corporate’ or pseudo-corporate enterprises, but on informal networks.
This book contributes to the multi-disciplinary debate between scholars working on climate and society from various backgrounds. The chronological boundaries of the book are set by the emergence of complex societies in the Neolithic on the one end and the rise of early-modern states in global political and economic exchange on the other. In order to stimulate comparison across the boundaries of modern periodization, this book ends with demography and climate change in early-modern and modern Italy, a society whose empirical data allows the kind of statistical analysis that is impossible for ancient societies.
The book highlights the role of human agency, and the complex interactions between the natural environment and the socio-cultural, political, demographic, and economic infrastructure of any given society. It is intended for a wide audience of scholars and students in ancient economic history, specifically Rome and Late Antiquity.
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.
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.
Papers by Koenraad Verboven
This book analyses the influence amicitia and patronage excercised on the allocation of scarce resources (part II) and on the organisation of economic activities (part III). After a short introduction surveying the central questions and problems adressed in this book, Part I serves as an introduction to the phenomena of Roman instrumental friendship and patronage. The principles of (instrumental) amicitia are reviewed in chapter 1: ‘The Moral Matrix of Amicitia’. Chapter 2 deals with the distinction between amicitia and patronage, arguing that viewed from a sociological point patronage can be analysed as a form of unbalanced amicitia, although viewed from an ‘emic’ cultural point of view, Roman patronage was a phenomenon sui generis, with its own ethos, foundation myth etc. Chapter 3 briefly reviews a few evaluations of the ‘economic’ use amicitia by contemporary authors, thus serving as a bridge to part II.
Part II (Amicitia and the allocation of scarce resources) tries to show that although amicitia and patronage generated their own circulation system of scarce resources, they also (and perhaps more importantly) influenced the allocation of scarce resources through markets. In so arguing I try to bridge the gap between substantivism/minimalism and modernism in economic history research. Although market principles were familiar in ancient Rome, the market economy itself continuously interacted with the patronal-amical allocation system. The argument is based on the detailed analyses in three chapters of amicitia / patronage as generating gifts (chapter 4), loans and sureties (chapter 5) and inheritances and legacies (chapter 6).
Part III analyses the use of instrumental friendship and patronage in the organisation of economic activities. The Roman economy if often branded as primitive because it lacked the fundamentals of moderen business law. Direct agency by free persons was not possible and economic organisations could not acquire legal capacity. Roman traders and financiers primarily used amici, patrons and protégés to organise their business enterprises. From an organisational point of view therefore, the Roman economy should be analysed using the conceptual frameworks of social and personal networks. The paradigm of the ‘firm’ is not very relevant. The main forms of organisation involving free persons according to Roman law were procuratio / mandatum on the one hand and societas on the other. The first regulates the ‘delivery’ of free services (usually between family, amici, patron-client or patron-freedman), the second regulates redistribution of gains and losses between partners, who were expected to entertain relations of mutual trust and solidarity typical of amicitia / patronage. It is no coincidence that organisations operating by means of slaves enjoyed a fundamentally different legal support, recognising direct agency and allowing a kind of pseudo-legal capacity.
The last chapter of part III is devoted to recommendations and influence. Through amicitia and patronage, business men could influence decision making by political authorities and thus gain privileges and control and solve conflicts. The strategies revealed in the letters of recommendation show that these were part and parcel of an organisation system based not on ‘corporate’ or pseudo-corporate enterprises, but on informal networks.
This book contributes to the multi-disciplinary debate between scholars working on climate and society from various backgrounds. The chronological boundaries of the book are set by the emergence of complex societies in the Neolithic on the one end and the rise of early-modern states in global political and economic exchange on the other. In order to stimulate comparison across the boundaries of modern periodization, this book ends with demography and climate change in early-modern and modern Italy, a society whose empirical data allows the kind of statistical analysis that is impossible for ancient societies.
The book highlights the role of human agency, and the complex interactions between the natural environment and the socio-cultural, political, demographic, and economic infrastructure of any given society. It is intended for a wide audience of scholars and students in ancient economic history, specifically Rome and Late Antiquity.
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.
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.
Research can, however, be directed to find out whether markets in a given society are an efficient solution to the need humans have for resources, and we can study how institutions in this society may or may not stimulate markets. It seems a banality to say that market performance feeds back into institutional change, but the idea that markets drive institutional change has rightly been abandoned long ago by most neo-institutional economists (such as Douglass North himself). Therefore, such a research program entails studying a much wider range of social structures and processes that those determined by markets.
In my paper I will argue that markets were an important part of the incentive structure in the Roman world and did feedback into the creation and change of institutions. However, they were not the only or even dominant system providing incentives to produce or allocate resources. If we want to understand economic performance (measured by regardless which criteria) the challenge is not to reduce everything to the market but to see how various systems interlocked.
For instance, markets did not provide the incentive to make the huge investments needed to bring into exploitation most mines or quarries. These were political decisions. Market opportunities did, however, serve in some cases to convince private contractors to take on part of the exploitation costs.
For instance, although labour markets existed, they only provided the incentives to ‘produce’ work for a very limited part of the population. By far most rural labour was conducted by peasants and their households and although the production of cash-crops for markets was a reality, in most parts of the empire peasants aimed first at self-sufficiency.
For instance, although some scholars tried to explain slave’s willingness to perform by market incentives, these attempts are not very convincing. With some notable exceptions, incentives for slaves to perform derived from fear, or from a socialisation that imbued slaves with their master’s value system and defined their self-identity as familia-members. However, slave labour was important to produce resources intended for the market. Hence, market did provide an incentive to invest in slaves.
Within mainstream economics some scholars who adopt game theory still think that cultural beliefs and social institutions emerge spontaneously (as Nash equilibria) from social interactions. The best know proponent of this school is no doubt Avner Greif. The approach acquires accepting the assumptions from social exchange theory, viz. that humans are rational decision makers, led by the desire to gain rewards and avoid losses (costs), measured by subjective standards that vary through time and that social life is made up of negotiated exchanges between such rational agents. But even if this model would adequately describe social processes, it would still have to account for non-market interactions. For game theory to be valid in social research it has to accommodate for the fact that people are continuously engaged in multiple games played by different rules with different costs/benefits as a result.
Emotional friendship no doubt existed, but was not what the ancient Greeks and Romans had in mind when they thought and talked about philia / amicitia.
Few scholars have argued against this view and the main argument of those who did was focused on showing that Greeks and Roman thought of true philia / amicitia as based on affection, even though the terms may have been used euphemistically to denote instrumental reciprocity relations.
This paper is intended to survey the various opinions on the role of affection in ancient friendship among ancient philosophers and modern scholars. I will argue that the conceptual distinction between emotional and instrumental friendship (as proposed i.a. by Wolf), is of limited analytical value in studying friendship in ancient society. Affection needs to be integrated in the analysis of ‘instrumental’ friendship.
Emotions are not merely instinctive reactions ; they are subject to cultural contingencies and deeply rooted in socialisation processes. Affection in ancient friendship was socially prescribed. Gratia – the sense of the obligation to return gifts and favours – entailed affection. Children were brought up to believe that they ‘ought’ to feel affection ‘in exchange’ for gifts and favours. Thus, the norm of affection-in-response-to-gifts/favours became part of the social habitus.
In order to understand ancient friendship we need an analytical framework in which affection has received its proper place. I will suggest three lines of approach:
- Affection has to be substantiated through gifts and favours in order to receive social recognition
- Affection has to be felt in exchange for gifts and favours
Appeals to affection are legitimate to support the request for a favour, and gifts and favours are justified by the affection from whence (supposedly) spring
Specific focus was given to:
- Integration and disintegration of the urban model in rural and urban societies
- Markets and economic integration as imperial and regional inclusive systems
- Interpretative models on aspects of transformation in Roman society
Clearly, the Greco-Roman world, medieval Europe and Arab/Turkish medieval economy were not the only ‘super-size trading systems’ in history, but they are related and interconnected more strongly than was the case, for instance, for Han China and the Roman Empire, or Yuan China and the Mamluk sultanate. They shared similar basic economic institutions (such as private property rights, contracts, coinage, …) that were supported, at least in theory, by legal systems imposed by political rulers, but because differed strongly in terms of culture, religion and political institutions, these basic institutions were embedded in profoundly different social rule complexes.
The debate
Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. The decline and even collapse of complex societies in the Americas, Africa and the Eurasian continent has been related to catastrophic shifts in temperature and precipitation. Other scholars, however, see climate change as potentially hastening endogenous processes of political, economic and demographic decline, but argue that complex societies did not fall victim to climate alone. In other words, a debate has arisen concerning the nature and scope of climatic forces on human society and the extent of resilience within complex societies to deal with adverse changes in natural circumstances. The debate so far has shown that the role of long-term climate change and short-term climatic events in the history of mankind can no longer be denied. At the same time, the realization has also emerged that further study must go beyond global patterns and general answers. Diversity governs both climate change and human society. Hence, furthering our understanding of the role of climate in human history requires complex theories that combine on the one hand recent paleoclimatic models that recognize the high extent of temporal and spatial variation and, on the other, models of societal change that allow for the complexity of societal response to internal and external forces.
The Challenge
Our conference will focus on the link between climate and society in ancient worlds, which all have in common a sparsity of empirical data that limits our understanding of the endogenous and exogenous variables responsible for societal change and our ability to empirically establish the causal links between them. Lacking precise and secure historic data on weather, harvests, prices, population, health and mortality, historical reconstructions run the risk of being overwhelmed by impressive quantities of long-term paleoclimatic proxy-data. Due to the sparsity of societal data, early economies may appear to be more subjected to environmental forces than later pre-industrial societies. The challenge is to bring both perspectives together in models that allow an evenly balanced analysis of the link between climate and society.
The network brings together research teams from all Flemish universities and thirteen universities worldwide (see the members page for the full list).
Our aim is to study what drove economic development and how this in turn changed Roman society. Our ambition is to combine textual data—epigraphic, papyrological and literary—and data from economic archaeology and natural science research with new theoretical frameworks drawn from neo-institutional and development economics and to put these in a comparative and longue durée perspective.
The study of ancient economies entered a new phase in the 1990s. Economic archaeology and natural science research provided new data on economic performance. Neo-institutional and development economics offered new theoretical frameworks. Comparative and longue durée analyses gained central importance. Most scholars today think that levels of economic performance in the Roman world peaked c. second century CE and were not surpassed until well into the early Modern period.
Paradigmatic and methodological shifts, however, raise new research questions. How reliable are archaeological proxy data? How can we ensure that cross-cultural or trans-epochal comparisons are meaningful? Was the course of economic development (e.g. of markets) determined by changes in the institutional framework or vice versa? What structural constraints and possibilities were determined by ecological factors ?