Roman economy
Encyclopedia
The history of the Roman economy covers the period of the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

 and the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

.

Recent research has led to a positive reevaluation of the size and sophistication of the Roman economy within the constraints generally imposed on agricultural societies
Agrarian society
An agrarian society is a society that depends on agriculture as its primary means for support and sustenance. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming, and was the most common form of socio-economic oganization for...

 in the preindustrial age.

Gross domestic product

All cited economic historians stress the point that, given the general paucity of relevant data from antiquity, any estimate can only be regarded as a rough approximation to the realities of the ancient economy.
Estimates of Roman per-capita and total GDP1)
Unit Goldsmith
Raymond W. Goldsmith
Raymond W. Goldsmith was an American economist specialising in historical data on national income, saving, financial intermediation, and financial assets and liabilities....


1984
Hopkins
Keith Hopkins
Morris Keith Hopkins was a British historian and sociologist. He was professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge from 1985 to 2000....


1995/6
Temin
Peter Temin
Dr. Peter Temin is a widely cited economist and economic historian, currently Gray Professor Emeritus of Economics, MIT and former head of the Economics Department....


2006
Maddison
Angus Maddison
Angus Maddison was a British economist and a world scholar on quantitative macroeconomic history, including the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development...


2007
Bang
Peter Fibiger Bang
Peter Fibiger Bang is a Danish comparative historian. Bang's main research interests are Roman economic history and imperial power, historical sociology and world history, as well as the reception of Classical culture in later ages....


2008
Scheidel
Walter Scheidel
Walter Scheidel is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to world history.- Life :From 1984...

/Friesen

2009
Lo Cascio
Elio Lo Cascio
Elio Lo Cascio is an Italian historian, who teaches Roman History at the Sapienza University of Rome. Lo Cascio's main research interests are the institutional, administrative, social and economic history of Ancient Rome from the Republic to the Late Empire, and Roman population history.- Life :Lo...

/Malanima
Paolo Malanima
Paolo Malanima is an Italian economic historian and director of the Institute of Studies on Mediterranean Societies in Naples...


2009
GDP per capita Sesterces HS 380 HS 225 HS 166 HS 380 HS 229 HS 260 HS 380
Wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

 equivalent
843 kg
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...

491 kg 614 kg 843 kg 500 kg 680 kg 855 kg
1990 International Dollars $570 $620 $940
Population
(Approx. year)
55m
Million
One million or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian millione , from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.In scientific notation, it is written as or just 106...


(14 AD)
60m
(14 AD)
55m
(100 AD)
44m
(14 AD)
60m
(150 AD)
70m
(150 AD)

(14 AD)
Total GDP
Gross domestic product
Gross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....

Sesterces HS 20.9bn HS 13.5bn HS 9.2bn HS 16.7bn HS 13.7bn ~HS 20bn
Wheat equivalent 46.4 Mt 29.5 Mt 33.8 Mt 37.1 Mt 30 Mt 50 Mt
1990 International Dollars $25.1bn $43.4bn


1) Decimal fractions rounded to the nearest tenth. Cursive numbers not directly given by the authors; they are obtained by multiplying the respective value of GDP per capita by estimated population size.

Italia is considered the richest region, due to tax transfers from the provinces
Roman province
In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

 and the concentration of elite income in the heartland; its GDP per capita is estimated at having been around 40% to 66% higher than in the rest of the empire.

Demography

In recent years, question relating to ancient demographics have received increasingly more scholarly attention, with estimates of the population size of the Roman empire at its demographic peak now varying between 60–70 million ("low count") and over 100 million ("high count"). When adhering to a more traditional value of ca. 55 million inhabitants, the Roman Empire still constituted the most populous Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

 political entity until the mid-19th century and likely remained unsurpassed worldwide until the 2nd millennium AD.

Mining and metallurgy

The invention and widespread application of hydraulic mining
Hydraulic mining
Hydraulic mining, or hydraulicking, is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment. In the placer mining of gold or tin, the resulting water-sediment slurry is directed through sluice boxes to remove the gold.-Precursor - ground...

, namely hushing
Hushing
Hushing is an ancient and historic mining method using a flood or torrent of water to reveal mineral veins. The method was applied in several ways, both in prospecting for ores, and for their exploitation. Mineral veins are often hidden below soil and sub-soil, which must be stripped away to...

 and ground-sluicing, aided by the ability of the Romans to plan and execute mining operations on a large scale, allowed various base and precious metals to be extracted on a proto-industrial scale only rarely, if ever, matched until the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

.
Annual metal production in metric tons
Output per annum Comment
Iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

82,500 t Based on "conservative estimate" of iron production at 1.5 kg per head, assuming a population size of 55m
Copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

15,000 t Largest preindustrial producer
Lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

80,000 t Largest preindustrial producer
Silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

200 t At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, Roman stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of medieval Europe
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

 and the Caliphate around 800 AD.
Gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

9 t Production in Asturia, Callaecia, and Lusitania
Lusitania
Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...

 (all Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

) alone


The most common fuel by far for smelting and forging operations, as well as heating purposes, was wood and particularly charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

, which is nearly twice as efficient. In addition, coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 was mined in some regions to a fairly large extent: Almost all major coalfields in Roman Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

 were exploited by the late 2nd century AD, and a lively trade along the English North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 coast developed, which extended to the continental Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

, where bituminous coal
Bituminous coal
Bituminous coal or black coal is a relatively soft coal containing a tarlike substance called bitumen. It is of higher quality than lignite coal but of poorer quality than Anthracite...

 was already used for the smelting of iron ore.

World production of lead, estimated from Greenland ice cores, peak in the 1st century CE, strong decline after:
World production would only surpass Roman levels in the middle of the 18th century.

Agriculture

Roman agriculture was self sufficient
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...

 for most of the Roman population. The Romans improved crop growing by watering growing plants using aqueducts and there is an increasing amount of evidence that some parts of the industry were mechanised. For example, extensive sets of mills
Gristmill
The terms gristmill or grist mill can refer either to a building in which grain is ground into flour, or to the grinding mechanism itself.- Early history :...

 existed in Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

 and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 at an early date to grind wheat into flour. The most impressive extant remains occur at Barbegal in southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, near Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....

. Sixteen overshot water wheels arranged in two columns were fed by the main aqueduct to Arles, the outflow from one being the supply to the next one down in the series.

Trade

According to archaeological evidence there was a large increase in the volume of long distance trade during Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial times followed by a large decrease. This is evidenced in the archaeological data on the number of shipwrecks found in the mediterranean sea:

Industrial output

The majority of the people of the Roman Empire were living in destitution, with an insignificant part of the population engaged in commerce, being much poorer than the elite. The industrial output was minimal, due to the fact that the majority poor could not pay for the markets for products. Technological advance was severely hampered by this fact. Urbanization in the western part of the empire was also minimal due to the poverty of the region. Slaves accounting for most of the means of industrial output, rather than technology.

See also

Related topics
  • Roman commerce
    Roman commerce
    Roman trade was the engine that drove the Roman economy of the late Republic and the early Empire. Fashions and trends in historiography and in popular culture have tended to neglect the economic basis of the empire in favor of the lingua franca of Latin and the exploits of the Roman legions...

  • Roman finance
    Roman finance
    For centuries the monetary affairs of the Roman Republic had rested in the hands of the Senate. These elite liked to present themselves as steady and fiscally conservative, but as the 19th-century historian of Rome Wilhelm Ihne remarked:...

  • Roman technology
    Roman technology
    Roman technology is the engineering practice which supported Roman civilization and made the expansion of Roman commerce and Roman military possible over nearly a thousand years....


Provinces
  • Roman Britain: Trade and economy
  • Economy of Hispania
    Economy of Hispania
    The economy of Hispania, or Roman Iberia, experienced a strong revolution during and after the conquest of the peninsular territory by Rome, in such a way that, from an unknown but promising land, it came to be one of the most valuable acquisitions of both the Republic and Empire and a basic pillar...


Related economies
  • Ancient Greek economy
    Economy of Ancient Greece
    The economy of ancient Greece was characterized by the extreme importance of importing goods, all the more so because of the relative poverty of Greece's soil...

  • Byzantine economy
    Byzantine economy
    The Byzantine economy was among the most advanced in Europe and the Mediterranean for many centuries. Constantinople was a prime hub in a trading network that at various times extended across nearly all of Eurasia and North Africa. Some scholars argue that, up until the arrival of the Arabs in the...


Sources

Size and structure of the economy
  • Bang, Peter Fibiger
    Peter Fibiger Bang
    Peter Fibiger Bang is a Danish comparative historian. Bang's main research interests are Roman economic history and imperial power, historical sociology and world history, as well as the reception of Classical culture in later ages....

     (2008): The Roman Bazaar: A Comparative Study of Trade and Markets in a Tributary Empire, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-85532-2, pp. 86–91
  • Bang, Peter Fibiger
    Peter Fibiger Bang
    Peter Fibiger Bang is a Danish comparative historian. Bang's main research interests are Roman economic history and imperial power, historical sociology and world history, as well as the reception of Classical culture in later ages....

     (2009): "The Ancient Economy and New Institutional Economics", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 99, pp. 194–206
  • Goldsmith, Raymond W.
    Raymond W. Goldsmith
    Raymond W. Goldsmith was an American economist specialising in historical data on national income, saving, financial intermediation, and financial assets and liabilities....

     (1984): "An Estimate of the Size and Structure of the National Product of the Early Roman Empire", Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 263–288
  • Hopkins, Keith
    Keith Hopkins
    Morris Keith Hopkins was a British historian and sociologist. He was professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge from 1985 to 2000....

     (1980): "Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.–A.D. 400)", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 70, pp. 101–125
  • Hopkins, Keith
    Keith Hopkins
    Morris Keith Hopkins was a British historian and sociologist. He was professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge from 1985 to 2000....

     (1995/6): "Rome, Taxes, Rents, and Trade", Kodai, Vol. 6/7, pp. 41–75
  • Lo Cascio, Elio
    Elio Lo Cascio
    Elio Lo Cascio is an Italian historian, who teaches Roman History at the Sapienza University of Rome. Lo Cascio's main research interests are the institutional, administrative, social and economic history of Ancient Rome from the Republic to the Late Empire, and Roman population history.- Life :Lo...

    ; Malanima, Paolo
    Paolo Malanima
    Paolo Malanima is an Italian economic historian and director of the Institute of Studies on Mediterranean Societies in Naples...

     (Dec. 2009): "GDP in Pre-Modern Agrarian Economies (1–1820 AD). A Revision of the Estimates", Rivista di storia economica, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 391–420
  • Maddison, Angus
    Angus Maddison
    Angus Maddison was a British economist and a world scholar on quantitative macroeconomic history, including the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development...

     (2007): "Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD. Essays in Macro-Economic History", Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922721-1
  • Scheidel, Walter
    Walter Scheidel
    Walter Scheidel is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to world history.- Life :From 1984...

    ; Friesen, Steven J. (Nov. 2009): "The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 99, pp. 61–91
  • Temin, Peter
    Peter Temin
    Dr. Peter Temin is a widely cited economist and economic historian, currently Gray Professor Emeritus of Economics, MIT and former head of the Economics Department....

     (2006): "Estimating GDP in the Early Roman Empire", Lo Cascio, Elio
    Elio Lo Cascio
    Elio Lo Cascio is an Italian historian, who teaches Roman History at the Sapienza University of Rome. Lo Cascio's main research interests are the institutional, administrative, social and economic history of Ancient Rome from the Republic to the Late Empire, and Roman population history.- Life :Lo...

     (ed.): Innovazione tecnica e progresso economico nel mondo romano, Edipuglia, Bari, ISBN 978-88-7228-405-6, pp. 31–54


Demography
  • Scheidel, Walter
    Walter Scheidel
    Walter Scheidel is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to world history.- Life :From 1984...

     (April 2006): Population and Demography, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, Version 1.0


Mining and metallurgy
  • Callataÿ, François de (2005): "The Graeco-Roman Economy in the Super Long-Run: Lead, Copper, and Shipwrecks", Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 18, pp. 361–372
  • Cech, Brigitte (2010): Technik in der Antike, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, ISBN 978-3-8062-2080-3
  • Craddock, Paul T. (2008): "Mining and Metallurgy", in: Oleson, John Peter
    John Peter Oleson
    John Peter Oleson is a Canadian classical archaeologist and historian of ancient technology. His main interests are the Roman Near East, maritime archaeology , and ancient technology, especially hydraulic technology, water-lifting devices, and Roman concrete construction.- Life :Born in 1946 in...

     (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-518731-1, pp. 93–120
  • Healy, John F. (1978): Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World, Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-40035-0
  • Hong, Sungmin; Candelone, Jean-Pierre; Patterson, Clair C.
    Clair Cameron Patterson
    Clair Cameron Patterson was a geochemist born in Mitchellville, Iowa, United States. He graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, received his Ph.D...

    ; Boutron, Claude F. (1994): "Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations", Science
    Science (journal)
    Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

    , Vol. 265, No. 5180, pp. 1841–1843
  • Hong, Sungmin; Candelone, Jean-Pierre; Patterson, Clair C.
    Clair Cameron Patterson
    Clair Cameron Patterson was a geochemist born in Mitchellville, Iowa, United States. He graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, received his Ph.D...

    ; Boutron, Claude F. (1996): "History of Ancient Copper Smelting Pollution During Roman and Medieval Times Recorded in Greenland Ice", Science
    Science (journal)
    Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

    , Vol. 272, No. 5259, pp. 246–249
  • Patterson, C. C.
    Clair Cameron Patterson
    Clair Cameron Patterson was a geochemist born in Mitchellville, Iowa, United States. He graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, received his Ph.D...

     (1972): "Silver Stocks and Losses in Ancient and Medieval Times", The Economic History Review
    The Economic History Review
    The Economic History Review is a peer-reviewed history journal published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Economic History Society. It was established in 1927 by Eileen Power and is edited by Steve Hindle and Steven Broadberry. Its first editors were E. Lipson and R. H. Tawney and...

    , Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 205–235
  • Settle, Dorothy M.; Patterson, Clair C.
    Clair Cameron Patterson
    Clair Cameron Patterson was a geochemist born in Mitchellville, Iowa, United States. He graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, received his Ph.D...

     (1980): "Lead in Albacore: Guide to Lead Pollution in Americans", Science
    Science (journal)
    Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

    , Vol. 207, No. 4436, pp. 1167–1176
  • Sim, David; Ridge, Isabel (2002): Iron for the Eagles. The Iron Industry of Roman Britain, Tempus, Stroud, Gloucestershire, ISBN 0-7524-1900-5
  • Smith, A. H. V. (1997): "Provenance of Coals from Roman Sites in England and Wales", Britannia, Vol. 28, pp. 297–324
  • Wilson, Andrew
    Andrew Wilson (classical archaeologist)
    Andrew Ian Wilson is a British classical archaeologist and director of the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Oxford...

     (2002): "Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 92, pp. 1–32


Trade
  • Parker, A. J. (1992): "Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces", Archaeopress (British Archaeological Reports (BAR) International S.), ISBN-10: 0860547361

Further reading

  • Scheidel, Walter
    Walter Scheidel
    Walter Scheidel is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and comparative and transdisciplinary approaches to world history.- Life :From 1984...

    ; Morris, Ian; Saller, Richard, eds. (2007): The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-78053-7
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