Roman Economy
Historians have been arguing for the last hundred years about how the Roman economy worked. There are a lot of different possibilities, but the two main ideas are these:
Many people think that the Romans had a very simple economy. Most people were farmers, who ate mainly the food they grew themselves.
They made most of what they needed themselves, clothes and furniture and tools, and rarely went to a store or a market.
a wooden bucket from York, England
They didn't sell much either. Every few months, though, tax collectors would come and take some of the food the farmers had grown. The tax collectors would take this food to the cities, to feed the aristocrats and their slaves there, and they would send some of it on to feed the soldiers in the army, and some of it to Rome to feed the Emperor and his court, and the people of Rome. This is sometimes called the "consumer city" model. If this is true, we might expect that people would also live in very simple houses (the kind they could build themselves) and use very simple tools.
a Roman amphora,
used as a shipping container
These are both extreme views, and many historians take a position somewhere in between, saying that farmers ate some of the food they grew, and made some of their own clothes, but they also sold some food and bought some stuff. Thanks to new studies, and especially to archaeological excavations of Roman farms and Roman cities, the situation is gradually becoming clearer.
Roman bronze coins
Roman glass bowl
To find out more about the Roman economy, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Eyewitness: Ancient Rome, by Simon James (2004). For kids.
Archaeology of the Roman Economy, by Kevin Greene (1991). An expert, but a good writer. Greene, like many archaeologists, comes down on the side of a market economy.
The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture, by Peter Garnsey and Richard Saller (1987). Two experts, but their writing is easy enough for high schoolers. By Finley's students, and basically on Finley's side.
The Ancient Economy, by Moses Finley (1973, updated edition 1999). The book that first started this argument. Basically on the side of "consumer cities" and people farming their own food. The writing is, again, clear and simple.
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the medieval economy
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