Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden (editors)

Copyright EH.Net (c) 2002

Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden (editors), The Ancient Economy (Edinburgh Readings on Ancient World Series). Edinburgh:, Edinburgh University Press, [2002, xxi + 282p. £16.99 Paperback, £45 Hardback. ISBN: 0-7486-1321-8, 0-7486-1322-6]

Reviewed for EH.NET by Morris Silver, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, City College of the City University of New York.

In 1973, the classical scholar Moses Finley (1973, 1985, 1999) unveiled a view of the economic underpinnings of ancient economies in which markets and economic motivations played little if any role. Status and civic ideology governed the allocation of scarce resources. Hence, the application of economic theory to the ancient economy was at best a futile exercise and at worst a source of grave misunderstandings. By "ancient economy" Finley had in mind only the economy of classical civilization--i.e. of the Graeco-Roman area beginning roughly in the earlier first millennium BC. However, Finley's perspective found completion and generalization in the works of the economic historian Karl Polanyi (1981).¹ Polanyi argued forcefully that the ancient Near East did not know markets and, like Finley, he was implacably opposed to the application of economic theory to ancient economic life. Thus was formed a new orthodoxy. Suggestions in the literature of ancient market behavior or economic motivation might simply be ignored or dismissed in a condescending manner as mere "anachronism". The latter criticism was found devastating by Greek and Roman scholars.

The world of scholarship is rarely completely static, however. Scholars came forward with new evidence and new interpretations pointing to a significant role for markets. In their "Introduction" Scheidel and von Reden* (S&R) (p. 3) explain that

Critics question the real-life impact of elite mentality and identify appparent tensions between the historical record and the model that was meant to make sense of it. They tend to emphasise the considerable scale of economic activities (above all trade) and, make a case for significant economic growth in the Roman imperial period when political and fiscal unification boosted market exchanges.

Thus it is most encouraging to learn from the publisher's website⁴ that the Greek and Roman scholars involved in the publication of The Ancient Economy aim to move the debate beyond "partisan controversies". S&R (3-4) seem to second the call for studies moving the debate beyond the Finley/Polanyi agenda and benefiting from "the conceptual and analytical repertoire of modern economics". Obviously, a new synthesis is badly needed even if, to begin with, it is confined to the Greek and Roman periods.

Concerning to the realities of the volume it is certainly not reassuring that in the lead article (originally published in 1998), Greek specialist Paul Cartledge (15) takes as a given Finley's view that "the categories of neoclassical economic analysis" have "no useful application to 'the ancient economy'." Cartledge goes on to consider how we should "set about formulating usable and useful models".⁵ We search his contribution vainly for the citation of even one example in which the predictions of economic theory are falsified by economic events in the Graeco-Roman economy. No synthesis, no new evidence and no usable new model can be detected here!

Turning to the closing (previously unpublished) article, as is my wont in collections⁶ of this kind, Roman specialist Richard Saller (253) agrees with Finley that modern economic theory is inappropriate for antiquity because of an "incomparability in economic organization". The problem, Saller suggests, is the absence in antiquity of integrated markets: .

Had the markets been fully integrated, there should not have been desperate grain shortages in individual cities, at the same time as other cities were well supplied...In such cases hungry urban dwellers did not depend solely on higher market prices to draw larger supplies from elsewhere in the [Roman] Empire. but resort to imperial intervention...In an integrated market, this sort of supervision would have been superfluous because pricing would have drawn grain to areas in need. (Saller 254 with n. 2)

The remainder of Saller's contribution includes some cautionary observations on the scale of Roman economic growth. The ancients did of course accumulate material and human capital and they introduced important technical innovations. Clearly, the industrial era's increased reliance on scientific knowledge and its increased range and variety of fixed capital goods have steeply accelerated the rate of technical progress and material growth. It must not be overlooked, however, that dramatic improvements in living standards are attainable through improvements in economic organization. The evidence demonstrates that ancient civilizations experienced lengthy periods of market activity and prosperity, including even affluence, interspersed with periods of pervasive economic regulation by the state and, ultimately, economic retrogression. There can be no doubt, for example, that something very important happened to Roman living standards between Romulus and Remus and Diocletian!

Perhaps there is more evidence of a move beyond partisan controversy towards a new synthesis in some of the contributions positioned between Cartledge and Saller. I proceed selectively and begin with a useful, previously published article by historian Reger because of its possible bearing on the question of integrated markets raised by Saller. Reger compares time-series of prices for a number of imported commodities (oil, perfume, papyrus, pitch). The price data are taken from from priestly inscriptions on the island of Delos dating to the Hellenistic period in the third and second centuries BC. The prices of the various commodities display markedly different patterns. This finding is understood by S&R (133-34) to undermine the view that the Hellenistic market was integrated (Reger 145). The assumption underlying this conclusion seems to be that economic integration requires prices to be determined by "general economic trends"/ "broader interregional developments" meaning, apparently, that all prices must change in the same direction. Have S&R identified price inflation/deflation with economic integration? Obviously, integration across spatially distant markets is quite consistent with an unchanged general level of prices combined with pronounced changes in relative prices--i.e., perfume rises in price, oil prices decline. Indeed, such changes are commonplace in the contemporary economy and in no way indicate an absence of integrated markets.

The beginning of a trend toward synthesis can indeed be seen in the (previously published) contribution by the French historian Andreau. I especially appreciated his suggestion that

To contrast, term by term, everything pre-industrial with everything modern, and endlessly to scour antiquity for all possible and imaginable signs of archaism, results in a very reductionist view of history. Besides, whether deliberate or not, such an approach has the effect of providing present-day institutions and situations with an intellectual justification which they do not always merit, and of strengthening our reassuring (but illusory) impression that they are eternal, or at least immortal, since we have now entered modernity. (Andreau 35)⁹

A (previously published) article by archaeologist Halstead also is helpful. He sees "famine-brokering" as a partial answer to "what is arguably the most important problem in the ancient economy 'how did rich Greeks and Romans in classical antiquity acquire their wealth?'" (68). Selling stored grain on the market in periods of exceptionally high prices "may well hold the key to the original emergence of a rich minority, given that current ancient historical orthodoxy seems...to have ruled out all the obvious alternatives" (Halstead 69) (emphasis added). Of course, the "obvious alternatives" for becoming wealthy would be reinstated in any new synthesis! Thus, archaeologist Hitchner (76) in his discussion of growth in the olive oil industry in the Roman provinces of North Africa observes

the proliferation of small farms with one or two presses often in close proximity to oileries, and frequently on agricultural marginal lands... That is, the decision to construct a large stone lever press..., particularly when much more modest means of extracting oil for subsistence needs were available, implies that surplus oil production was the ultimate objective of the small farm occupants. Although the capital for these presses is likely, in many instances, to have come from the owners of the nearby oilieries interested in the oleocultural development of marginal lands in or around their estates, we may also see in these arrangements an effort by the farms' occupants, whether independent small-holders, free tenants or even slaves, to better their lot. (emphasis added)

The Ancient Economy, much to my surprise, actually does include a number of contributions (Andreau, Halstead, Hitchner plus the "Introduction") that move the discussion beyond partisan controversy toward a new synthesis. The volume has the additional merit of bringing together in one place valuable previously published articles by Hopkins, Panella/Tchernia, and Rathbone. On the other hand, the articles by Saller and, especially, Cartledge cling to the Finley/Polanyi orthodoxy. Their strategic placement in the book, first and last chapters, betrays a serious tension in the conception of the editors. To conclude, this is a collection that scholars of the ancient world should be pleased to have in their libraries.

I do have one strong complaint. The editors (4) note that "It goes without saying that it is impossible for a collection of this kind to cover all the bases." Agreed, but why in a volume devoted to economic history do we find classicists, historians, archaeologists and even a philosopher but not a single contribution by a professional economist? The omission is glaring and revealing.

1. I have relied upon Polanyi's posthumously published manuscript entitled The Livelihood of Man (1981). The editor of this volume, Harry W. Pearson, has included material on Polanyi's life and has contributed a useful introduction citing Polanyi's major publications and placing his thought in perspective.

2. The "Suggestions for further Reading" include recent contributions on both sides of the controversy.

3. Interestingly, as their empirical base deteriorated some scholars loyal to this "primitivist/substantivist" school began to denigrate the use of empirical evidence and, more and more, to stress the importance of "erudite models" (see note 6 below). Indeed, even Finley (1985: 182) in "Further Thoughts," appealed to historical and anthropological/sociological "models" as opposed to "the continual evocation of individual 'facts'."

4. http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/cgi/odbic.exe?input=NewWeb/Books/2175.htm

5. In modern economics models are conceptual structures capable of being manipulated to make predictions, which may be tested against empirical evidence. For Finley/Polanyi scholars, however, a model is "a heuristic device for organizing data into an intelligible whole" (Stager 2001: 625). As Finley (1985: 182) explained in "Further Thoughts," "models" are "valuable in obscuring incidental detail and in allowing fundamental aspects of reality to appear." "Model" serves as an objective-sounding name for a priori positions that are employed to sift, shape, interpret or avoid the evidence.

6. With two exceptions the articles included in The Ancient Economy were originally published elsewhere. The editors contribute an introduction and chapter commentaries. With one exception the contributions are authored by classicists, historians and archaeologists. The exception is a reprinted contribution by philosopher Scott Meikle who, while critical of modern economic theory, is quite adept at manipulating the Marxist categories of "use value" and "exchange value".

7. Halstead (S&R 69) notes that the Roman writer Varro advised landowners to store grain in order to take advantage of high market prices in times of famine.

8. Readers interested in market integration in the Roman world might consult Temin (2001).

9. One might consider in the light of Andreau's remarks Douglass North's (1991: 98) pursuit of the "Holy Grail" of a once-and-for-all incremental evolution of efficient institutions.

10. Hitchner (80-1) was well aware of the professional risk he was taking in citing empirical evidence for significant growth in the Roman economy.

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