There has been an increased interest in Romeʼs connections with the Far East over the course of the last 20 years. This has resulted in the publication of many articles and monographs about the Roman involvement in the Red Sea which was the key maritime region linking the Far East with the West. This thesis synthesizes the recent scholarship on the Red Sea trade in Late Antiquity by merging all of the most up to date information into a concise narrative. In order to accomplish this, three major sources of information have been analyzed. Firstly, the historical time frame of all of the major regions of the Red Sea including Egypt, Aksum, and Himyar have been laid out in a straight forward narrative. This offers the most pertinent background information for the development of Red Sea trade. Secondly, the most up to date archaeological evidence has been incorporated into a description of the ancient maritime trade infrastructure of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The archaeological evidence broadens our knowledge of the roads through the Eastern Desert of Egypt, the ports of the Red Sea, and the development of the Indian subcontinent more generally. Thirdly, this thesis builds on all of the historical as well as archaeological data and attempts to quantify the impact of Red Sea trade on the Late Antique Roman Empire both economically and culturally. This synthesis helps to elucidate the growing conception among Late Antique scholars that the Roman Empire was far more interconnected with its eastern neighbours. This further nuances the role which outside forces had on the evolution of the Late Antique world.

The present study offers an in-depth examination of the institutional framework within which money operated as an economic agent in the Roman empire. Analyses focus on Classical Roman Law as reflected in the writings of Roman jurists from the second and early-third centuries CE. The legal sources are augmented by documentary materials, which give independent, albeit sporadic, evidence for actual practice. The thesis follows current trends in economic history to adopt approaches advanced by New Institutional Economics (NIE), while generally accepting Keynesian claims for the endogenous nature of money. Its innovative contribution is in suggesting a complexity-oriented approach to modelling the behaviour of money in the Roman empire; seeing money as a complex economic phenomenon, i.e. as a diverse and manifold apparatus which allows for new patterns of activity to be created by individuals, who self-adjust their use of it to the continuously evolving system in which they operate. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first is introductory. The second concerns the legal institutional framework for economic interaction; with discussions generally organised according to Roman legal categorisation, and considers developments in the role allocated to money in legal definitions for exchange transaction. The third part examines two study-cases of money-related institutions, namely, the instrument of interest, and interest-bearing deposits, demonstrating how money stimulated the interconnected dynamics within and between legal traditions operating under Roman regime. The fourth and last part is dedicated to a more general analysis of the complex nature of Roman money, attempting to model the historical example of Roman money with the help of complexity-oriented visualisations.

The economic development of frontier regions has been neglected in the study of the Roman economy. Traditional core/periphery models suggest that frontiers were marginal zones dependent on a wealthy Mediterranean core, and this view has dominated scholarship for more than thirty years. In light of recent work on the Roman economy, it is clear that many old models need to be reappraised; this thesis examines the economic development of frontiers through the case study of the Rhine River Basin. This region formed one of Rome’s northern frontiers for more than 400 years and has a rich tradition of detailed archaeological and historical research. Using data from the Rhine frontier, this thesis re-examines the nature of frontier economies, arguing that they were dynamic, versatile, and complex rather than subaltern and undeveloped. A new model, based in the analytic framework of economic geography, is suggested as a replacement in order to appreciate the realities and potential of frontier economies.

In this dissertation I use data from 19 archaeological surveys in central Tyrrhenian Italy to understand how craft and commodity production were organized across landscapes, what factors contributed to rural site longevity, and how rural sites interacted with market centers. The surveyed sites spanned the second century BC to fourth century AD. Most survey areas centered on towns or small cities, but several were within Rome's vast suburbium or adjacent to key trade corridors, such as the Tiber River and consular roads. To enable the comparison of more than 3000 rural sites considered in this study, I standardized published survey data into a relational database and analyzed site types, sizes, locations, and finds statistically as well as via Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools. Site types included constructions (e.g., aqueducts, roads) and settlements (towns, farms, connected farms). The latter two are the most common; they differ in that connected farms had more resources and better access to road networks. Production evidence for various industries (e.g., ceramic, metal, and textile) appear at both farms and connected farms, contradicting traditional views that such activities were confined to large establishments. Many rural sites were located in areas with workable and nutritious soils, and with maximum annual sun exposure. Nevertheless, advantageous location was no guarantee of longevity. Instead, the most consistent factor in rural site longevity was easy access to trade and transport networks. From the first century AD, inhabitants of sites with market connections within a 20-kilometer radius declined in prosperity or abandoned their homes, while those linked to more distant networks were able to maintain, or even expand, their territories. Wide access for buying and selling goods helped sites endure over time. This investigation demonstrates that market networks trumped site resources as the key factor in site longevity. By incorporating the types and patterns of finds, and mapping sites in relation to resources and roads, archaeological survey can help chart the ebb and flow of rural production and assess the relationship of that production to site durability.

What should a catalogue of archaeological material contain? This book is a comprehensive index of 210 lamps from the Roman fort at Gerulata and its adjoining civilian settlement. The lighting devices were excavated during the last 50 years from the houses, cemeteries, barracks and fortifications of this Roman outpost on the Danube Limes and span almost three centuries from AD 80 to AD 350. For the first time, they are published in full and in color with detailed analysis of lamp types, workshop marks and discus scenes. The first chapter describes the history of Roman Pannonia and the archaeological record of Gerulata. Three successive catalogues - of the lamps, of the stamps, and of the iconography - illustrate the material thoroughly. An inquiry into the lamps' function as grave goods is presented, followed by four studies focused on the statistical analysis of types, the organization of the lamp industry, signs of personal ownership, and the cultural significance of lamplight in a provincial milieu, respectively. Together, they paint a picture of a community on the edge of the Empire and its use of artificial light in both life and death. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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This thesis focuses on the economies of Roman ports and their role in the facilitation and organization of maritime trade, combining both terrestrial and maritime archaeological evidence as well as literary and epigraphic material. The first half of the thesis examines Mediterranean ports from a panoptic level in order to address questions of systems of trade, connectivity and economic development. In doing so, I focus on three particular areas of material culture: ceramics, shipwreck cargoes (typically composed of amphorae, metal ingots or stone) and epigraphy. The second half of the thesis focuses on two case studies, southern Turkey and southern France. For each region, I explore the economic factors which led to the development of each region and the ways in which ports enabled this development. I consider the impact of landscape, the usage of natural resources and the extent of production for both local consumption and export. Importantly, I examine the regional connections of the two regions and their interactions within the wider Mediterranean. I develop a model for the development of ports along each coastline and their degree of integration into the trading network of the Roman Mediterranean. Building on this, it becomes possible to assess the extent and scale of extra-regional interaction and market integration. From the evidence presented in this thesis, I argue that ports were at the core of the Roman market economy and that the development of a port network allowed for the integration and interdependence of Mediterranean markets. This allowed for regional economic growth through the specialization in the production of goods for which a region had a comparative advantage.

This study investigates the territories of Neapolis and Nola in order to understand what role they played in the economy of their cities and in Campania. It further explores the difficult relationship between mankind and the fragile landscape of Vesuvius, how eruptions changed settlement patterns, exploitation strategies, and how people dealt with other smaller natural disasters that frequently occurred in that area. The thesis is organised in nine chapters, each describing a separate layer of the landscape. The introduction analyses the reasons for the apparent lack of data for the northern slopes of the volcano and further discusses the theoretical issues pertaining to the economy of the countryside. The history chapter lists the major facts of the histoire événementielle and their connection with the landscape’s longterm history. The third chapter studies the features of the static landscape and the exploitation of bedrock resources. Vesuvius is the subject of the fourth chapter, in which are discussed its shape and the eruptions' effects on the static landscape. Chapter five discusses the river Sebethus and how the intermingled action humans and nature created the marshes. Agriculture and animal breeding are analysed in chapter six, settlement patterns in chapter seven, trade in chapter eight. Through archival research and field survey it has been possible to plot 820 sites from ancient southern Campania, 263 of which from the territories of Neapolis and Nola. This evidence has been matched with environmental and archaeological datasets to provide estimates on agricultural produce and population, thus defining surplus and dependance for certain products. The results reveal a high compartmentalisation and degree of dependence of each micro-regional area on the others, for which one can deduce a high specialisation of each economic agent but not necessarily a high productivity for each of its units.

This thesis assesses the sixth-/early seventh-century socio-economic roots of the eighth-century transmarine system connecting England and the Continent through major coastal trading sites (emporia). Part 1 discusses socio-economic developments in the coastal areas of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the Pas-de-Calais, through a close investigation of fifth- to early seventh-century archaeological evidence. The inclusion of later written sources has been fundamental to recognise that the two shores of the Channel were connected in a more complex network than previously assumed, beyond the major emporia. These areas are then considered comparatively: after challenging substantivist approaches that assume an overwhelming importance of gift-exchange in sixth-century England, Part 2 stresses the role of transmarine traffic and exploitation of natural resources in the socio-economic development of coastal areas. The examination of sixth-century written sources has also proved rewarding to reconsider the sixth-century political relationships between Franks and Anglo-Saxons. The role of kings, churches and laymen in the later transmarine network (seventh/eighth centuries) is then discussed by including the Thames Valley, the estuaries of the rivers Seine and Loire, and the Rhine Delta, examined through the written sources. One crucial question is the role of political actors in the development of a cross-Channel system of exchange. In this regard, scholars have mainly focused on the period when this system was already in place, pointing to a pivotal role of kings and political institutions for its establishment, or to the later appropriation by elites of a coastal area already integrated in the maritime network, but detached from political power. This thesis argues that a close link existed between elites and coastal areas before the emporia; thus, although kings were not the driving stimulus for the establishment of trading sites, the transmarine traffic fostered the socio-economic development of the coastal communities.

Bien qu’elles aient été isolées il y a plusieurs décennies, certaines formes d’amphores « puniques » restaient difficiles à appréhender en raison de leur fabrication au cours de la période romaine. Plusieurs découvertes récentes ont permis d’identifier la production de certains de ces conteneurs au sein de l’espace du détroit de Gibraltar, après la seconde Guerre Punique (218-202 av. J.-C.). Face à l’importance et à la cohérence de la documentation concernant ces amphores, l’archéologie espagnole les a rassemblé dans un même groupe, celui des « amphores tardo-puniques ». Pour l’heure, cinq classes de conteneurs composent ce groupe, du fait de leurs chronologies commune et d’une mixité des traits typo-morphologiques commune, entre les traditions phéniciennes du détroit, puniques et romaines. La considération conjointe de ces types a été corroborée par une très large documentation, l’étude de ces amphores tardo-puniques représentant un nouvel axe de recherche. Néanmoins, de nombreuses interrogations persistaient sur ce mobilier malgré ces premiers ces progrès. D’une part, l’extension réelle de la production de ces conteneurs, de même que les modalités de leur fabrication au sein du détroit – entre la Maurétanie et l’Ibérie – restaient mal définies. D’autre part, les conditions et l’amplitude de leur distribution en dehors de la région du détroit représentaient des aspects particulièrement mal connus. Notre recherche entend constituer un large corpus de données archéologiques et historiques afin de tenter d’aborder ces questionnements. Pour y parvenir, un état de la question a été réalisé via le regroupement de la documentation des contextes de fabrication connus et supposés. Ensuite, une étude de plusieurs gisements sous-marins, en majorité inédits, a été réalisée afin de pouvoir observer les conditions de la circulation maritime de ces emballages. Enfin, leur place dans les réseaux d’échanges romains a été examinée via l’étude de plusieurs sites de consommation. L’analyse approfondie de ces informations, via un cadre analytique pluridisciplinaire, a conduit à réévaluer l’importance de ces conteneurs tardo-puniques dans les réseaux d’échanges tardo-républicains, un phénomène qui est également distinctement associé à l’intégration des élites du détroit de Gibraltar dans la « société » romaine. / Although they were isolated for several decades, some forms of "Punic" amphorae remain difficult to handle, mostly because of their manufacturing during the Roman period. Several recent discoveries allowed to identify the production of some of these containers within the space of the Strait of Gibraltar, in the continuation of the second Punic War (218-202 BC). Given the importance and consistency of their documentation, the Spanish archaeology gathered these ancient packages in the group of the "Late-Punic amphorae". For the moment, five types compose this group. They share several characteristics, between their chronologies and their morphological features mixing Phoenician, Punic and Roman traditions. The joint consideration of these types has recently been, confirmed, the study of the Late-Punic amphorae becoming a new area of research. Nevertheless, many questions persisted in spite of huge progress. On one hand, the real extension of the production of these containers, as well as the modalities of their manufacturing within the area of the Strait, could not be defined. On the other hand, the conditions and the range of their commercial diffusion out of the Iberian Peninsula was still uncertain.Our research intends to deal with these questions thanks to a wide corpus of archaeological and historical data. The first stage of our study concerned the consolidation of the documentation from the manufacturing contexts associated with the Late-Punic containers. Then, a study of several underwater deposits, most of them largely unpublished, is realized in order to observe their maritime traffic. Their place in the trade patterns of the Late Republican era is criticized by examining their presence in several consumption sites. The analysis of all these data led to reevaluate the commercial success of these Late-Punic containers, whereas their diffusion was clearly connected with the integration of the local elites from the Strait of Gibraltar in the Roman society.