This is the best explanation I have ever seen for why the giant Roman Empire had such a surprisingly weak cultural and intellectual legacy compared to classical Greece.
I don't think it makes sense to argue that a state of perpetual warfare and limited interstate commerce is a better situation than having a broad general peace maintained by a relatively small military base. That militarization was expensive. The need to buy military gear could bankrupt a Greek citizen of modest means.
The Romans imposed common laws for commerce, marriage and residence, so it was much more open to interstate trade. Piracy was much more of a problem before Rome made a point of suppressing it. The goal of most Greek cities was self sufficiency, but there are sound arguments that trade can improve living standards, and the Romans opened the door to much more widespread trade.
I seriously doubt that the typical ancient Greek family had 2.5-3 children and that only half of all households had as much as one slave. I also doubt that two adults were the norm. This sounds a lot more like the post-war US suburbs - ignoring the slaves - except that the suburbs were full of much larger families. Those numbers are way low for any traditional society.
I also think the slave count in pre-Roman Greece is way low. A lot of that constant warfare was looting and slave raiding, something much less common in the Roman era. Does that estimate include public slaves like the 400+ Scythian police and soldiers Herodotus noted? How many other public slaves were there? Does it include slaves tied to businesses who generally slept on site? One would expect a power law distribution of slave ownership with large numbers of slaves being rare but dominating the count in the aggregate. How were the prostitutes counted? They weren't necessarily slaves, but they were often treated like them.
Besides, what kind of metric is square footage per person? Are people in New York City or Singapore that much poorer than people in Sioux Falls or Kansas City just because they have smaller houses? As a former New Yorker, I would expect Roman apartments to be rather cramped for the most part, at least by suburban US standards, but there was a payoff for being able to live in Rome.
P.S. The Roman countryside was full of slaves. Maybe most rural citizens couldn't afford any, but the wealthy would own large farms with hundreds of slaves. This was true not just in what is now Italy, but in Spain, Gaul and elsewhere in the empire. Look up latifunda.
Great job. My colleague at the U. of Dayton, Bruce Hitchner, was editor of "Antiquity." His expertise was the Roman plantation system in N. Africa. I think he would have agreed.
Was this order based on 1000 poleis dying anyway before the roman conquest? Greece was dominated by Macedon and other hellenistic kingdoms since Philip II and before that by various hegemonic greek cities like Sparta and Thebes or for Ionia by Persians and Athenians. Did that had an impact on Greek prosperity?
It seems there is a trade off between the benefits of the large internal market of an empire and the dynamism of a multicentric system. Pax Romana did brought economic growth to same regions.
This was absolutely fascinating, Rafael. Thanks for this. It absolutely blows me away what people have accomplished with minimal technology. I am realizing how foundational culture and societal structures are in the production of wealth. If the Greeks could build such cities with their technology. What kind of cities could we build now if we operated as cohesively or efficiently?
What does this tell us about German unification? Did it have a net negative effect on German living standards till 1914 (not beyond, WW1 corpses obviously have an infinitely negative living standard)? Without the Reich, we'd never have had the "Gründerkrach" nor the "Long Depression" perhaps. It doesn't seem equally easy to analyze, with all the technological progress mucking everything up.
What does this tell us about the EU? Will the centralization of political power in Europe lead to economic collapse, as it did in the Classical World (according to this post)?
This is the best explanation I have ever seen for why the giant Roman Empire had such a surprisingly weak cultural and intellectual legacy compared to classical Greece.
I'm not sure I buy your analysis.
I don't think it makes sense to argue that a state of perpetual warfare and limited interstate commerce is a better situation than having a broad general peace maintained by a relatively small military base. That militarization was expensive. The need to buy military gear could bankrupt a Greek citizen of modest means.
The Romans imposed common laws for commerce, marriage and residence, so it was much more open to interstate trade. Piracy was much more of a problem before Rome made a point of suppressing it. The goal of most Greek cities was self sufficiency, but there are sound arguments that trade can improve living standards, and the Romans opened the door to much more widespread trade.
I seriously doubt that the typical ancient Greek family had 2.5-3 children and that only half of all households had as much as one slave. I also doubt that two adults were the norm. This sounds a lot more like the post-war US suburbs - ignoring the slaves - except that the suburbs were full of much larger families. Those numbers are way low for any traditional society.
I also think the slave count in pre-Roman Greece is way low. A lot of that constant warfare was looting and slave raiding, something much less common in the Roman era. Does that estimate include public slaves like the 400+ Scythian police and soldiers Herodotus noted? How many other public slaves were there? Does it include slaves tied to businesses who generally slept on site? One would expect a power law distribution of slave ownership with large numbers of slaves being rare but dominating the count in the aggregate. How were the prostitutes counted? They weren't necessarily slaves, but they were often treated like them.
Besides, what kind of metric is square footage per person? Are people in New York City or Singapore that much poorer than people in Sioux Falls or Kansas City just because they have smaller houses? As a former New Yorker, I would expect Roman apartments to be rather cramped for the most part, at least by suburban US standards, but there was a payoff for being able to live in Rome.
P.S. The Roman countryside was full of slaves. Maybe most rural citizens couldn't afford any, but the wealthy would own large farms with hundreds of slaves. This was true not just in what is now Italy, but in Spain, Gaul and elsewhere in the empire. Look up latifunda.
Great job. My colleague at the U. of Dayton, Bruce Hitchner, was editor of "Antiquity." His expertise was the Roman plantation system in N. Africa. I think he would have agreed.
You have not considered the effect of erosion on farmland.Even a few centuries of farming can turn a fertile field into a poor goat pasture.
Very interesting.
Was this order based on 1000 poleis dying anyway before the roman conquest? Greece was dominated by Macedon and other hellenistic kingdoms since Philip II and before that by various hegemonic greek cities like Sparta and Thebes or for Ionia by Persians and Athenians. Did that had an impact on Greek prosperity?
It seems there is a trade off between the benefits of the large internal market of an empire and the dynamism of a multicentric system. Pax Romana did brought economic growth to same regions.
Your post also nicely explains the poor intellectual output of the Eastern Roman Empire (500-1500)
This was absolutely fascinating, Rafael. Thanks for this. It absolutely blows me away what people have accomplished with minimal technology. I am realizing how foundational culture and societal structures are in the production of wealth. If the Greeks could build such cities with their technology. What kind of cities could we build now if we operated as cohesively or efficiently?
What does this tell us about German unification? Did it have a net negative effect on German living standards till 1914 (not beyond, WW1 corpses obviously have an infinitely negative living standard)? Without the Reich, we'd never have had the "Gründerkrach" nor the "Long Depression" perhaps. It doesn't seem equally easy to analyze, with all the technological progress mucking everything up.
mmmm
What does this tell us about the EU? Will the centralization of political power in Europe lead to economic collapse, as it did in the Classical World (according to this post)?