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Medieval and Early Modern

In this study Richard Duncan-Jones expands his well-known book The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies into other economic realms. Much of his analysis concerns the Empire rather than metropolitan Rome and its suburbs. Indeed, he has intentionally focused on the broadest definition of empire, not only geographically but chronologically: the book includes data from the time of Augustus in the first to that of Diocletian in the third century A.D. In terms of underlying methodology, Duncan-Jones tries to develop innovative approaches to quantification of the Roman economy. He does so in considerable detail and with the support of 29 figures and 51 tables. For example, he compares historically known dates such as the death of an emperor with document dates that show when the death was known in other geographic regions: from this he calculates speed of transport. In another instance, he uses the inscriptions on all statues and buildings in a community to determine the size of its building programs; he then employs those inscriptions to determine who paid for the buildings. He cites his detailed analysis of inscriptions on dated buildings in the two African cities of Thugga and Thamugadi (two quite different communities) as specific evidence of financing sources, including that public and private financing were equally important in the provinces. He does not compare metropolitan building in Rome or Ostia with provincial data, however. Using principally literary and epigraphic sources, he then tackles the taxation system, paying particular attention to the degree to which it accepted payment in money or in kind. Duncan-Jones supports P. A. Brunt's belief that "there were probably sharp limits to Rome's ability to extract payment of tax in money, and payment in kind may have taken its place in practice, even where money-payment was apparently stipulated" (p. 197). Stressing Rome's success in furnishing a model for the development of cities, the author spends some time expanding on the development of provincial city officials' obligation to pay for public shows and ceremonies out of their own pockets. He details the burden of these expenses that devolved on officeholders—a burden so great that candidates for public office became scarce in the provinces. In his study on trade, the author is undeterred by the lack of data. He points out that we do know information such as the types of foreign products traded, even if we do not know their quantity. He stresses one good source of data: artifacts (pottery) that survive in abundance. Taking Roman lamps as his pottery artifact, Duncan-Jones argues against Harris's theory that lamps were too cheap to be exported: "Traders whose ships carried foodstuffs in one direction still needed goods for the return voyage, and could not necessarily fill their holds with high-priced luxury goods" (p. 49). In such cases the traders would be looking for any product that was "saleable and compact" (p. 52) even if low priced. This is a clear challenge to the accepted view and seems a logical explanation. Admirably, this scholar recognizes the uncertainty inherent in many of his assumptions and discusses the possible ramifications of different interpretations of his data. We obviously must rely on his wide reputation and on the respect his earlier works have attracted to place our confidence in his conclusions. We did notice an occasional assertion that has been questioned before. He accepts at face value Suetonius's statement that draining the Facine lake took 30,000 men 11 years. Yet the nineteenth-