------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (December 2007)

Joseph G. Manning and Ian Morris, editors, _The Ancient Economy: 
Evidence and Models_. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005. 
xiii + 285 pp. $60 (cloth), ISBN: 0-8047-4805-5.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Astrid Moeller, Seminar fuer Alte Geschichte, 
Freiburg University.


For more than one hundred years the economic history of ancient 
Greece and Rome has been a battlefield of passionate disagreement. 
First, there was the Buecher-Meyer controversy; then it was Moses I. 
Finley in the 1970s and 1980s whose analysis of the ancient economy 
remained highly controversial. This book under review belongs to the 
still ongoing debate concerning the question about the most adequate 
approach to the study of ancient economic history. The book has a 
high aim in being published with the intention to change the field by 
building a generalizing and comparative ancient economic history, 
connected both to discussions in the social sciences as well as those 
in the humanities. On the other hand, the editors' self-assessment of 
what the book really achieves is much more modest. It is neither a 
systematic review of ancient Mediterranean economies nor a fully 
developed model, but a deliberate attempt to open up further 
dialogue. The book is a valuable stocktaking of the discussions in 
the fields into which the history of the ancient Mediterranean is 
traditionally divided and which constitute separate parts of the 
book: the Near East, the Aegean, Egypt and the Roman Mediterranean. 
It is, nevertheless, not yet an economic history of the ancient 
Mediterranean. Its most valuable aspect for readers of EH.Net 
consists in the fact that it does offer up-to-date insights for 
non-specialists in each field treated: The history of research is 
spread out by a number of examples illustrating different theoretical 
approaches and model-building. The kinds of evidence that vary in 
each field such as literary texts in Greek economic history, 
supplemented by inscriptions in the case of Roman economy, 
non-literary papyri in Egypt and a wide variety of texts from palaces 
and temples in the Near East are discussed in a lucid manner and open 
questions are identified. All this gives a good impression of the 
current discussion among scholars in the various areas of the 
Mediterranean.

Finley's mark on the field has not yet disappeared. Most of the 
contributions take his views on the ancient economy as a starting 
point. Even the whole book owes its title to two of Finley's most 
important works: _The Ancient Economy_ (1973) and _Ancient History: 
Evidence and Models_ (1985). Since Finley wrote on the ancient 
economy, perspectives have changed and there is a desire among 
scholars to break free from his overpowering influence. Nearly all 
contributors acknowledge how much they owe to Finley, but insist that 
it is high time to develop the field of ancient economy in new 
directions.

Ian Morris' and Joe Manning's introduction not only defines the 
framework, but here the most programmatic statements of the book are 
given. Their methodological credo holds that theory, method and data 
are inseparable and that it is not enough to classify and analyze 
primary sources without building models and relating them to the 
empirical material. They analyze the current state of ancient 
economic history as economic history without economics, holding on to 
a divided-Mediterranean model due to the separation of scholarly 
fields by language and types of evidence. This is well within the 
framework of Finley, who had once maintained that the Greco-Roman 
economy was entirely different from those of the Ancient Near East 
and Egypt. The impression from recent research in these fields 
indicates that the reality was more complex than Finley's model 
suggested.

The editors' other major concern lies in establishing a more 
explicitly social science history that will provide the precision 
needed for the comparative study of ancient Mediterranean economies. 
The greater accuracy should be achieved by definition of key terms 
and clarification of underlying assumptions, extra explicitness about 
processes of model building, the presentation of clear propositions 
with testable implications, clear statements of methods and standards 
of falsification, indication of causal relationships, quantification 
whenever possible, and formulation of descriptions and explanations 
in ways that can be generalized to allow comparisons between 
different regions and periods. One may wonder why the statement of 
such methodological guidelines is at all necessary. The editors 
analyze the current state of ancient Mediterranean studies as based 
on the humanistic methodology of understanding, instead of the 
explanation of the social scientist. These approaches are not 
necessarily mutually exclusive. Since Max Weber, however, there have 
been attempts to bring both approaches together. Nevertheless, the 
editors' quest for explanation, falsification and quantification is a 
necessary methodological step towards a new economic history of the 
ancient Mediterranean.

Mario Liverani's overview of the Near Eastern Bronze Age concentrates 
on the history of interpretations in this field, a genus, according 
to Liverani, not yet established. The lines of tradition do not seem 
to be in the minds of the scholars, since the traditional 
philological approach considers the latest reading the best and 
previous ones obsolete. For the study of economic history, he demands 
the consideration of cultural forms in economic behavior: Economic 
activities depend on social and cultural conditions, not only on 
economic laws.

Peter Bedford treats the economy of the Near East in the first 
millennium BC. He discusses the influence of Weber, Polanyi, Finley 
and Marxist approaches on the scholarship in this field. Finley's 
divided-Mediterranean model is criticized in that the conditions in 
the Near East were not as fundamentally different from the 
Greco-Roman world as Finley assumed. Bedford's discussion of the 
evidence gives a very good impression of the material available for 
model building to every non-Near-Eastern scholar. He points out that 
regions and periods are different and that the Syro-Palestinian coast 
has to be considered in any modeling.

Both Liverani and Bedford are commented on by Mark Granovetter who 
points to the fact that the discussions in ancient economic history 
are framed, on the one hand, by the ideas of Weber, Polanyi and 
Finley and, on the other, by the rational actor - optimal outcome 
argument. He emphasizes the one-sidedness of both Polanyi and 
rational-choice interpretations. According to him, to play off 
politics dominating a society against rational economic action or 
vice versa is unproductive. One better asks how political, economic, 
and social activities and institutions fit together and how they 
produce the great variability of outcomes we see in history. Models 
to cover this wealth of possibilities certainly need to be complex.

Ian Morris' contribution on archaeology, standards of living and 
Greek economic history deals with the limitations and perils of the 
archaeological material. Unlike most of the other papers that are 
rather pieces of secondary scholarship, he works from empirical 
evidence. His proposal for doing economic history after Finley is to 
concentrate on economic growth. Finley and the substantivists paid 
little attention on economic growth assuming that this did not much 
occur earlier than 1800 AD. Nor did Finley pay attention to standards 
of living, which are, however, a central issue in doing economic 
history according to Morris. In identifying an increase in household 
sizes in Greece by five to six between 800 and 300 BC, Morris 
identifies sustained improvement in standards of living, albeit 
across a rather long period of time together with a roughly ten-fold 
increase in population. To link this increase in the standard of 
living to quantified changes in economic output per capita does prove 
difficult. Morris is convinced that we deal with a surprisingly high 
level of economic growth that calls for new models and constitutes a 
challenge to the current orthodoxy that agrarian economies were 
essentially static before 1750 AD.

John Davies gives the third paper of his triad on ways of modeling 
ancient economies visually. He points to several instances that need 
to be incorporated into a realistic model of ancient economy in 
contrast to the standard discourse of economic analysis: A 
significant portion of production and consumption took place within 
family farms and never reached markets. Elements of ostentation, 
largesse, or euergetism played a major role that leaves the problem 
of tracing the intended return, but to ignore social returns means to 
ignore a major component of ancient economic interaction. Neither the 
homo oeconomicus with his psychological profile nor assumptions of 
effective price mechanisms can be applied across the spectrum of 
ancient societies. No ancient economy can be defined, or was 
dominated, by one particular mode without change. In creating his 
highly complex model diagram, Davies concentrates on the tracing of 
flows. The result drives the complexity of a two-dimensional diagram 
too far; it is difficult to distinguish the important features from 
the less important ones. He seems to feel the limits of such an 
endeavor and suggests, among other things, exploring the 
possibilities of mathematizing the language of description.

This point is called into question by Takeshi Amemiya who comments on 
Davies. He is less optimistic about mathematically sophisticated 
models, since they tend to distract from the important details of 
historical reality. The mathematically inexperienced person has less 
chance to see its weaknesses. According to him, most econometricians 
are content with estimating reduced-form statistical models, which 
might be useful for analyzing the Athenian economy, if there were 
enough data. Amemiya expresses sympathy with Davies' quest for models 
that show a high degree of intricacy, complexity, instability, and 
disarticulatedness; he suggests that every economist should strive 
for that.

Joe Manning explores the relationship of evidence to models in the 
Ptolemaic economy. He believes that one can write an economic history 
of Ptolemaic Egypt, but he is less confident about proposing a 
dynamic, testable model. To him, the nature of the ancient economy 
renders it more descriptive than analytic. His main question is: How 
does the type of evidence shape the way of model building? The 
well-known evidence from Egypt is papyri whose study remains the 
domain of specialists; Greek and Demotic are generally treated as two 
different fields without much communication. The Ptolemaic economy 
once neither received much treatment in the context of broader issues 
of economic history, nor in an Egyptological context, since for 
Egyptologists this was part of the less interesting Late Period. Over 
the last two decades, however, a renewed general interest was driven 
by Sa?d's _Orientalism_ (1978) and papyrological studies made the 
evidence more accessible. Moreover, there was a revival of reading 
Demotic texts. In contrast to Finley's approach to the ancient 
economy, the study of the Ptolemaic economy has been driven by the 
study of documents. It was Michail Rostovtzeff who created the 
influential model of the state-centralized economy which can no 
longer be sustained; Finley did not consider any change from the old 
system in Egypt by the new foreign rulers. A new model is emerging 
through a regional approach (Fayyum looks rather more special than 
the Nile valley) that shows local power alongside state power and 
considers institutional change.

Roger Bagnall treats evidence and models for the economy of Roman 
Egypt. Starting with criticism of Finley for his tendency to consider 
Egypt unique on the assumption that papyri had no relevance to other 
parts of the Mediterranean, Bagnall considers the uniqueness argument 
obsolete: Egyptian-style documentation has been found in other places 
and Egyptian papyri can be used for major issues of Roman economy. 
Not yet presenting a new model, Bagnall describes areas where real 
progress has been made: the models of colonate and feudalism, the use 
of tenancy in agriculture and the operation of large estates have 
been under close scrutiny. We now know that Oxyrhynchos had more 
textile industry than Finley thought. The producer/consumer dichotomy 
in the urban economy, transportation and social status has recently 
received study. The Romans did not leave the Ptolemaic system 
untouched: They set out to dismantle the remains of the Ptolemaic 
state; professional bureaucracy was largely replaced by liturgical 
service; land was turned over large scale to private ownership, in 
particular the old Ptolemaic military allotments. The aim should be a 
working model of the economy of Roman Egypt, of a particular Roman 
province, with both its universal and its particular dimension. This 
task should be possible as there is enough evidence.

R. Bruce Hitchner makes a case for economic growth in the Roman 
Empire. He describes the empire as the most stable, resource-rich, 
culturally integrated, and economically developed state of antiquity. 
Thus, the conditions for real economic growth between the later first 
century BC and the early third century AD were favorable. Economic 
growth refers to a rise in the average real income per head and a 
corresponding rise in population, but it is not so easy to determine 
whether growth occurred in historical societies where statistical 
information on income and population is lacking. Hitchner does not 
seek refuge in the creation of proxy statistics, but in the 
application of what is called the "cliometric methods of debate." He 
supports his case for economic growth by analyzing environmental 
conditions, infrastructure, the rule of law and secure institutions, 
technological advancement without spectacular innovations, the 
development of a non-agricultural production sector, and increased 
trade. Surely, economic growth was not universal in the Roman Empire, 
but Hitchner's set of indications is impressive and calls for models 
of the pre-modern economy that are able to incorporate such growth. 
Yet again, the Finley orthodoxy is called into question.

Richard Saller contributes to the debate on economic growth in the 
Roman Empire, but is far less optimistic than Hitchner. He starts by 
asking why the thought of Rostovtzeff and Finley, who had much more 
in common than is generally believed, has been distorted. According 
to him it was the polemical tone that characterized the reaction to 
Finley's _Ancient Economy_ that encouraged polarization. The lack of 
data to find a satisfying conclusion and the debate over the value of 
new archaeological finds does not help either to find a more 
objective view of what the representatives of both directions in 
ancient economic history actually said. Saller looks at five points 
that are commonly identified as causes for growth in per capita 
production by modern economists and applies those to the Roman 
Empire: Development of trade compared to the importance of the 
agricultural sector remained restricted; capital investment was 
restricted by the rentier mentality; technological improvement was 
not remarkable; improved living standards in the urban sector, 
education and training remained a reserve of the elite without much 
benefit to increased productivity; while the institutional framework 
might be a test case for Douglass North's neo-institutional theory. 
However, he concludes that in Italy there was a less consistent 
growth than one would expect. The little growth that we detect 
between 100 BC and 200 AD was significant from the perspective of the 
period of Roman annexation of the Mediterranean. From the perspective 
of the industrial age the growth was, however, imperceptible.

Finally, Avner Greif comments on Hitchner and Saller and suggests 
that we should look at Rome's positive contributions. To him, the 
Roman waterwheel constitutes a conceptual breakthrough, and the legal 
tradition as well as the language left a long-term and significant 
mark on the European culture. He proposes to ask how the Roman Empire 
shaped the process through which modern economic growth has developed.

The volume is witness to the lively debates currently held on ancient 
economic history. All the authors are resolved to go beyond the 
orthodoxies established by Finley; they actually do incorporate 
questions and methods from economic history and theory of other 
periods without exposing themselves to the accusation of formalism or 
modernism. The papers bring together specialists of different periods 
and regions, thus serving the development of shared methods. The book 
sets out core issues in each area that will need to be addressed 
before a proper comparative history can develop. This book is an 
important step towards an economic history of the ancient 
Mediterranean.


Astrid Moeller is Associate Professor for Ancient History at Freiburg 
University (Germany). Her research interests include the economic 
history of the ancient Mediterranean. She contributed to _The 
Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World_.

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