Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Browse subjects
  3. Classical Studies
  4. Ancient history
  5. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

23990 results in Ancient history

Page 822 of 1200

  • 3 - Demography

  • from Part I - Determinants of Economic Performance
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 38-86

  • Summary

    This chapter presents demographic conditions as a determinant for economic performance in the ancient Greco-Roman era. It focuses on the relationship between demographic structures and macro-economic features. The chapter first outlines the fundamental demographic characteristics of the Greco-Roman world. Next, it presents a theoretical model of the interdependence of economic and demographic development. Finally, the chapter explores the model's principal variables in the context of ancient Mediterranean economies. Mean life expectancy at birth is conventionally put in the range of 20-30 years. From the middle of the second millennium BC to the early first millennium AD, all parts of the Mediterranean and its hinterlands experienced significant demographic growth. The baseline upward trend in ancient population number is modulated by two distinct layers of variation in the short and medium terms. Several features including mortality, morbidity, nutrition, housing and clothing, point to significant improvements in well-being in the Greek Aegean between the tenth and the fourth centuries BC.

  • 11 - The Persian Near East

  • from Part II - Early Mediterranean Economies and the Near East
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 302-330

  • Summary

    The Achaemenid Persian empire lasted for slightly over two hundred years, and incorporated several languages and cultures, as well as diverse forms of economic subsistence. This chapter focuses on one major region of the empire, the Near East. The Persian period should be viewed as a continuation of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, although new developments can be detected that would have underpinned increased economic growth. Despite population movements, Anatolians into northern Syria, Philistines on the southern Levantine coast, population across northern Syria and northern Mesopotamia may have decreased due to a prolonged period of desiccation. The population movement in the Neo- Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods led to increased urbanization in the Assyrian home provinces and, later, in Babylonia, while urban centers decreased in central and southern Syria-Palestine. The chapter also discusses the impact of imperialism on institutions and organizations, specifically regarding the control and exploitation of agricultural land.

  • 8 - Early Iron Age Greece

  • from Part II - Early Mediterranean Economies and the Near East
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 211-241

  • Summary

    This chapter reviews the economic history of Early Iron Age (EIA) Greece. First, it summarizes the evidence, and quantifies some aspects of EIA economic performance. Next, the chapter suggests that 1200-1000 BC saw economic collapse in Aegean Greece; 1000-800 BC saw stagnation; and that recovery began in the eighth century. However, it also argues that the most important economic take-off only came later, around 550-500 BC. The chapter discusses economic structures, before offering the conclusions. Through the 1960s and 1970s Homerists and archaeologists largely ignored each other's models of the EIA. In the 1980s a new synthesis formed, seeing the archaeological Dark Age model as valid before 800, but making Homer and Hesiod crucial to the eighth century. EIA life was more wretched than at any time between the rise of the Minoan palaces and the death of Justinian. Greeks died younger, lived in more squalid surroundings, and had fewer goods.

  • 26 - Roman Egypt

  • from Part VII - Regional Development in the Roman Empire
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 698-719

  • Summary

    This chapter assesses the extent, nature, and causes of economic change in Egypt in the first three centuries of Roman rule. It argues for significant aggregate and per capita growth in the first two centuries, attributable to the institutional, commercial, and behavioral impact of integration into the Roman world. Next, following the Antonine plague, some aggregate decline in production but renewed, if more differentiated, per capita growth is attributable to internal socioeconomic changes. Study of the extant census returns, the richest standardized source of demographic data from Roman Egypt, points to a high mortality and high fertility regime. Egypt was famed throughout antiquity for its amazing agricultural output, the result of the annual Nile inundation with its rich silt deposit, which, unlike the Euphrates and Tigris spates, conveniently coincided with the sowing season for arable crops. Urbanization was one of the main socioeconomic developments in Roman Egypt, as it was in most provinces of the Roman empire.

  • 4 - Household and Gender

  • from Part I - Determinants of Economic Performance
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 87-112

  • Summary

    In the Greco-Roman world the household was the basic unit of production as well as consumption. This chapter begins with a methodological discussion of the difficulties with the data sources. Next, the chapter presents an account of the demography of household formation and organization. It analyses the patterns of property ownership and management by gender and age in classical Athens and Roman Italy, and then of women's and children's labor in both societies. The stronger property rights of wealthy Roman women enhanced their social status, but it is not obvious that they much affected decisions about economic production. The participation of women and children in certain production sectors appears similar from fifth-century BC Athens to second century AD Rome. One index of economic growth per capita during this period is the improvement in productive techniques used by women. There are indications that from archaic Greece to the Roman Empire investment increased as institutionalized education and training beyond the family emerged.

  • 27 - The Frontier Zones

  • from Part VII - Regional Development in the Roman Empire
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 720-740

  • Summary

    It has often been remarked that the location of the frontier lines of the Roman empire coincided roughly with the outer perimeter of the provincial territory that was occupied by peoples whose social structure was easily adapted to the Roman administrative system. Any significant measure of economic growth in the frontier zones could have been achieved only by improving agricultural efficiency or by expanding the amount of land under cultivation. There is in fact little reason to doubt that agricultural output was increased in at least some of the frontier zones, like the Rhineland, where more intensive cultivation is attested in the lower Mosel-Main, the Wetterau, and the agri decimates. Parts of northern Gaul were given over to the production of cereals for the army stationed on the Rhine. The absence of local produce among some of the frontier garrisons may have led to an increase in trade across the frontiers.

  • 6 - Technology

  • from Part I - Determinants of Economic Performance
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 144-172

  • Summary

    Recent studies of the history of technology increasingly take as their theme, besides invention, the transfer of technology, that is the adoption of technological knowledge from other societies or the transfer of one's own technology to other regions. The development of Greek civilization in archaic times was to a high degree based on the appropriation of the technological achievements of Egypt and Mesopotamia; while the historically relevant process of Romanization, especially in the western Mediterranean and in north-western Europe, also included the spread of Roman technology in the provinces. An important result of modern research in the history of technology is the insight into the interdependency of technological and economic developments. In ancient agriculture, numerous innovations are attested, for example in the threshing of grain for which rotating sledges were used. Technical advances that were of economic relevance such as grain mill, oil presses, wine presses, can be substantiated in various areas of the ancient economy.

  • 15 - The Hellenistic Near East

  • from Part IV - The Hellenistic States
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 407-433

  • Summary

    In the Hellenistic period, Greek and Near Eastern traditions came into closer contact than before, increasing the cohabitation of Greeks and non-Greeks. This chapter focuses on the Seleucid empire, since it was the main heir of the earlier Persian empire. The empire contained high civilizations with their own ancient histories: Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Jews, and half-Hellenized states in Asia Minor. The chapter examines how the Seleucid economy performed relative to earlier and later periods. Everywhere in antiquity, agriculture was the main means of subsistence. Agricultural conditions, however, varied greatly. Industrial production was linked to agriculture, and many items including textiles, were produced at home. Some regions developed specialties: Phoenicia was famous for purple dyes, glass, and ships, and Babylonia for woolen and linen textiles, salt, and bitumen. As a result of the empire's urbanization policies, many Macedonians and Greeks emigrated to the east; new cities were founded, often on more or less vacant territories.

  • 24 - The Western Provinces

  • from Part VII - Regional Development in the Roman Empire
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 649-670

  • Summary

    The western provinces can be divided into two zones according to their relationship to Rome, the center of power: a Mediterranean zone in which contacts via the sea prevailed, and a continental and oceanic zone separated by the Alps from Italy. In a few provincial areas, the density of cities comes close to those of the regions of Italy and of the east that had long since been urbanized. Like the city, the villa can be seen as a factor of economic development or as a parasitic structure expressing the elites' domination of the countryside. In the role division of city and country, the political functions are carried out by the city; the productive functions are divided between villa for agricultural production, and the vicus for most craft production. Centuriated, divided, distributed or rented out, these new lands considerably increased the size of the ager (the cultivated territory within the Roman empire).

  • 19 - The Late Republic

  • from Part V - Early Italy and the Roman Republic
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 511-540

  • Summary

    This chapter answers questions about economic growth in the late Republic, with a focus on the per capita GDP growth, and the reasons behind the growth or the lack of it. It examines the features of the Roman world which assisted growth or impeded it. The most important thing the Roman government did for the Roman economy was to conquer vast territories; the next most important thing, in this period, was probably to found colonies. Proof positive that the traditional understanding of Roman money is mistaken appears in 49 when the credit system tottered under the impact of civil war: nervous creditors began to seek payment even of the principal in silver, that is, coin. The conditions of labor, at least in the central parts of the Roman world, were dominated by slavery. It is estimated that in the very late Republic there were always four to eight million slaves and serfs in the Roman empire.

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 1-12

  • Summary

    This introductory chapter of the book begins by presenting the goals of the book, summarizing the state of knowledge in ancient Greek and Roman economic history, and contributing to shaping future research. Most ancient historians rely on literary sources produced by and for a leisured elite. The publication of huge numbers of inscriptions, papyri, coins, and mute archaeological data has transformed scholarship in the last two generations, and Greco-Roman economic historians are now asking new questions and using new methods to answer them. The book can help students of classical culture understand the material forces that made the Greeks' and Romans' cultural achievements possible, and can allow economic historians of other times and places to fit the Greco-Roman experience into the broader sweep of world economic history. The chapter also gives an outline of the content available in other chapters of the book.

  • 21 - The Early Roman Empire: Distribution

  • from Part VI - The Early Roman Empire
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 570-591

  • Summary

    The mobilization and distribution of resources, human and material, was the key to Roman power. The surplus production of an individual peasant household was small; the aggregate demand of the ancient peasantry was considerable. The key question is how far distribution under the empire differed in volume and nature. Archaeology has provided striking and conclusive evidence for a dramatic increase in the volume of goods being distributed within the Roman empire. Goods were distributed through the Roman empire by a variety of means, determined to a great extent by the identity of the ultimate consumer and by the nature of the goods and by the identity of the original producer. The institutional structures that supported distribution were adequate money supply supporting all levels of transactions, and the development of gold coinage and various forms of paper transactions. For the most part, the dynamics of distribution in the early Roman empire followed patterns which had become established under the Republic.

  • 14 - Classical Greece: Consumption

  • from Part III - Classical Greece
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 385-406

  • Summary

    This chapter describes the consumption patterns, in classical Greece, which were affected by regional productive capacities, inter-regional distribution, and several social and geographical biases, as well as ideology and taste. It gives some quantitative assessment of standards of living in comparison to earlier and later periods. Since markets and exchange supplied only a certain amount of domestic consumption, the chapter explores under what conditions consumption turned into demand that affected the economy more generally. Basic information about ancient nutrition can be gained from the remains of human bones. Average height changed little from the Bronze Age to the classical period, and possibly increased slightly for men thereafter. The discrepancy between Mycenae and Lerna may indicate a class difference. The need for imported grain varied from year to year with periods of extraordinary demand at times of food crisis. The seasonality of demand put high pressure on administration and planning, and could not be satisfied by regular markets.

The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature
  • Edited by Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Martin S. Jaffee
  • Published online:
    28 November 2007
    Print publication:
    28 May 2007
  • This volume introduces students of rabbinic literature to the range of historical and interpretative questions surrounding the rabbinic texts of late antiquity. The editors, themselves well-known interpreters of Rabbinic literature, have gathered an international collection of scholars to support students' initial steps in confronting the enormous and complex rabbinic corpus. Unlike other introductions to Rabbinic writings, the present volume includes approaches shaped by anthropology, gender studies, oral-traditional studies, classics, and folklore studies.

Page 822 of 1200