Book 2 of the Oikonomika is presented in two sections, as a manual for would-be financial administrators. In the first, the theoretical part (1.1–8), the four types of ‘economies’ are described: royal, satrapal, city and household, along with their constituent elements. ‘Economy’ is, of course, to be understood here in the sense of a sphere of financial administration: a kingdom, a province, a city and its land (chōra) or an individual household (oikos). In the second section, the practical part (2.1–41), a number of financial stratagems of the past are presented, as examples both of ways in which funds were actually collected in times of need and of imaginative financial management. The first section ends with a bridging passage to the second (1.8), which explains why it was thought necessary to add the practical examples to the theoretical discussion.

It is now widely accepted, following van Groningen 1933, that Book 2 was written in the last quarter of the fourth century bc and that it was probably a treatise of an Aristotelian scholar intended to provide instruction on the efficient management of financial matters at different levels. As such, and in line with the Peripatetic school's practical approach to the study of the human and the natural world, it looked for real-life models.

In 311 bc, Seleukos Nikator returned to Babylon with the aim of carving out a territory for himself, much as the other Successors were doing at this time. As one can deduce from his subsequent actions, his first priority seems to have been to defend himself against Antigonos Monophthalmos and consolidate his position in Babylonia, his second to increase his power by adding the Iranian satrapies to his realm and his third to join the coalition against Antigonos, which yielded him northern Syria in 301 bc (ch. 2).

At this point the resources available to Seleukos were a huge territory, with a large population and productive resources (chs. 4, 5), but essentially forming an economy where, with the exception of Babylonia, commodity-based exchange was the norm and where the Achaemenid king's revenue and expenses had been primarily in kind. Seleukos was now in contact with a Mediterranean world where a political game was being played, which relied on gold and silver in coin for the payment of the armies employed by a contender, as he sought to promote himself against his rivals and safeguard his own gains. Seleukos' problem was that he probably had insufficient silver revenues and reserves with which to play this game.

Alexander's capture and coining of most of the stored bullion of the Achaemenid empire, reputedly valued at 180,000 or more talents-worth of gold and silver (Strabo 15.3.9), may not have materially changed the picture in the Asian territories, except for the Mediterranean fringe.

In previous chapters population, production and exchange, royal revenue and expenses and coinage were treated separately. Logically there should be certain relationships between these different elements of the Seleukid economy.

A very approximate model will be developed. Using source material and a measure of common sense, the magnitude of each factor of the economy will be estimated independently of the others and plausible relationships will also be found independently between them. Then if all the relationships actually hold between all the estimates, the model might be considered a reasonable one, since the several parameters involved will have been derived independently and the possibility that they could fit together in this way by chance is unlikely.

POPULATION

It will be useful to retain some ‘best estimates’ of population from chapter 4. The Seleukid empire at its peaks c. 281 bc and c. 190 bc probably contained between fourteen and eighteen million inhabitants, compared to between perhaps twenty-five and thirty million in Alexander's empire at the time of his death. Mesopotamia's population was estimated at four to five million, northern Syria's at up to one and a half million by the middle of the third century bc and perhaps even two million by the middle of the second, Judaea's at just under a quarter of a million, while the inhabitants of Egypt at this time may have numbered between three and three and a half million.

The finances and financial administration of the Seleukid kings can be best understood against a historical background of the major events of their reigns, particularly those affecting the extent of their territory (and revenue), or requiring considerable military effort (and expenditure).

Seleukos I (311–281 bc)

The Seleukid empire is considered to have been founded with the return to Babylon, between 13 May and 3 June 311 bc, of Seleukos Nikator. That is how Seleukos' son, Antiochos (I), saw it when he inaugurated dating by the Seleukid era.

In 311 bc, Seleukos controlled hardly more than Babylonia, that is, southern Mesopotamia, and almost immediately faced a threat from Antigonos Monophthalmos, who had just concluded a peace treaty (311 bc) with his major rivals, Ptolemy, Kassandros and Lysimachos, and was now free to turn his attention eastwards. The subsequent war between the two Successors is not described in classical sources, but cuneiform documents attest to its ferocity, as Antigonos invaded Babylonia (310 bc) and ravaged the land. In 308 bc, in a critical battle, Seleukos was victorious and probably extended his rule into northern Mesopotamia at this time.

In the next few years, free from problems in the West, Seleukos marched east and took over, one by one, the satrapies of Alexander's empire that, in the turmoil of the clashes of the Successors, had been left free to fend for themselves.

In order to understand how the Seleukid kings derived their revenue, it is necessary to describe briefly the more important elements of the underlying economy of the empire: agriculture, animal husbandry, the exploitation of natural resources, industry and trade. There is room here for no more than a superficial treatment.

AGRICULTURE

Types of farming

Subsistence farming seems to have been the basis of the economies of most regions of the Near East in antiquity. Except for the Mediterranean seaboard, where trade may also have played a not insignificant role, it is likely that agriculture was the dominant productive activity in the Seleukid empire. In ps.-Aristotle's Oikonomika, revenue accruing to the satrapal economy from agriculture is described as ‘the first and most important’ (ch. 7.1e).

Essentially two types of agriculture were practised: irrigation-based and dry-farming. The former was the norm in areas with insufficient rainfall but traversed by large rivers. The Euphrates and Tigris and their tributaries, and the canals that branched off these, could bring water to most parts of the Mesopotamian plain, while Seleukid-period irrigation networks in Baktria, drawing from the Oxos and its tributaries, extended pre-existing systems. The oases scattered throughout the East could be provided for in this way, but sometimes water was obtained by tapping distant sources and conducting it underground to the area to be irrigated, so as to minimize evaporation, for example the qanat systems of north-eastern Iran (section 3e below).

RENOUNCING THE WORLD

In an Egyptian village church, at some time in the mid-third century, a farmer called Antony heard the story of the man from a leading family.

CHRISTIAN LITERACY

The proconsul Saturninus, seeing that the accused had a capsa, a scroll-box, dutifully checked whether it contained material relevant to the trial. What exactly did the martyr Speratus reply? Latin libri, here translated ‘books’, may be ‘the books’, Greek biblia. (Biblia, an alternative spelling of bublia, is the plural of bublion, ‘a strip of papyrus’.)

Jesus died on a cross: a public, agonising death, legally inflicted by a Roman provincial governor as the standard punishment for rebels. For almost three hundred years, his followers were also at risk of legally inflicted death, sometimes as a public spectacle. Roman law allowed Christians to be burned alive or thrown to wild animals or inventively tortured. But after two millennia of Christian imagery, people do not connect Roman legal penalties with Amnesty reports. Some people wear a crucifix, a model of a man fastened to a cross (Latin cruci fixus), as an item of jewellery. ‘Christians 0, lions 43, in sudden-death overtime’ does not provoke the same response as a news report of a zoo-keeper mauled to death, or of a prisoner on Death Row.

At the beginning of the fourth century Christians were experiencing the most sustained and intensive effort ever made to eliminate their religion (ch. 3). Ten years later Constantine and Licinius, then co-rulers of the Roman empire, declared freedom of religious belief and worship, and specifically ended the persecution of Christians. At the end of the fourth century, Theodosius I and his imperial colleagues declared to the Urban Prefect of Rome that anyone who engaged in animal sacrifice, visits to temples or veneration of images offended against divine and human law (C. Th. 16.10.10, 391 ce). The penalties remain vague unless the offender holds public office. Any official who enters a temple to worship, and any member of his staff who fails to report him, is liable to a heavy fine, on a sliding scale according to his status.

This book draws on research, editorial work, and teaching at the universities of Liverpool and Bristol. It owes much to my first experience of Bristol teaching, shared with Neville Morley, in the academic year 2000/1. Our final-year seminar on ‘Christianity and Roman society’ included students for whom Christianity is an interesting aspect of the Roman empire and students for whom Christianity is a living faith. I am grateful to them all, for their intellectual curiosity, for the consideration they showed each other, and for making it clear that I had accepted too easily many things that need to be explained. The final draft benefited from another final-year seminar, in autumn 2003, shared this time with Richard Goodrich. The book attempts to outline some of the possible explanations for things that need to be explained, and to direct its readers to others. It is, of course, a snapshot of fast-moving scholarship, from one person's perspective, in a specific context of place and time. It is a book that could go on being written for years to come, as new information and new interpretations are published; but no doubt the series editors feel that it has gone on being written for quite long enough.

There is an immense range of published work, from different national and religious traditions, on the evidence for Roman, Jewish and Christian history and religion in the early centuries ce.