The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study

by Paul Erdkamp

Paul Erdkamp illustrates how entitlement to food in Roman society was dependent on relations with the emperor, his representatives and the landowning aristocracy, and local rulers controlling the towns and hinterlands. He assesses the response of the Roman authorities to weaknesses in the grain market and looks at the implications of the failure of local harvests. By examining the subject from a contemporary perspective, this book will appeal not only to historians of ancient economies, but to all concerned with the economy of grain markets, a subject which still resonates today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Reference

380 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 2005

Reviews

[Gary Reger · Rating 4 out of 5]

No agricultural product figured more centrally to the economy of the Roman Empire than grain, so it is no surprise that much ink has been spilled trying to determine the character of its market. In recent years Peter Temin has offered a strong case that the market was highly integrated -- that is, that essentially grain prices were set in an Empire-wide (or at least Mediterranean-wide) market; prices were, then, the same everywhere, once transportation costs were discounted.

Paul Erdkamp's thorough, detailed, source-dependent study, which came out almost a decade before Temin's work, presents a very different view. While eschewing the old "primitivist" take on the economy championed by M. I. Finley, Erdkamp offers a powerful case for seeing the market as more complicated, less fully integrated, more subject to shocks, and more linked to social and political structures. His case is far too complex and nuanced to summarize in a brief review; suffice it to say that I found his claims convincing and the model he proposes -- which, again, is deeply embedded in a study of the source material -- the best I have come across.

Now, there has been important work since Erdkamp published in 2005 aside from Temin's (his book collecting his essays appeared in 2013), including studies that have argued for a more integrated market than he sees; a full assessment of the state of art on the Roman grain economy requires careful examination of all that research -- a big project! (A measure generally of how much has come out on the Greek and Roman economies would be the outpouring of publications after the 2007 appearance of "The Cambridge Economic History of the Graeco-Roman World.") But no matter how you bake your bread, Erdkamp's book remains a fundamental contribution to the field. It's also full of byways into all kinds of fascinating matters perhaps not directly related to the main topic but themselves well worth exploring. I highly recommend it.