Jan-Maat’s Reviews > The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture > Status Update

"The army, where it existed in substantial numbers, was arguably the main official instrument of rural Romanization, to the extent that it 'recycled' peasants after exposing them to the dominant culture"

"The consequence of Roman imperialism, however, was not so much Romanization as the forging of distinctive Romano-Iberian, African, Gallic or British cultures through the fusion of imperial & local elements"

"Trajan rejected a request from the people of Nicomedia for a fire brigade. Pliny, who had viewed this proposal sympathetically, was reminded by the emperor that 'this province & especially these cities have been troubled by cliques of this type. Whatever name we may give for whatever reason to those who come together for a common purpose, political clubs emerge quickly from them"

"only 1 in 4 Roman imperial consuls had a son who reached the consulship...the Roman son had to reach middle age & win high office - but even allowing for that it is clear that the Roman aristocracy’s failure was at a markedly higher level, partly because some sons withdrew from public life but largely because many aristocrats did not have adult sons"

"In early Rome discipline in the family was hard & standards of virtue high: in paradigmatic exempla fathers executed adult sons for disobedience in battle"

"Spanish oil alone came in [to Rome] @ the rate of about 4 million kg PA in around 55,000 amphorae as Monte Testaccio, a hill of broken pottery bears witness"

"until about AD 400, [the Romans] appear to have built merchant ships outer-shell 1st, a laborious & expensive method, instead of building them up from the internal frame, the skeleton method. This is particularly significant in view of the fact that skeleton construction was known & used in the celtic provinces"

"When faced with financial emergency or simply a pressing need for more cash, the central authorities tended to fall back on another solution, the debasement of the coinage. It is difficult to accept that emperors & officials, their attention fixed on the short term advantages of debasement, appreciated the long term consequences. They possessed only a limited empirical understanding of economic concepts & the..."