Frontier Economies in the Roman Empire
Oxford Roman Economy Project Conference
19-20 September 2019
The Old Library, All Souls College, University of Oxford
This conference aims to bring together specialists in Roman frontiers and economic
history to discuss new evidence and approaches to studying the economic life of
border regions around the Roman world. While economic life has never featured
heavily in studies of Roman frontier regions, economic studies of the Roman Empire
have tended to focus mostly on Mediterranean regions. This split in research
agendas has created a model of economic geography in the Roman Empire that is
very much based in out-dated core-periphery models of interaction, where an
economically-successful core region was forced to support frontier regions through
surplus redistribution by the state. This model fails to accommodate the everexpanding body of archaeological and historical material that highlights both
chronological and geographical variability in frontier economies, and we feel that it is
time to discuss new ideas that may move the discussion forward into a betterintegrated and more dynamic economic history.
This conference is generously supported by the Faculty of Classics, University of
Oxford, All Souls College, the Augustus Foundation, and the Society for the
Promotion of Roman Studies. There is no conference fee, but to help us estimate
numbers for tea and coffee those who wish to attend are asked to register by
emailing OXREP.frontiers@gmail.com.
Tyler Franconi
Andrew Wilson
Thursday, 19 September
Session 1: The role of the State
09:15
09:30
A. Wilson
Oxford
Introduction
09:30
10:15
T. Franconi
Brown
The economic lives of Roman frontiers: old models and new data
10:15
11:00
P. Erdkamp
Brussels
The role of the state in the market integration in the West
11:00
11:30
Coffee
Session 2: Resource exploitation
11:30
12:15
A. Hirt
Liverpool
Mining and 'frontiers'. Extractive Operations in Roman Spain.
12:15
13:00
A. Dalla Rosa
Bordeaux
Imperial land, forests and workshops in the Danubian region:
acquisition, distribution and economic roles
13:00
14:00
Lunch
Characterising and quantifying frontier economies: Some
methodological considerations
Civilians and traders on Hadrian's Wall
Session 3: Britain
14:00
14:45
I. Haynes
Newcastle
14:45
15:30
D. Breeze
Edinburgh
15:30
16:15
L. Lodwick
Oxford
The economic organisation of cereal production in Britannia: new
evidence from crop stable isotope analysis and grain-drying ovens
16:15
16:45
Tea
Session 4: Germany
16:45
17:30
M. Brüggler
Xanten
17:30
18:15
B. Hellings
Yale
Agriculture in the Lower Rhine Plain - Production for a sustainable
frontier?
Big data: monetizing the Roman frontier
Friday, 20 September
Session 5: The Danube
09:30
10:15
O. Láng
Budapest
Stop-shop: trading activity in the Aquincum Civil Town
10:15
11:00
Exeter and
Cluj-Napoca
A matter of finances - the archaeological evidence from the
praetorium procuratoris at Sarmizegetusa Ulpia (Dacia)
11:00
11:30
I. Oltean and
C. Ciongradi
Coffee
Parasite, benefactor or...? Impact of the imperial garrison on the civic
economy of Dura-Europos, Syria, c.AD165-c.256
An Imperial Steppe: Space, Demography, and Economy in Roman
Period Eastern Syria and Mesopotamia
Session 6: The East
11:30
12:15
S. James
Leicester
12:15
13:00
R. Palermo
Groningen
13:00
14:00
Lunch
Session 7: Egypt and North Africa
14:00
14:45
D. Mattingly
Leicester
14:45
15:30
M. Gibbs
Winnipeg
15:30
16:00
Tea
What Lay Beyond: The Economic Relations of the African Frontiers
and the Sahara
The economy on the southern Roman Egyptian frontier: Talmis and
Kertassi during the Roman period
Session 7: The Red Sea and beyond
16:00
16:45
J.-P. Brun
Paris
16:45
17:30
D. Nappo
Naples
The Eastern desert of Egypt as a resource and as a link with Indian
Ocean during the Graeco-Roman period
India: the missing province
17:30
18:15
E. Fentress
Rome
Discussion
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1 - The economic lives of Roman frontiers: old models and new data
Tyler Franconi, Brown University
The general model of the economic development of Roman frontier economies has
remained unchanged and unchallenged for decades despite a significant increase in
archaeological data from many different border regions of the Empire. This old
model still promotes a core-periphery relationship that emphasises the economic
success of the Mediterranean provinces and the general poverty of the frontier
regions that were only concerned with military supply. In this system, the core
region had to support the frontier zones through a system of tax redistribution that,
according to these models, remained constant throughout the Principate.
I argue that the realities of frontier life were far more diverse and dynamic
than this model allows, and that frontier populations had far more agency in their
own economic development than has previously been recognised. While the military
held significant influence in this development, civilian populations also exercised an
important and long-lasting power over economic growth. While a command
economy of military supply may have existed in certain places at certain times for
certain products, it is also now clear that this was only one part of provincial
economic life, and market economies brought a wide variety of products to civilian
markets as well. Thus, instead of a core-periphery system of redistribution, we may
better recognise frontier zones as a type of economic ‘third space’, where new
economic opportunities were created and encouraged both within and across
Roman frontiers.
2 - The role of the state in the market integration in the West
Paul Erdkamp, Vrij Universiteit Brussel
There has been much debate recently about the role of the state in determining
economic performance in the Roman Empire. Some scholars, such as Carrié and
Lavan, have rejected state-induced models of the economy. While the importance of
commercial channels cannot be denied, it will be argued that the state played a
crucial role in the emergence of a transregional commercial network in the West.
This role is not limited to the provisioning of Mediterranean and regional goods, with
commercial goods riding piggy-back to the army camps and adjacent civilian
settlements. As a side-effect, the command economy strengthened the commercial
sector and increased market integration. The traders and shippers involved in this
network organized themselves in order to deal with the authorities and to reduce
their transaction costs. The state-induced supply-network not only stimulated
market integration through the movement of ships and its infrastructure, but also
through the connections and communication it provided. The merchants and
shippers that were involved each in part of the supply-chain stimulated
communication throughout this wider region. Since information and communication
are as important to market integration as roads or harbor facilities, the state
contributed to creating the circumstances needed to increase the economic
performance in this part of the Roman world. However, the vital role of state-
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induced connectivity also meant that market integration did not reach the same
levels everywhere, and that the effects on the wider economy were therefore also
uneven.
3 - Mining and ‘Frontiers’: Extractive Operations in Roman Spain
Alfred M. Hirt, University of Liverpool
This paper addresses the issue of the role of mining in the social and economic
integration of a ‘frontier’, a concept devised by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893.
This concept has been decontextualised and developed further to encompass
comparable processes throughout the world of land grabbing and exploitation of
natural resources. ‘Frontier’ is not understood to be a definable physical zone
between two political or social entities: Turner had already thought of ‘mining
frontiers’ as a distinct category (with Jürgen Osterhammel suggesting ‘resourceextraction frontiers’) and, more recently, ‘frontier of settlement’ has been used in
terms of claiming agricultural land or the extraction of valuable resources from the
wilderness on the periphery of settled and developed land.
This paper proposes to re-examine the literary, epigraphic and archaeological
evidence for ‘mining frontiers’ in the Roman West and their role within the sociopolitical and economic integration with a special focus on the Iberian Peninsula.
4 - Imperial land, forests and workshops in the Danubian region: acquisition,
distribution and economic role
Alberto Dalla Rosa, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne
Mining was undoubtedly one of the most important economic activities controlled
by the state in the Danubian region, whether operated directly by the fiscus or
contracted out to private entrepreneurs. From Augustus onward, however, Roman
rulers began to acquire all sorts of properties in the Danubian provinces, such as
land, forests and workshops producing bricks or amphorae. The geography and the
economy of these properties is still difficult to reconstruct, due to the lack of
regional studies focussing on this topic. This paper will draw on the preliminary
results of the systematic survey of the imperial properties realized by the ERC
PATRIMONIVM project in order to present a clearer overview of the distribution of
the properties and of their chronology. This will allow for a series of reflections on
the economic role of these possessions and, ultimately, on the reasons behind their
acquisition. This will also lead us to reassess our assumptions on the weight of the
fiscus in the economy in this sparsely urbanized region and heavily militarized region.
5 - Characterising and quantifying frontier economies: Some methodological
considerations
Ian Haynes, University of Newcastle
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This paper draws on recent field research in and around Hadrian’s Wall to examine
both the potential for and the problems inherent in seeking to quantify frontier
economies. It begins with a brief reflection on the challenges in calculating the costs
involved in constructing and maintaining the Wall and associated
infrastructure. New work related to questions of stone supply will be considered, as
will current thinking on the scale of the works themselves. Thereafter the discussion
moves to an examination of key themes in the supply and sustenance of the Wall
garrison and the ways this changed over time. Here progress in environmental
archaeological analysis must be set alongside reappraisals of ceramic and
numismatic data. An enduring challenge remains establishing the relative
importance of longer distance supply networks, particularly those facilitated by sea,
and local supply. Alongside the question of materials, questions remain about the
human resource, the provision of manpower for units stationed across central
Britain.
All these themes must in turn be considered in the light of their impact on
local economies and the populations north and south of the Wall corridor. Work
over the last few decades has led to substantial advances in our understanding of
shifting settlement patterns, the degree of variation that existed across the frontier
zone, and the use and reuse of materials. The paper concludes by reflecting on the
economic dimension of some of these developments and outlining fertile directions
for further research.
6 - Civilians and traders on Hadrian's Wall
David Breeze, Edinburgh
In recent years geophysics has revolutionised our knowledge of settlements outside
the forts along Hadrian's Wall. In some cases, these settlements are significantly
larger than the forts. Little excavation, however, has taken place at any of these
sites, so we know little of what happened in them. This revolution has run parallel to
a re-think of the relationship between soldiers and civilians. The fort wall is no longer
seen as a major divide, with evidence for women in forts and soldiers outside.
Excavations in a dozen settlements outside forts on the Wall and its hinterland have
revealed that they came to an end towards the end of the third century. We do not
know why the settlements ended nor where their inhabitants went. We can guess
that the change in soldiers' remuneration from cash to payment in kind may have
played a part in reducing their spending power, resulting in fewer traders, slaves and
other inhabitants, but there are other possibilities. The fact that the phenomenon
has been recognised in towns along the Middle Danube emphasises that the British
experience should be viewed in a wider context.
Fifty or so years later, in the middle years of the fourth century, another
development has been recognised on Hadrian's Wall, the incidence of small coins in
four forts interpreted as evidence for trading. But where did the traders come from;
and what happened between the 270s and the 340s? What might have been the role
of towns such as Carlisle, Corbridge and Catterick?
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7 - The economic organisation of cereal production in Britannia: new evidence from
crop stable isotope analysis and grain-drying ovens
Lisa Lodwick, University of Oxford
Cereal production in the frontier province of Roman Britain has been marginal to
empire-wide discussions of the Roman agricultural economy. Patchy written
evidence, and now vast quantities of excavation data from farmsteads provide
convincing evidence of a substantial cereal economy through the widespread
occurrence of granaries, tools, quern- and millstones, and archaeobotanical evidence
for cereals. Currently lacking is an understanding of the intensity of labour involved
in cereal production, the scale of cereal production within and between sites and
regions and an understanding of the articulation of flows of cereals between fields,
processing centres and consumers. This paper presents two new datasets for
assessing cereal production – isotopic analysis of archaeobotanical data and
quantitative analysis of agricultural processing structures.
First an investigation of crop husbandry practices through crop isotope
analysis. The technique of crop stable isotope analysis assesses the ratio of nitrogen
14/15
in charred cereal grains as an indicator of manuring activity, which can be used
as a proxy for the intensity of agricultural labour. Results will be presented from two
Iron Age – Roman case study sites from two regions of large-scale cereal production
- the Nene Valley and the Hampshire downlands, both indicating a movement
towards labour extensive cereal cultivation practices by the Late Roman period.
Second an investigation of crop processing practices through grain-drying ovens,
substantial structures for the processing of cereals for flour or malt which are
ubiquitous throughout Britain and the north-western provinces. The emerging
picture indicates labour extensive crop husbandry practices combined with labour
intensive processing, particularly at farmsteads integrated into the road network
where multi-dryer installations occurred. Overall, these combined datasets indicate
the substantial production of large-cereal surpluses in central-southern Britain, in
order to supply the military and urban populations within Britain, quickly replacing
the initial need to import cereals from the continent.
8 - Agriculture in the Lower Rhine Plain – Production for a sustainable frontier?
Marion Brüggler, LVR-Amt für Denkmalpflege im Rheinland
On the Lower Rhine Plain the population concentration in the military installations
and the towns along the river stands vis-à-vis a rather sparsely settled countryside a non-villa landscape, dominated by loamy and sandy soils, with people living in
byre-houses. Yet in the later 1st and 2nd century CE a rise in prosperity can be
discerned in the rural hinterland: More settlements were established, the byrehouses grew considerably in size and more products from provincial Roman
workshops arrived at the settlements. Even though the landscape still cannot be
described as one of wealth, since luxury-items and stone-buildings are lacking, the
increase in wealth proves a certain extent of integration into the provincial
economy. But what did the rural population produce and would there have been
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enough of it to sustain the population along the Limes-zone? The area of
investigation is roughly the hinterland of the Lower Rhine Limes before its
bifurcation, i.e. mostly within modern Germany. It corresponds largely with the
civitas of the Cugerni and directly adjacent areas. The region has been described as
infertile, not allowing crop-cultivation beyond self-sufficiency. However, it has
recently been shown that about a quarter of the soils were of a quality sufficient for
growing demanding crops such as spelt. A model devised by Laura Kooistra and
Mareike van Dinter for the Rhine Delta is adapted to the data of the research area in
order to calculate if the rural population would theoretically have been able to
sustain the consuming population within the Limes-zone with cereals and cattle
products. Whether the hinterland actually contributed to the supply of this part of
the frontier is another question.
9 - Big data: monetizing the Roman frontier
Ben Hellings, Yale University
Most regional or Empire-wide studies of the Roman monetary economy rely heavily
on one type of coin find. Hoards are most frequently employed, with only occasional
reference to several prominent sites as way of example with almost no regard to
‘stray’ finds. The important role of archaeological numismatics is increasingly
recognized and has started to reshape our thinking and approach, but studies rarely
utilize the full breadth of numismatic evidence. Big data employing all types of coin
finds has the potential to re-evaluate our approach, and in Britain, the Portable
Antiquities Scheme has demonstrated its capability to refine our perception of coin
use across a large geographic area over the longue durée.
One of the most challenging aspects working with coin finds from a frontier
zone is the natural association made between Roman conquest and monetization;
an association that has perpetuated a model of immediate and widespread adoption
of coinage resulting in a monetized economy. Using a macro-regional perspective,
this paper utilizes a comprehensive dataset of coin finds from the Rhine frontier in
order to reconsider the impact and role of the military on the development of
monetary economy during the first century
Stop-shop: trading activity in the Aquincum Civil Town
Orsolya Láng, Aquincum Museum
The Aquincum Civil Town has been the subject of constant archaeological research
for the past nearly 130 years. These excavations have brought to light nearly half of
the settlement dated from the last quarter of the 1st to the end of the 3rd c. AD.
These researches also brought to light numerous tabernae – or rooms that were
previously considered to be shops or workshops – leading to different ideas on the
economic and commercial acitivity of the town.
Recent works (both control excavations and revaluation of the old excavation
documentations) on tabernae - particularly on their periodization and the finds
discovered in them – and the tholos-type macellum have shed some light on the
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function and economic importance of these shops while also raising new questions
on their architectural form, location and role in the economic life of the provincial
capital. The aim of this paper is to examine these buildings – and the rooms
previously considered to be shops – to find out more about the above mentioned
aspects.
10 - A matter of finances - the archaeological evidence from the praetorium
procuratoris at Sarmizegetusa Ulpia (Dacia)
Ioana Oltean, University of Exeter, and Carmen Ciongradi, National Museum of
Transylvanian History, Cluj-Napoca
The expansion of the Roman Empire into neighbouring territories is usually seen in
modern scholarship as politically or strategically motivated while the economic
underpinning of Roman imperialism is severely downplayed. Through their
requirement to pay local troops, army-heavy frontier provinces like Dacia are
considered as tax-consumers rather than genuine contributors to imperial wealth
(e.g. Hopkins 1980, 1996), even though important contributions to the imperial
income came from the frontier provinces as tax, army recruitment or the
exploitation of local natural resources. The general process was overseen and
controlled at provincial level by a procurator who in Dacia resided at Sarmizegetusa
Ulpia. The praetorium has been positively identified based on epigraphic evidence
(Piso 1998) coming from earlier partial excavations during the 1980s. This paper will
present an overview of current knowledge on the site including initial results from
the more recent excavations in 2015-17 by a team led by Dr Carmen Ciongradi (Cluj
Napoca) and the author.
11 - Parasite, benefactor or…? Impact of the imperial garrison on the civic economy
of Dura-Europos, Syria, c.AD165-c.256
Simon James, University of Leicester
Around AD165 Greco-Syrian Dura-Europos on the Euphrates passed from Parthian to
Roman rule, the city subsequently receiving an imperial military garrison. Rich
archaeological and textual testimony survives for Roman Dura-Europos, due to its
violent destruction by a Sasanian siege c.AD256 and subsequent abandonment.
Excavations from 1928-1937 saw Dura proclaimed ‘the Pompeii of the East’. Further
exploration from 1986-2011 included a study of the garrison and base by the
speaker.
Dura provides us with an exceptional dataset for examining direct military :
civilian interactions in an imperial urban environment, one revealing the relatively
understudied eastern frontier. However, views on the consequences of implantation
of the Roman garrison for the life and economy of Dura have varied drastically.
Rostovtzeff, father of the original Dura project, saw the coming of imperial troops as
an unmitigated disaster for an outpost of Hellenism in a Semitic world, soldierly
brutality and arbitrary exactions reducing the polis to an impoverished village.
Recent commentators, especially German scholars such as Stoll, Sommer and
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Ruffing, have tended towards a polar opposite view. Highlighting imperial policy of
promoting concordia/homonoia between cities and garrisons, and noting indications
of urban development at Dura, rather than decline a military–driven economic boom
is postulated, albeit violently cut short by war.
However, interpretation has been hampered by incomplete publication of
the excavations. The new study of military garrison and base challenges assumptions
underlying previous discourse about the economy of Roman Dura-Europos,
especially that there was a relatively small enclave of soldiers among a far larger civil
population. Rather, the garrison was much larger than hitherto understood, and
equally importantly, was the core of an ‘extended military community’ which
constituted a virtual second city within the city. What were the economic
consequences of this? What really were the social and economic dynamics of Roman
Dura-Europos?
12 - An Imperial Steppe: Space, Demography, and Economy in Roman Period
Eastern Syria and Mesopotamia
Rocco Palermo, University of Groningen
Borderlands are regions of continuous and changing negotiations. The edges of the
Roman Empire, in particular, are a multi-variegate system where environmental,
material, social, and economic realities are shaped accordingly. From an
archaeological perspective the presence in imperial frontier areas of objects and
materiality related to both the core and the external space of the empire makes such
zones incredibly interesting when it comes to exploring demographic trends,
economic mechanisms, and processes of intra-societal interaction. Indeed, all these
phenomena are usually more visible on the peripheries of a wider socio-political
system, and this is the case of the eastern borderland of the Roman Empire,
between Eastern Syria and Mesopotamia. The geographic reality of such a specific
frontier zone, its permeability, and fluctuation have always had a substantial impact
in the ways different agents did perceive the borderland and reacted to its sociocultural context.
The large region that encompasses the Syrian Desert, the area beyond the
Euphrates Mesopotamia, was never fully integrated into the Roman world, retaining
its very own characteristics, always balancing its position between trans-regional
polities and local communities, and yet acted as a buffer zone within the intraimperial confrontation.
In my paper I will propose a model for the quantification of economic
indicators by means of landscape archaeology. I will then explore the socioeconomic impact of Rome at the eastern edge of the Empire and the consequent
relation with local communities and other imperial entities (i.e. Parthians and
Sasanians), through the analysis of patterns of settlements and mobility,
reconstruction of past population trends and cycles of economic growth/decline in
the steppe-lands of Syria and Mesopotamia in the period between the 1st and the 4th
c. CE.
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13 - What Lay Beyond: The Economic Relations of the African Frontiers and the
Sahara
David Mattingly, University of Leicester
The starting assumption of many previous studies of the Roman frontiers of North
Africa is that they were intimately bound up with economic transformation of the
frontier zone, frequently desert, and of its populations, generally assumed to have
been pastoral. Recent work on the archaeology of the Saharan zone suggests a more
complex and nuanced picture in which indigenous societies played a far bigger role
in generating economic changes and where the frontier is not a crucial starting point
but rather the focus of long-term sequences shifting economic contacts and
networks. The paper will reflect on three specific case studies: the changing nature
of Saharan societies from c.500 BC to AD 500 (in particular the increase of sedentary
farming) and how our knowledge of frontier development fits with this; the
involvement of pre-desert and desert communities in military supply; the wider
interaction of the frontier with Saharan trade networks.
14 - The economy on the southern Roman Egyptian frontier: Talmis and Kertassi
during the Roman period
Matt Gibbs, University of Winnipeg
The evidence at the sites of Talmis and Kertassi offer a vivid picture of the cultural
identity of the visitors and inhabitants (including, of course, the Roman military) of
the region. It also provides an opportunity not only to consider the workers and
visitors to this region, but also to compare these two sites situated on the southern
frontiers of the Roman world.
Talmis (modern Kalabsha), fifty kilometres south of the first cataract, was a
Roman garrison town, and the site of a temple to Mandoulis, a Nubian deity equated
with Apollo. The purpose of the temple itself in the Roman period seems to have
been political, offering a place in which the nomads and the Roman military could
worship. The walls of this temple contain an array of inscriptions bearing the names
of the Roman soldiers stationed locally as well as the pilgrims who visited the area.
By way of comparison, thirty kilometres to the south of Aswan is the site of Kertassi.
The community included an extensive quarry complex, a small temple, and perhaps,
a Roman military encampment. The quarries themselves lie to the north, west, and
south of the temple, and therein are a significant number of inscriptions that date to
the mid-second to the mid-third centuries CE, including a substantial corpus of
evidence that appears to refer to an association of workers engaged in the
transportation of quarried stone.
Using this evidence, and through the lens of these communities, this paper
will consider the movement and mobility of the traders who worked in and visited
these two communities, while considering what their activities—recorded in their
inscription—can tell us about the economy at the southern edge of the Roman
Empire.
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15 - The Eastern desert of Egypt as a ressource and as a link with the Indian Ocean
during the Graeco-Roman period
Jean-Pierre Brun, Collège de France
The exploitation of the Eastern desert of Egypt and the development of the Erithrean
trade from the Macedonian conquest of Egypt to the end of the Roman Empire was
conditioned by the harsh natural conditions of this area and by the winds patterns.
The entire period from the 4th c. BC to the 7th c. AD could be divided into ten
phases. The first corresponds to a gold rush under Ptolemy 1st. The second phase
which covers the last three quarters of the 3rd c. BC is the period of hunting for war
elephants leading to the foundation of many ports along the western shore of the
Red Sea and to the opening of routes through the desert, from these ports to
Apollonopolis hè Megalè (Edfu) and to Koptos (Qift).
The 3rd phase is marked by the revolt of the Upper Egypt between 206 BC and
roughly the 2nd quarter of the 2nd c. during which this area was no longer controlled
by the Greek kings. The 4th phase is characterised by the development of the trade of
exotic products, mainly myrrh, incense and other aromatics and gems, during the
2nd-1st c BC.
The 5th phase began with the Roman grip on Egypt. We assist to the
extraordinary growth of the trade with Arabia and India and to the beginning of
exploitation of porphyry and granite quarries for the imperial buildings at Rome. The
sixth phase led to the total control of the desert, to the maximisation of the
exploitation of the quarries and to a peak of the trade with Orient which reached
Malaysia and beyond from the last quarter of the 1st century to the beginning of the
3rd century.
Then followed a gradual decline marked by the withdraw of the Roman army
from the two main routes to the Red Sea harbours: the route of Myos Hormos first
(7th phase), then the route of Berenikè followed by the revolt of the nomadic tribes
of the desert during the last quarter of the 3rd c. AD (8th phase).
The oriental trade revived during the 4th and 5th c. and Berenikè was
reoccupied (9th phase) but the final decline occurred during the 6th and 7th c.
(10th phase).
16 - India: the missing province
Dario Nappo, University of Naples “Federico II”
The Roman Empire had a very limited military and political control over the Red
Sea/Indian Ocean region, but this area was nevertheless considered a key space for
the economic interests of the Roman Commonwealth. India had a very peculiar
status in the context of the imperial Weltanschauung: it was clearly not just out of
the limits of the Empire, it was far away from it, and yet it was constantly present in
the imperial propaganda. Despite its remote position, India was at the same time
considered as a legitimate part of the economic space of the Roman Empire.
This peculiar feature made India a rather unique area of the World, both
inside the Roman economic space and outside its political sphere of influence. This
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contradiction is particularly evident in some moments of the Roman History, for
instance the principate of Augustus, when India is depicted almost as one of the
provinces of the Empire. This ambiguous status originates from the importance that
Indo-Roman trade had for the economy of the Empire. Since the time of Augustus,
there were several attempts to secure the maritime route between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.
This paper aims at underlining the relationship between Roman military
presence and economic influence in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean area in the first two
centuries of the imperial age, trying to reconstruct the different political approaches
that Roman rulers had to secure the control of such a crucial area for the
international trade.
17 – Final Discussion
Lisa Fentress, Rome
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