Roman Economy

From the Contents:
François Salviat, Le vin de Thasos. Amphores, vin et sources écrites; François Salviat, Vignes et vins anciens de Maronée à Mende; François Salviat, Le vin de Rhodes et les plantations du Dème d' Amos; François Salviat, Origine orientale et diffusion des cépages grecs; André Tchernia, Le vin et l' honneur; André Tchernia, Les dimensions de quelques vignobles romains; André Tchernia, Maesanius Celsius et Caedicia Victrix surdes amphores de campanie; André Tchernia, Le cercle de L. Licinius Crassus et la naissance de la hiérarchie des vins à Rome; André Tchernia, Acre Falernum: Juvenal, XIII, 213-216; Archéologie expérimentale et got du vin romain: la valorisation du got de madérisé; François Salviat, André Tchernia, Les appellations d' origine dans l' antiquité grecque et romaine; André Tchernia, La formule pane et vino adjecto et l' inscription du college d' Esculape et d' Hygie (CIL, VI, 10234)

INTRODUZIONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Per una storia dei collegi professionali romani

LA BASE SOCIALE DI SOCIETÀ E COLLEGI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Economia e lavoro: il punto di vista aristocratico. Mercanti su vasta scala, armatori e publicani.
Artigiani, piccoli commercianti e funzionari di basso rango. Schiavi e mercennarii.

IL RAPPORTO TRA STATO ROMANO E ASSOCIAZIONI . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Le origini. L’età repubblicana. I collegi “politici” tardo-repubblicani. Autorizzazione e controllo statale durante l’impero. Il servizio pubblico dei collegi in età tardo-antica. Gli scioperi e le rivolte.

SACRO E PROFANO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Attività religiosa e attività commerciale. Collegi semi-ufficiali e para-religiosi. I collegi di
mutua assistenza e quelli rurali. I tre collegi principali: fabri, centonarii e dendrophori.

LA GESTIONE E LE ATTIVITÀ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
L’organizzazione e la gerarchia interna. I patroni. Le attività pubbliche, civili e religiose.
Obblighi e privilegi: munus e immunitas. La cassa comune, l’amministrazione e le rendite.
Le sedi e le attività private.

NOTE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

ABBREVIAZIONI BIBLIOGRAFICHE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

BIBLIOGRAFIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

This is a revised and supplemented edition of a dissertation, defended in 2015 at the Department of Archaeology of the Historical Faculty in Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

The two-chambered updraught kiln is the most widespread and identifiable variant among the ceramic firing installations throughout the Mediterranean in Antiquity. Its popularity owes to its fine technical properties, as well as the long-established traditions in the manufacture of clay-made artefacts.
The present dissertation explores the development and distribution of the two-chambered ceramic kilns in the territory of modern Bulgaria during the 1st – 6th century. For that purpose, published and unpublished data for ceramic kilns is studied, from the time of their appearance in Thrace in the course of the Late Iron Age until the end of Late Antiquity. The catalogue comprises detailed information for 289 kilns dated to the Roman and Late Antique periods. The acquired data base provides ground for the identification of the construction techniques and materials used in the erection of these structures, and to distinguish those of the former which appeared in today’s Bulgarian lands after the Roman conquest. The developed typology for the two-chambered kilns under discussion is based on the floor plan of the combustion chamber and the type of support for the perforated floor. The last chapter of the dissertation is dedicated to the archaeologically attested production centres and workshops from the 1st – 6th century and includes an attempt for the clarification of the chronological limits of their operation, together with a proposition for a periodisation scheme of ceramic production in the considered time period.
Between the second half of the 1st and the beginning of the 7th century the two-chambered kilns were the most frequently used ceramic firing structures in today’s Bulgarian territory. The number of studied kilns from this chronological period is significantly larger in comparison to those from the previous and the next one – respectively the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages. This fact could be explained with the considerable demand for fine and coarse wheel-made pottery during the Roman and the Late Antique periods, together with the large-scale urbanisation and fortification activities carried out in that time, which required a great amount of ceramic building material. The two-chambered updraught kilns were the optimal – and sometimes the only – variant for the firing of both types of goods.
The influences on the development and organisation of ceramic production in the 1st – 6th century owed to the infiltration of new population, the urbanisation projects carried out by central authorities, and, in general, to the incorporation of this craft in the Empire’s economy. Being intrinsic part of it, the manufacture of ceramic goods also experienced the negative effects of the multiple military conflicts in the studied time period, some of which may serve as chronological limits for certain phases of its development.

Looking at Roman society through a traditional elite lens shows women to be silent and passive participants in both social and economic history. This may have been the reality for elite families, but plebeian women would not have had this luxury. This paper will look into the epigraphical evidence of work undertaken by free women, and how their work evolved as their social responsibilities altered. Through this examination, I will also discuss how much income could have been generated through work performed by women, and if gender bias played a role in women's income.

This paper examines evidence, both documentary and archaeological, for state interest in Indo-Mediterranean trade via the Red Sea, focusing on the creation of infrastructure to facilitate trade, measures taken to protect trade and traders, and the extent of the state’s interest in the trade principally as a result of customs dues, which it is argued formed a significant and hitherto under-appreciated source of income for the Roman state.

The development of Indo-Mediterranean trade in large volumes via the Red Sea route in the Augustan period was the result of a combination of at least three main factors: (1) the creation of overland routes between the Nile and Red Sea, obviating the need for ships to beat up to the Gulf of Suez against strong northerly winds; (2) the discovery of the use of the monsoon winds, enabling a more direct passage to and from India; and (3) the incorporation of Egypt into the Roman Empire after Actium. The flourishing of this trade for several centuries under the Roman Empire relied on effective protection of these routes.

The first piece of this jigsaw was put in place under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, with the creation of regular overland routes across the Eastern Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea. Crucial to these routes were the watering points or hydreumata created along them, which cannot have functioned without the use of the new saqiyya technology enabling the lifting of water from deep wells in quantities sufficient to feed desert caravans. The invention of the saqiyya machine has been placed by Lewis (1997) in the window 280-220 BC, and may probably be narrowed further to the earlier part of this period. Right-angled gearing was sufficiently well developed by c. 240 BC for Archimedes to use it in his hodometer cart - and probably also was used in automata vehicles in the Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus in 270 BC. In other words, the components of the technology were there during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus and it is difficult to believe that it was not used on this desert route. Possibly an important motivation for the opening of the overland route between the Nile and the Red Sea was to enable the supply of war elephants from the Sudan, but the routes clearly facilitated commercial traffic with the Red Sea and the souther Arabian peninsula.

With the development of trade with India via the Red Sea, following the discovery of the monsoon winds and the incorporation of Egypt into the large market of the Empire, the Roman system would have intensified the infrastructure on the Ptolemaic route to support increased traffic, with construction of new hydreumata attested by inscriptions. Pliny mentions some road stations; others were added in 76/77by the prefect of Egypt Julius Ursus (O.Ber.II.120). The kykleutikon salary of several 1st- and 2nd-c AD ostraca was for operating this kind of saqqiya device. Forts were also constructed, and caravans were provided with armed escorts for protection against the desert nomads. Although the state’s interest was also motivated by the need to transport of granite and marble from the desert quarries, and of gold from the mines there, there was clearly a strong interest in sustaining these roads as trade routes.

This idea is supported by an examination of Trajanic policy in the region, which included the construction of the Via Nova from Aila to Bosra linking the northern Red Sea with southern Syria; the dredging and rehabilitation of the Clysma canal, and the stationing of a fleet in the Red Sea. Under Hadrian a road linking the ports of the western Red Sea coast facilitated regional communications and supplies between these increasingly important ports. In the mid second century a detatchment of troops (and ships) was stationed on the Farasan islands in the southern Red Sea, well to the south of any Roman land frontier. Their purpose must have been principally to protect trade shipping entering or leaving the Red Sea from piracy off the coast of the Arabian peninsula.

Why did the Roman state go to such lengths to invest in the physical infrastructure for the Red Sea routes, and protection services along them? The answer seems to lie principally in the customs revenue that the state derived from Indo-Mediterranean trade. Customs tariffs across the empire’s frontiers were, at least on the eastern frontiers where we have direct evidence, set at 25% until some time in the early third century, and this may have been the case universally. Strabo, writing about why Augustus did not bother to invade Britain, stresses the high revenue derived from customs dues on cross-Channel trade, which exceed the likely revenue from tribute exacted under direct rule, once the costs of enforcing that rule are deducted (Strabo, Geography, 2.5.8 and 4.5.3). The second-century Muziris papyrus values the (part-)cargo of the ship Hermapollon, in from Muziris, at nearly HS 7 million after deduction of tax, implying that the state received some HS 2.2 million from this one cargo alone. If there were only 100 such cargoes per year (a century earlier, Strabo speaks of 120 ships per year leaving Myos Hormos for India), the customs revenues from the imports alone would amount to one-third of Duncan-Jones’ estimate for the military budget of the Empire. To this must be added the export customs dues, and also the customs dues on onwards transport of much of these goods to other provinces (usually at 2.5%). It looks as if the total state revenue for the empire may have been significantly underestimated by not taking due account of the revenues from trade, especially Indo-Mediterranean trade. This in turn makes it much easier to understand the state’s ability to fund large-scale civic building projects to a level not matched again until the rise of nation states in 19th-century Europe (see debate between Scheidel and Wilson in JRA 2009).

But there were other reasons too for the state’s interest in supporting and sustaining this trade. In his rescript to the Senate in AD 22, Tiberius refused the Senate’s request to reiterate the sumptuary laws, citing as one of several reasons the fact that the real concern to the state was not controlling table luxuries, but supplying Rome with grain; much comes from Egypt, which is also the source of many luxury goods which provide profit for the grain traders (Tacitus, Annals 3.52-55). In other words, facilitating the eastern luxury trade was in indirect way of ensuring the grain supply to Rome by incentivising the participation of private shippers. The anecdote about Augustus and the Alexandrian shippers at Puteoli (Suetonius) may be seen in a similar light.

Moreover, Alan Bowman has recently argued that the imperial house was directly involved in the trade between Egypt and India (Bowman 2010). Eivind Seeland’s forthcoming analysis of donations to Churches in Rome of eastern spices and incense from estates in Egypt traces some of these back to imperial domains (Seeland forthcoming).

But some time between AD 174 and 227, the quarter-tax on external trade was reduced to a one-eighth tax (12.5%), the octava. If the eastern trade was so important to the Roman state, why halve the customs dues, especially at a time of intense fiscal pressure? The most reasonable explanation seems to be that the reduction was an acknowledgement by the state of its inability to maintain previous levels of protection for shipping and caravans, and this was a measure intended to compensate traders for increased transaction costs along these routes as a result. We hear of Blemmye raids on the Eastern Desert in the fourth and fifth centuries, and the shift in late antiquity towards more northerly ports in the Red Sea may also be connected with the increasing instability of the desert routes

The present article tries to contribute to a better understanding of the relation between empire-wide and local aspects in late antique domestic
culture. On the one hand, late antique élite houses all over the Mediterranean share certain aspects, especially the existence of
a typical spatial structure; on the other hand, there are significant differences in the use of decorative elements, e. g. of marble and mosaic
pavements, and of water features. My paper tries to explain these discrepancies as a result of different local economic and historical
factors, and urban developments.

A fiercely debated aspect of Pompeii's history, is the nature of the city's textile economy. This paper presents a new perspective, in which the Pompeian textile economy is contextualized and discussed in relation to local, regional and supra-regional economic networks.

The EPNet project aims to examine the framework of the Roman economic organisation and its networks by analysing epigraphical data from amphorae. This aim is to be realised through complex network analysis, model building and computer simulation. The objective is to create an experimental laboratory for the exploration, validation and refutation of historical theories, and the formulation of new ones.

Desde que se iniciaron los estudios cliométricos, el interés por encontrar fórmulas y modelos que nos ayuden a entender la historia, particularmente la historia económica y social, han atraído la atención de muchos investigadores. Desde nuestra perspectiva, hemos prestado particular atención al estudio de datos concretos, pues nos hemos centrado en el estudio de las ánforas que contuvieron alimentos, sobre todo vino, aceite y conservas de pescado y su epigrafía y, a través de ellas, estudiar la dirección de los intercambios entre las diversas regiones del imperio romano y el papel que el estado jugó en dichas relaciones, en última instancia, la relación entre política y economía. En las últimas décadas, en relación directa con el progreso de los estudios sobre tipologías cerámicas, se ha avanzado notablemente en el desarrollo de los procedimientos de cuantificación. Este interés se integra en una preocupación más amplia por la cultura material romana, en particular las vajillas y los contenedores de alimentos, como instrumento para profundizar en el conocimiento de las formas de producción, distribución y consumo de productos manufacturados y de alimentos líquidos o semilíquidos que tuvieron gran importancia en la dieta romana. Así mismo, y gracias a un mejor conocimiento arqueológico de ciertas regiones del Mediterráneo, la cuantificación se ha convertido en una herramienta fundamental en la construcción de modelos explicativos sobre la producción agrícola y artesanal, y sobre las estructuras de distribución y consumo. El objetivo último es mejorar el conocimiento de la organización y dinámicas de la economía romana y proponer, en consecuencia, un marco interpretativo para definir la naturaleza de la misma.

During the past few years, systematic field survey has revealed an important regional variation within Roman Italy. The settlement pattern that emerges in the Marche-region along the Central- Adriatic coast has many points of similarity with other regions of Italy, yet the precise details are unique. For example, the region was clearly wealthier than Molise, where there was a striking decline in the number of sites inhabited between the late Republic and the second century AD. On the other hand, comparisons with Latium or South Etruria may be inappropriate, given the superior markets available to those areas. Rural settlement in the Marche reaches a peak in the first century BC, when land allotments were made to army veterans, and in the first century AD. From the second century on, there is a gradual reduction in the number of sites in occupation, and absorption of smallholdings by the larger estates, although the small farms continued to surpass the number of large villas in late Roman times. Some late Roman villas were excavated in the northern area near Emilia-Romagna, influenced by the city of Ravenna, capital of the Western Roman Empire since the early fifth century.

Se pretende abordar el estudio de los graneros romanos de ámbito militar en Hispania, mediante un análisis del emplazamiento que ocupaban en el interior de los campamentos legionarios y fuertes y, especialmente, de las técnicas de construcción de los edificios. Para ello, resulta necesario presentar la información relativa a los almacenes de grano desde un punto de vista crítico, con el fin de determinar cuáles son los graneros documentados hasta la actualidad en Hispania y señalar qué edificios fueron utilizados simplemente como almacenes. Para ello, se presenta una valoración crítica de la información relativa a los horrea excavados en Hispania para, a continuación, analizar detenidamente los graneros militares de época republicana e imperial documentados hasta la actualidad.

Ce mémoire de master propose un examen des entrepôts publics en milieux urbain et militaire durant les Haut et Bas-Empire, en Gaule Belgique et Germanie inférieure. Pour cela, il a d’abord été nécessaire d’établir un catalogue de toutes les structures interprétées comme telles. Le corpus dressé a ensuite fait l’objet d’un examen des composantes architecturales, urbaines et géographiques.

Este trabajo presenta una síntesis del concepto de mercado e indaga en los rasgos que caracterizan la
economía del Imperio romano. En él se afirma la consistencia y protagonismo de la producción agrícola
en los siglos de la antigüedad tardía y se evidencia el escaso espíritu mercantil de los ricos propietarios
de tierras.

Dalla pubblicazione dell’agile ma fondamentale volume di Francesco Grelle (Stipendium vel tributum. L’imposizione fondiaria nelle dottrine giuridiche del II e III secolo, Napoli 1963) le ricerche sul tema della distinzione delle imposte conosciute con il nome di stipendium e tributum, nonché dei corrispondenti aggettivi stipendiarius e tributarius, hanno conosciuto rinnovato vigore. Ciò nonostante, molte questioni sono rimaste insolute.
Più di altri, il termine stipendiarius è stato oggetto di indagini parziali, spesso basate su preconcetti che hanno condizionato la lettura e l’interpretazione delle opere antiche. Il presente volume mira ad offrire un’analisi completa e dettagliata delle occorrenze del vocabolo attraverso il confronto tra tutte le fonti – letterarie, epigrafiche, giuridiche e gromatiche – che lo menzionano, ricostruendo, per quanto possibile, l’evoluzione semantica e metonimica del termine dal punto di vista diacronico.
Si sfata così un luogo comune: gli stipendiarii non sono solo gli individui – o le terre –  soggetti al pagamento dello stipendium, ma sono, prima di tutto, i sottomessi, coloro che portavano anche nel nome il peso del trionfo del popolo romano.

The Resilience of the Roman Empire discusses the relationship between population and regional development in the Roman world from the perspective of archaeology. By adapting a comparative approach, the focus of the volume lies on exploring the various ways in which regional communities actively responded to population growth or decline in order to keep going on the land available to them. The starting point of the theoretical framework for the case studies is the agricultural intensification models developed by Thomas Malthus and Ester Boserup. In order to advance the debate on the validity of these models for identifying the societal and economic pathways of the Roman world, the contributors incorporate the concepts of resilience and diversity into their approach, and shift attention from the longue-durée to how people managed to sustain themselves over shorter periods of time. The aim of the volume is not to discard the theories of Malthus and Boserup, but rather to deconstruct overly strict Malthusian or Boserupian scenarios, and as such introduce novel and more layered ways of thinking by exploring resilience and variability in human responses to population growth/decline in the Roman world.

Claudius made substantial changes to the laws governing women as he "upgraded the mother's right to inherit. This concession to her contribution to the family was also a move in line to the 'cognatic' principle of wills, which tended to spread goods beyond the male line of agnatic succession.  Claudius also denied the right of slave owners to kill their slaves because they were old or had a physical impairment.

Les meules romaines recensées le long de la voie Boulogne – Bavay – Cologne sont taillées dans différents matériaux extraits de carrières spécifiques et mis en forme dans des ateliers spécialisés. Ces roches, issues de formations géologiques soigneusement sélectionnées, ont fait l’objet d’une exploitation massive durant l’Antiquité pour la taille de meules, et leur extraction a laissé localement des stigmates encore bien visibles dans le paysage. Ces productions sont retrouvées sous forme de produits finis sur la plupart des sites de consommation du nord de la Gaule et de Germanie, et l’étude de leur distribution permet d’aborder les systèmes économiques antiques sous un angle nouveau.
Le commerce des biens pondéreux apparaît dépendre de plusieurs facteurs liés, non seulement à la ressource (disponibilité et accessibilité des ressources géologiques), mais aussi aux implantations humaines et à la disposition des voies de communication qui fournissent des débouchés. Ainsi en fonction de l’implantation des carrières sur le territoire, certaines productions circulent par la route, d’autres par voie fluviale voire maritime. La redistribution secondaire apparaît plus multimodale, ce qui permet d’atteindre tous les marchés demandeurs. Quand des « anomalies » de répartition se dessinent, celles-ci sont au contraire très rationnelles et sont liées au temps de parcours réalisé par les productions équivalentes et concurrentes dans l’autre sens.

The Roman Settlement of Poggio del Molino, located in the territory controlled by the city of Populonia (Piombino, Livorno), has long drawn the interest of archaeologists. Excavations conducted by the University of Florence were interrupted for twenty years and eventually resumed in 2008. The new research project has provided evidence for the site's architectural evolution, revealing different construction stages and uses of spaces during a time of intense environmental and political change. Such data confirm the strategic importance of Poggio del Molino throughout a very long period of Roman history, from the Late Republic to the end of the Empire– mid 2 nd century BCE-beginning of 5 th century CE. The new research project is endorsed and supported by public institutions (Municipality of Piombino and University of Florence) as well as private national and international institutions (Cultural Association Past in Progress, Earthwatch Institute, University of Arizona, Hofstra University, Union College, Foundation RavennAntica) which are involved in field surveys, post-excavation studies and initiatives concerning the site's enhancement. This paper focuses on the oldest stage of the site's history, the Late Republican Fort, and on the second stage, the farm with fish sauce production.

The article presents some of the preliminary results of the project Carta Archeologica del Comune di Nettuno, conducted by the Groningen Instituut of Archaeology (GIA). Surveys within the borders of the community of Nettuno show the presence of a subsistence based economy at least until the mid-Republican period. The construction or paving of the road from Lanuvium to Antium triggers a dramatic shift in settlement type and location and brings the social-economic integration within the Roman Empire for the area under study.

En el presente artículo se pretende mostrar cómo, a través del estudio de la red de infraestructuras, se puede analizar y valorar la importancia de los distintos territorios del mundo romano. Además también se ofrece una hipótesis cuantitativa de los costes del transporte que pueden ayudar a justificar las distribuciones de material, en los distintos yacimientos del marco geográfico estudiado. Toda esta actualización de datos y metodología se aplica al territorio enmarcado dentro de la actual Cataluña, el extremo nororiental de la Provincia Tarraconense.


The present paper attempts to show how the study of infrastructure network may analyze and evaluate the relative importance of different territories in the Roman world. Besides, it provides a quantitative hypothesis of transport costs that may help to justify patterns of material distributions in sites of the studied region. All these update of data and methodology is applied to the present Catalonia, in the NE side of the Tarraconense province.

The second Aguntum workshop focused on the location of the Municipium Claudium Aguntum on the upper reaches of the Drava. The contributions published in volume 3 of the series Ager Aguntinus investigate to what extent the Roman settlements along the river route were in contact with each other – from the source of the Drava to its confluence with the Danube. Archaeological findings from Austria, Slovenia and Croatia suggest possible connection points.
The importance of river routes as trade routes in Roman times is indicated by the research presented on the traffic routes along the Po in northern Italy and the Ljubljanica in Slovenia. Not least on the basis of corresponding findings from Aguntum and Aquileia, it becomes clear that river ports are to be expected in Roman cities. In this way, the volume offers not only a compilation of Roman findings from these very settlements but also a discussion of the significance of river trade, even beyond the Drava River.

La primera parte de la tesis titulada La Annona se centra en la importancia de esta institución como beneficiaria de la política agraria de los emperadores Antoninos. Esta institución creada por Augusto se encargaba de la distribución de alimentos a la plebe romana y a los ejércitos acuartelados en el limes. En Roma se encargaba de las frumentationes gratuitas, repartos de trigo a los miembros más pobres de la plebe de Roma. Muchas fueron las actuaciones que los emperadores Antoninos tomaron para mejorar este servicio, desde la construcción de un mayor puerto en Ostia en tiempos de Trajano donde pudieran atracar los barcos con los productos que llegaban procedentes de las provincias. En las provincias existían funcionarios al servicio de la Annona que se encargaban de supervisar la producción y recogida de los productos agrícolas procedentes de las propiedades rurales del emperador  o eran el pago de los tributos. Con el fin de mejorar el funcionamiento de esta institución, los emperadores Antoninos promulgaron diversas medidas legislativas que asegurarían el transporte de todos los productos agrícolas recogidos en las provincias hasta Roma a cambio de importantes incentivos fiscales. Gracias a la preocupación gubernamental, llegaban a Roma trigo, aceite y vino procedentes de todas las provincias del Imperio. Mientras que el trigo es difícil de rastrear, pues los contenedores donde se transportaba estarían realizados con un material perecedero, las ánforas que contenían vino y aceite si permiten averiguar su procedencia. La existencia del monte Testaccio a las orillas del Tíber en Roma es la prueba de un gran vertedero donde se arrojaban las ánforas que llegaban a la capital cargadas de aceite procedente de las provincias, puesto que era más costoso limpiarlas para reutilizarlas que fabricarlas de nuevo.
El mantenimiento del orden social y político era uno de los principales ejes de la política de los emperadores romanos. La fuerte demanda de alimentos que requerían la plebe de Roma y el ejército obligaba a los emperadores a controlar la Annona, y a asegurarse de que dispusiera de las fuentes necesarias para aprovisionarse cuando la situación lo requiriera. Las distintas actuaciones legislativas desarrolladas por los emperadores Antoninos deben verse como las soluciones propuestas por el gobierno imperial para satisfacer las necesidades de la Annona.
Bajo el título La política de los Alimenta se recoge el análisis de la respuesta del poder imperial a los problemas agrícolas que padece Italia. El Imperio romano se caracterizaba por la existencia de una compleja red de ciudades. Un abastecimiento y la alimentación de todos sus habitantes era la principal obligación de todos los magistrados, y en último término del emperador. La Annona fue una institución creada por los emperadores para controlar directamente y de primera mano el abastecimiento de la capital del Imperio y de los ejércitos romanos. A imagen suya se crearon magistraturas encargadas del mismo cometido en todas las ciudades del Imperio. Habitualmente las ciudades se nutrían de lo que se producía en el territorio circundante. Para evitar un mayor abandono del campo que provocara nuevos problemas en Roma, Nerva concibe un ambicioso plan para revitalizar la agricultura en Italia. Su prematura muerte hará que su proyecto sea verdaderamente puesto en práctica por su sucesor Trajano. La política de los Alimenta según los propios contemporáneos tenía la finalidad de asistir a los niños y niñas de familias pobres de las ciudades beneficiadas con este proyecto. Sin duda alguna, fue muy importante la idea de ayudar a los niños, pero también lo fue la idea de revitalizar el campo itálico, muy empobrecido y abandonado ante el gran desarrollo de los latifundios que se habían impuesto en las últimas décadas y  que habían provocado la reducción de la mediana y pequeña propiedad campesina. Con esta política los emperadores pretendían que las ciudades itálicas aprovechasen mejor los recursos de que disponían a su alrededor para su abastecimiento.
Las legislaciones de los dominios imperiales africanos es el título que encabeza la tercera parte de este trabajo. Sin duda alguna, es el aspecto mejor conocido, analizado y controvertido de todos los que forman parte de la política agraria de los emperadores Antoninos. La abundancia de grandes propiedades del emperador en la provincia de África Proconsular y le existencia de múltiples noticias procedentes de las mismas marcan este capítulo donde se analizarán en profundidad los orígenes, características y consecuencias de las leyes Manciana y Hadriana. Un último capítulo de esta tercera parte es un apéndice dedicado a las Tablillas Albertini, como símbolo de la pervivencia de aspectos relacionados con la primera de estas leyes africanas.
La cuarta y última parte de esta tesis con el título Otras expresiones de la política agraria está dedicada a diversas medidas legislativas en materia agraria. En un primer capítulo se analiza la problemática agraria en los intelectuales de la época, viendo las posibles relaciones de influencia que pudieran existir entre la política oficial y ellos o viceversa. Otras actuaciones realizadas por los emperadores romanos del siglo II en el marco de la política agraria fueron los repartos de tierra de Nerva, o la imposición a los senadores de poseer propiedades en Italia por parte de Trajano o Marco Aurelio. El último capítulo está dedicado a la obra del emperador Pértinax, aunque la aplicación de todas sus iniciativas en materia agraria no están suficientemente probadas ante la brevedad de su gobierno.

A kötet a tengerek szerepét vizsgálja a római birodalom gazdaságában. A tengerek földrajza mellett szó esik a sólepárlás és a halászat sokféle formája mellett a kikötőkről, teherhajó-típusokról, a fontosabb tengeri útvonalakról és a búvárrégészet legújabb eredményeiről.

En el sur de Hispania se localizó uno de los distritos mineros de propiedad imperial más importantes del occidente romano. Dichas minas pertenecieron al rico hispano Sexto Mario y fueron confiscadas por Tiberio. A pesar de su importancia, no se sabe exactamente dónde estuvieron emplazadas estas minas. En este trabajo analizamos las diferentes teorías existentes sobre la ubicación del Mons Marianus y las fuentes literarias, epigráficas y toponímicas de época romana que lo mencionan.