Roman Economy

"Empires are political systems based on the actual or threatened use of force to extract surpluses from their subjects." The Roman Empire was largely imperialistic in its nature and the surpluses extracted from Roman citizens and provinces under Roman rule were reinvested by the elites of society on infrastructure and other means of maintaining their power. The hierarchy of power within this imperial society led way to profits from these extracted revenues being distributed to the groups of Roman elites. As this process continued, elites were able to retain their power and wealth.

Due to the fact that pre-industrial empires such as the Roman Empire could not sustain large government institutions which are commonplace today, the elites within the empire retained their power by building a "community of interest". On the economic side, much of the Roman  Empire's resources and energy was spent on securing revenue streams and supplies of labour and agricultural produce from the regions under Roman rule.

This environment of power and the effort to retain it supported the notion of a political economy. The two main arguments describing the Roman economy and empire are that of a locally and regionally based economy and a complelely integrated economy in which politics were important. Support for the notion of an integrated Roman economy can found in evidence of wide spread trade throughout the empire. By researching remains of trade such as the amphorae (a ceramic jar commonly used by Romans to store goods like wine and olive oil), we can understand the extent of Roman trade and the rate of trade throughout different periods of the Roman Empire.  

                                                        (Ancient Roman amphoraes)

One interesting discovery was that the distribution of Italian wine which began gradually in the 3rd century BC, reached its peak during the 3rd quarter of the last century BC and then declined rapidly afterwords. This pattern of wine distribution matches that the rhythm of Roman imperial expansion. This supports the notion that the Roman economy and therefore the prosperity of the Roman elite was fueled by Roman imperialism.

While trade within the empire rarely took an integrated form above the regional level, the integration of trade throughout the empire during the last two centuries BC was created not by the infrastructure of a staple Roman Empire but by the imperial expansion at the time.

Woolf, G. (1992, February). Imperialism, Empire and the Integration of the Roman Economy. World Archaeology, 23, 283-293.