Pliny's Roman Economy

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022 · 2 citations

• Political Science
• Classics
• History

The first comprehensive study of Pliny the Elder's economic thought-and its implications for understanding the Roman Empire's constrained innovation and economic growthThe elder Pliny's Natural History (77 CE), an astonishing compilation of 20,000 "things worth knowing," was avowedly intended to be a repository of ancient Mediterranean knowledge for the use of craftsmen and farmers, but this 37-book, 400,000-word work was too expensive, unwieldly, and impractically organized to be of utilitarian value. Yet, as Richard Saller shows, the Natural History offers more insights into Roman ideas about economic growth than any other ancient source. Pliny's Roman Economy is the first comprehensive study of Pliny's economic thought and its implications for understanding the economy of the Roman EmpireAs Saller reveals, Pliny sometimes anticipates modern economic theory, while at other times his ideas suggest why Rome produced very few major inventions that resulted in sustained economic growth. On one hand, Pliny believed that new knowledge came by accident or divine intervention, not by human initiative; research and development was a foreign concept. When he lists 136 great inventions, they are mostly prehistoric and don't include a single one from Rome-offering a commentary on Roman innovation and displaying a reverence for the past that contrasts with the attitudes of the eighteenth-century encyclopedists credited with contributing to the Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, Pliny shrewdly recognized that Rome's lack of competition from other states suppressed incentives for innovation. Pliny's understanding should be noted because, as Saller shows, recent efforts to use scientific evidence about the ancient climate to measure the Roman economy are flawed.By exploring Pliny's ideas about discovery, innovation, and growth, Pliny's Roman Economy makes an important new contribution to the ongoing debate about economic growth in ancient Rome

Latin Texts

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

Parens Natura and Smithian Growth

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

This chapter describes Pliny's attitude to Mother Nature as influenced by Stoic thought of his day. This attitude formed the basis for Pliny's moral thinking about useful knowledge of Nature, with major implications (at least in Pliny's view) for the economic consequences of empire. Pliny held profoundly ambivalent ideas about the economic benefits and vices of empire. The benefits came almost entirely from what could be described as an argument that anticipated Adam Smith by seventeen centuries to the effect that Rome's expansion opened the way to the discovery of new and varied natural resources from the conquered lands, and Roman rule promoted the exchange of these resources through trade during the Pax Romana. On the other hand, Pliny believed that Roman attitudes and power also promoted the misuse, abuse, and even violation of Nature, most egregiously in mining and quarrying. To Pliny, what might count as economic growth and improvement of living standards cannot be value free—and at the heart of those moral values is the emotional and spiritual devotion to Mother Nature.

“Utility” and the Afterlife of the Natural History

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

This chapter assesses whether Pliny's <italic>Natural History</italic> aimed to foster a culture nurturing increases in useful knowledge for succeeding generations to improve productivity. How did readers of the late antique and medieval eras make use of Pliny's work, which for many centuries was among the most frequently copied, quoted, and excerpted classical texts? The reception of the <italic>Natural History</italic> during this millennium provides insights into the limitations on its practical value. And then in the early modern period, given their shared purpose of “usefulness,” what is revealed by a comparison of Pliny's <italic>Natural History</italic> and the eighteenth-century encyclopedias that played a part in the culture of growth during the Great Enrichment? The chapter then looks at John Harris's <italic>Lexicon Technicum</italic> (1704) and Ephraim Chambers's <italic>Cyclopaedia</italic> (1728). Because these earlier encyclopedias predated the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and because they were produced in the country that led the way in the growth of the eighteenth century, they may offer a more interesting comparison. The purpose, tone, organization, and content of these monumental works show similarities with the <italic>Natural History</italic> and also telling contrasts.

Copyright Page

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

Extract Copyright © 2022 by Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the progress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press.princeton.edu Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 99 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6JX press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Saller, Richard P., author. Title: Pliny’s Roman economy : natural history, innovation, and growth / Richard Saller. Description: Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2022] | Series: The Princeton economic history of the Western world |

Innovation and Economic Growth in the Natural History

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

This chapter focuses on Pliny's ideas about invention and innovation, the foundations of sustained growth. It starts from David Hume's observation in 1742 that “it is more easy to account for the rise and progress of commerce in any kingdom, than for that of learning.” Pliny generalizes about increases in knowledge in a similar vein, and in addition he attests to inventions and discoveries throughout Greek and Roman history. The chapter then examines the inventions reported in the <italic>Natural History</italic>, Pliny's understanding of the process of discovery and its motives in the context of the Pax Romana. Overall, Pliny believed that discovery, innovation, and enrichment were the results of accident or divine intervention, not of Romans' intentional research. It is striking that Pliny's list of 136 great innovations at the end of Book 7 includes not a single Roman technical innovation.

Introduction

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Pliny's <italic>Natural History</italic>, which provides insights regarding Roman values and attitudes about economic production and innovation during the Pax Romana. Archaeological research leaves no doubt that productivity improved and the standard of living was enriched over the millennium from the early Iron Age to the height of the empire. Did the institutions that Rome forcibly imposed around the Mediterranean—notably, peace, laws, and infrastructure—support continued economic growth until external forces such as the Antonine Plague of the later 160s CE brought it to a halt? The lack of statistics for the economy makes this question impossible to answer with empirical certainty, leaving scholars to formulate indirect arguments for growth based on proxy data or models or contemporary economic theory. Nevertheless, the <italic>Natural History</italic> presents evidence both for the potential of Roman imperialism to expand economic resources and for the limits on technical innovation that might have nurtured sustained growth in productivity.

Preface

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022-03-15

New institutional economics: insights and doubts - G. DARI-MATTIACCI, and D. KEHOE, eds. 2020. Roman Law and Economics, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vol. 1, pp. xx+345, figs. 6, tables 6; vol. 2, pp. xx+435, figs. 12, tables 10. ISBN 978-0-19-878720-4 and 978-0-19-878721-1.

Journal of Roman Archaeology · 2022-12-01

New institutional economics: insights and doubts - G. DARI-MATTIACCI, and D. KEHOE, eds. 2020. Roman Law and Economics, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vol. 1, pp. xx+345, figs. 6, tables 6; vol. 2, pp. xx+435, figs. 12, tables 10. ISBN 978-0-19-878720-4 and 978-0-19-878721-1.