Conference Proceedings

Quantifying the Roman Economy. Methods and Problems
Edited by Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson
Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy, Oxford University Press, 2009.

This collection of essays is the first volume in a new series, Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Edited by the series editors, it focuses on the economic performance of the Roman empire, analysing the extent to which Roman political domination of the Mediterranean and north-west Europe created the conditions for the integration of agriculture, production, trade, and commerce across the regions of the empire. Using the evidence of both documents and archaeology, the contributors suggest how we can derive a quantified account of economic growth and contraction in the period of the empire's greatest extent and prosperity.

Settlement, Urbanization, and Population
Edited by Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson
Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy, Oxford University Press, 2011.

This volume presents a collection of studies focussing on population and settlement patterns in the Roman empire in the perspective of the economic development of the Mediterranean world between 100 BC and AD 350. The analyses offered here highlight the issues of regional and temporal variation in Italy, Spain, Britain, Egypt, Crete, and Asia Minor from classical Greece to the early Byzantine period. The chapters fall into two main groups, the first dealing with the evidence for rural settlement, as revealed by archaeological field surveys, and the attendant methodological problems of extrapolating from that evidence a view of population; and the second with city populations and the phenomenon of urbanization. They proceed to consider hierarchies of settlement in the characteristic classical pattern of city plus territory, and the way in which those entities are defined from the highest to the lowest level: the empire as 'city of Rome plus territory', then regional and local hierarchies, and, more precisely, the identity and the nature of the 'instruments' which enables them to function in economic cohesion.

The Roman Agricultural Economy: Organisation, Investment and Production
Edited by A. K. Bowman and A. I. Wilson
Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford University Press, 2013.

This volume is a collection of studies which presents new analyses of the nature and scale of Roman agriculture in the Mediterranean world from c. 100 BC to AD 350. It provides a clear understanding of the fundamental features of Roman agricultural production through studying the documentary and archaeological evidence for the modes of land exploitation and the organization, development of, and investment in this sector of the Roman economy. 

Moving substantially beyond the simple assumption that agriculture was the dominant sector of the ancient economy, the volume explores what was special and distinctive about it, especially with a view of its development and integration during a period of expansion and prosperity across the empire. The papers exemplify a range of possible approaches to studying and, within limits, quantifying aspects of Roman agricultural production, marshalling a large quantity of evidence, chiefly archaeological and papyrological, to address important questions of the organization and performance of this sector in the Roman world.

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World
Edited by A. I. Wilson and A. K. Bowman
Oxford Studies in the Roman Economy, Oxford University Press. 2017.

This volume presents eighteen papers by leading Roman historians and archaeologists discussing trade in the Roman Empire during the period c.100 BC to AD 350. It focuses especially on the role of the Roman state in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the empire, in taxing that trade, and in intervening in the markets to ensure the supply of particular commodities, especially for the city of Rome and for the army.

Mining, Metal Supply and Coinage in the Roman Empire
Edited by A. I. Wilson and A. K. Bowman
Oxford Studies in the Roman Economy. Oxford University Press.

This volume will publish the papers of the OXREP conference on Metals, Mining and Coinage in the Roman World held on October 1-2, 2010. Contributions are currently being edited.