Chapter Nine. Jones and the late Roman Economy

Bibliographic Data

ID20041579
AuthorsBryan Ward-Perkins, Bryan Ward‐Perkins (corresponding author)
Year2008
Pages193-211
Publication date2008-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueA.H.M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire (Brill's Series on the Early Middle Ages) (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/ej.9789004163836.i-284.65
OpenAlexW747039857
ISBN9789004163836
LanguageEN
Citations received11

This chapter is on Jones and the late Roman economy and it explains why his view of it was so pessimistic in his Later Roman Empire. Before judging as pessimistic Jones' minimalist assessment of late Roman commerce, one needs to view it in a broader context, and be aware of how he described the role of trade in earlier Roman times. In his 1959 article, ?Over-Taxation and the Decline of the Roman Empire?, rates of taxation, a shrinking of the Roman economy, and the overall decline of the empire were explicitly and forcefully linked. As any reader of the Theodosian Code must, Jones accepted that tied labour was an important feature of the late Roman period. The minimalist, and predominantly pessimistic, view that Jones had of the later Roman economy was to a large extent possible because he almost completely ignored archaeological evidence.Keywords: Later Roman Empire; A.H.M Jones; archaeological evidence; late Roman economy; late Roman taxation; Theodosian Code; tied labour

Art · Classical Antiquity Studies · History