The Nobilitas and Economic Innovation

The period around 300 BCE was one of dramatic change in the structure of the Republican economy. This chapter details the chronological convergence of three developments relevant to Rome’s production of large-scale infrastructure: the appearance of coinage, the expansion of public contracting, and attachment of the censor to the maintenance and construction of the city’s buildings. Together, these trends allowed speak to a broad shift in the logic of Rome’s urban economy towards more market-based ways of organizing major productive activity. To explain this change, I focus on the rising attachment of some Roman elites in this period to more liquid wealth gained from trade and market production. This period has drawn significant interest for the emergence of a new ruling order, the patricio-plebeian nobilitas , and economic change is interpreted within this dynamic political context.

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Cartography · Context (archaeology) · Convergence (economics) · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Geography · Order (exchange) · Period (music) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Production (economics) · Scale (ratio) · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Studies and Legal History · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Law