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Wednesday 23 April 2014 14.00 - 16.00
F-3 ANT02 Elites and the Urban Food Supply in the Roman World
Elise Richtersaal first floor
Network: Antiquity Chair: Peter Stabel
Organizers: Research Network Structural Determinants of Economic Performance in the Roman World (SDEP), Arjan Zuiderhoek Discussant: Peter Stabel
Christopher Dickenson : The Politics of the Marketplace in Roman Period Greek Cities
This paper will explore how elite involvement in managing the local food supply manifested itself in daily life in the agoras and market-buildings of Greek cities under Roman rule. Firstly, attention will be paid to the role of the elite in shaping the physical environment in which the buying and ... (Show more)
This paper will explore how elite involvement in managing the local food supply manifested itself in daily life in the agoras and market-buildings of Greek cities under Roman rule. Firstly, attention will be paid to the role of the elite in shaping the physical environment in which the buying and selling of foodstuffs took place, whether by erecting new market buildings or by modifying old ones. The evidence for buildings and structures that were used by elites in an official capacity as magistrates to regulate trading activity, such as raised platforms, or so-called “agoranomeia” will also be examined. The impact of such amenities on the economic life of the Roman period polis will be considered. I will argue, however, that beyond their practical value such buildings and structures played a key role in shaping local power-relations between members of elite and the rest of the urban population. Elite/non-elite relations within the poleis of the Empire were characterised by a high degree of tension. That tension was perhaps nowhere so clearly visible as the hustle and bustle of daily life on the marketplace. As such, modification of trading facilities by the elite had as much to do with trying to reinforce and legitimate their unequal political position as it did with economic concerns. To make this case I will bring changes in the built environment into connection with monuments known to have been erected in public spaces to advertise elite involvement in the food supply and with literary sources that provide insights into elite attitudes towards that issue. (Show less)

Loonis Logghe : Contended Rations: Plebs, their Tribunes, and the Politics of Grain Laws in the Late Roman Republic
In this paper, I shall research the political aspects of the food supply in the metropolis of urban Rome in the Late Republic (133-23 BCE). By examining the problematic elements in the explanatory models that are pervasive in studies of Republican politics, a new model shall be proposed to better ... (Show more)
In this paper, I shall research the political aspects of the food supply in the metropolis of urban Rome in the Late Republic (133-23 BCE). By examining the problematic elements in the explanatory models that are pervasive in studies of Republican politics, a new model shall be proposed to better interpret interaction between the elite magistrates, especially the plebeian tribunes, and other social groups such as the urban plebs. This model, which is still work in progress, is based on various theories in the social sciences, including Tilly’s (and other’s) contentious politics and North’s new institutional economics.

Two features in traditional interpretations of the tribunes’ role in the various grain laws of the Roman Republic shall be closely examined. The first is the functional bias: to my knowledge, the tribunes’ motives have always been interpreted as part of an instrumental strategy. Propositions concerning the food supply were interpreted as a means to a greater end, such as further career advancement or a political base to use in advancing or legitimizing other policies. The second problem is the nobility bias: grain laws were clever initiatives by the Roman political elite (tribunes, other magistrates, or members of the senate).

This image perpetuates the vision of a strongly aristocratic Roman Republic. The notion that the plebs themselves considered the grain laws as an end is usually superficially assumed, but very few scholars would agree that they could take a certain level of initiative. This paper will propose that this was possible: the plebs were themselves partly responsible for instigating grain laws. However, this will not be a simple solution of turning the top-down perspective around. I shall suggest that the tribuni plebis, the primary magistrates to deal with these issues, were confronted with much more complex mechanisms between different social groups, and that these magistrates occupied a position of institutionalized contention. (Show less)

Nicolas Solonakis : Elites and the Urban Food Supply in Roman Asia Minor: Intervention and Generosity
Frequent yet unpredictable harvest failures were a notorious aspect of pre-modern agriculture, dependent as farming was on the vagaries of the climate. Cities were particularly vulnerable in such situations, as most urban inhabitants did not produce their own food. High food prices could rapidly endanger the livelihood of the urban ... (Show more)
Frequent yet unpredictable harvest failures were a notorious aspect of pre-modern agriculture, dependent as farming was on the vagaries of the climate. Cities were particularly vulnerable in such situations, as most urban inhabitants did not produce their own food. High food prices could rapidly endanger the livelihood of the urban poor. Economic malaise and social disruption was the result. Consequently, most pre-modern civic governments took measures to shield their populations from the effects of food price spikes. The Roman empire was a highly urbanised society, yet ancient historians have either mostly ignored or judged ineffective civic government and elite interventions in the urban food market in times of dearth. This project concerns an in-depth study of civic government and elite involvement in the urban food market in the cities of Roman imperial Asia Minor, where evidence is plentiful. Adopting the novel approach of studying both government market interventions and food-related elite benefactions (munificence) simultaneously, and employing important theoretical insights from the social sciences and comparative history on food markets and food distribution, we aim to move beyond the confines of old debates and present a new picture of the management of Roman urban food markets that will contribute to a better understanding of the functioning of Greco-Roman cities and pre-modern urbanism more generally. (Show less)

Arjan Zuiderhoek : Markets, Generosity and Trust: Civic Benefactions and the Urban Food Supply in the Roman East
Urban elites in the Roman east employed a range of strategies to prevent food price spikes due to shortages from destabilizing civic society. Among such strategies one finds the setting up of public grain funds, the appointment of special magistracies to manage these funds and to supervise and regulate the ... (Show more)
Urban elites in the Roman east employed a range of strategies to prevent food price spikes due to shortages from destabilizing civic society. Among such strategies one finds the setting up of public grain funds, the appointment of special magistracies to manage these funds and to supervise and regulate the food market, a certain amount of price regulation, and so forth. In addition, elites also used their private resources to contribute gifts of food or cash that could be used to buy food when needed. Such munificence took place both during shortages and outside them. I will argue that although such private contributions were irregular and, to a certain extent, dependent on the whims of individual benefactors, they were in fact instrumental to the overall success of elite food market intervention strategies, in that they contributed to the forging of social trust, which facilitated both political and commercial processes in the cities. On the whole, I argue that elite intervention, including munificence, had the effect of stabilizing the urban food market, increasing security for both buyers and sellers. Crucially, it served to keep popular spending power at least partially intact during periods of shortages. Thus, the stabilizing effects of such inverventions were felt throughout the urban economy. (Show less)



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