Topic: The Rise and decline of the Roman Empire

Economy and Society

Politics and formal culture in Greece and Rome were mainly affairs of the cities—which means that they were of intense concern only to a minority of the population. Most Greeks and Romans were farmers, tied to the soil and often to local rituals and festivals that were rather different from urban forms.

THE INFLUENCE OF INDEPENDENT FARMERS

Many Greek farmers, for example, annually gathered for a spring passion play to celebrate the recovery of the goddess of fertility from the lower world, an event that was seen as a vital preparation for planting and that also suggested the possibility of an after life—a prospect important to many people who endured a life of hard labor poverty.

A substantial population of free farmers, who owned their own land, flourished in the early days of the Greek city-states and later around Rome. However, there was a constant tendency, most pronounced in Rome, for large landlords to squeeze these farmers, forcing them to become tenants or laborers or to join the swelling crowds of the urban lower class.

Tensions between tyrants and aristocrats or democrats and aristocrats in Athens often revolved around free farmers’ attempts to preserve their independence and shake off the heavy debts they had incurred. The Roman republic declined in part because too many farmers became dependent on the protection or large landlords, even when they did not work their estates outright, and so no longer could vote freely.

SOUTHERN MEDITERRANEAN ENVIRONMENT: AGRICULTURE

Farming in Greece and in much of Italy was complicated by the fact that soil conditions were not ideal for grain growing, and yet grain was the staple of life. First in Greece, then in central Italy, farmers were increasingly tempted to shift to the production of olives and grapes, which were used primarily for cooking and wine making. These products were well suited to the soil conditions, but they required an unusually extensive conversion of agriculture to a market basis. That is farmers who produced grapes and olives had to buy some of the food they needed, and they had to sell most of their own product in order to do this. Furthermore, planting olive trees or grape vines required substantial capital, for they did not bear fruit for at least five years after planting. This was one reason so many farmers went into debt. It was also one of the reasons that large landlords gained increasing advantage over independent farmers, for they could enter into market production on a much larger scale if only because of their greater access to capital.

The rise of commercial agriculture in Greece and then around Rome was one of the prime forces leading to efforts to establish an empire. Greek city-states, with Athens usually in the lead, developed colonies in the Middle east and then in Sicily mainly to gain access to grain production; for this, they traded not only olive oil and wine but also manufactured products and silver. Rome pushed south, in part, to acquire the Sicilian grain fields and later used much of north Africa as it granary. Indeed, the Romans encouraged such heavy cultivation in north Africa that they promoted a soil depletion, which help account for the region’s reduced agricultural fertility in later centuries.

The importance of commercial farming obviously dictated extensive concern with trade. Private merchants operated most of the ships that carried agricultural products and other goods. Greek city-states and ultimately the Roman state supervised the grain trade, promoting public works and storage facilities and carefully regulating the vital supplies. Other kinds of trade were vital also. Luxury products from the shops of urban artists or craftspeople played a major role in the lifestyle of the upper classes.

There was some trade beyond the borders of Mediterranean civilization, for goods from India and China. In this trade, the Mediterranean people found themselves at some disadvantage, for their manufactured products were less sophisticated than those of eastern Asia; thus, they typically exported animal skins, precious metals, and even exotic African animals for Asian zoos in return for the spices and artistic products of the east.

For all the importance of trade, merchants enjoyed a somewhat ambiguous status in classical Mediterranean civilization. Leading Athenian merchants were usually foreigners, mostly from the trading people of the Middle East—the descendents of Lydians and Phoenicians. Merchants had a somewhat higher status in Rome, clearly forming the second most prestigious social class under the landed patricians, but here, too, the aristocracy frequently disputed the merchants’ rights. Overall, merchants fared better in the Mediterranean than in China, in terms of official recognition, but worse than India; classical Mediterranean society certainly did not set in motion a culture that distinctively valued capitalist money-making.

Slavery was another key ingredient of the classical economy. Philosophers such as Aristotle produced elaborate justifications for the necessity of slavery in a proper society. Athenians used slaves as household servants and also as workers in their vital silver mines, which provided the manpower for Athens’ empire and commercial operations alike. Sparta used slaves extensively for agricultural work. Slavery spread steadily in Rome from the final centuries of the republic. Because most slaves came from conquered territories, the need for slaves was another key element in military expansion. Here was a theme visible in earlier civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean, and within later societies in this region as well, which helps explain the greater importance of military forces and expansion in these areas than in India or China.

Actual slave conditions varied greatly. Roman slaves performed household tasks—including the tutoring of upper-class children, for which cultured Greek slaves were highly valued. They also worked the mines, for precious metals and for iron; as in Greece, slave labor in the mines was particularly brutal, and few slaves survived more than a few years of such an existence. Roman estate owners used large numbers of slaves for agricultural work, along with paid laborers and tenant farmers. This practice was another source of the steady pressure placed upon free farmers who could not easily compete with unpaid forced labor.

Partly because of slavery, partly because of the overall orientation of upper-class culture, neither Greece nor Rome was especially interested in technological innovations applicable to agriculture or manufacturing. The Greeks made important advances in shipbuilding and navigation, which were vital for their trading economy. Romans, less adept on the water, developed their skill in engineering to provide greater urban amenities and good roads for the swift and easy movement of troops. But a technology designed to improve the production of food or manufactured goods did not figure largely in this civilization, which many relied on the earlier achievements of previous Mediterranean societies. Abundant slave labor probably discouraged concern for more efficient production methods.

So did a sense that the true goals of humankind were artistic and political. One Hellenistic scholar, for example, refused to write a handbook on engineering because “the work of an engineer and everything that ministers to the needs of life is ignoble and vulgar.” As a consequence of this outlook, Mediterranean society lagged behind both India and China in production technology, which was one reason for its resulting unfavorable balance of trade with eastern Asia.

Because of the divisions within classical Mediterranean society, no easy generalizations about culture or achievement can be made. An 18th-century English historian called the high point of the Roman Empire, before 180 AD, the period in human history “during which the condition of the human race was most happy or prosperous.” This is doubtful, given the technological accomplishments of China and India. And certainly, many slaves, women, and ordinary farmers in the Mediterranean world might have disagreed with this viewpoint.

Few farmers, for example, actively participated in the political structures or cultural opportunities that were the most obvious mark of this civilization. Many continued to work largely as their ancestors had done, with quite similar tools and a very similar poverty, untouched by the doings of the great or the bustle of the cities except when wars engulfed their lands.

We are tempted, of course, exclusively to remember the urban achievements, for they exerted the greatest influence on later ages that recalled the glories of Greece and Rome.

However, the relatively unchanging face of ordinary life had an important influence as well, as many farmers and artisans long maintained the habits and outlook they developed during the great days of the Greek and Roman empires, and because their separation from much of the official culture posed both a challenge and opportunity for new cultural movements such as Christianity.

TOWARD THE FALL OF ROME

Classical Mediterranean society had one final impact on world history through its rather fragmentary collapse. Unlike China, classical civilization in the Mediterranean region was not simply disrupted only to revive. Unlike India, there was not central religion, derived from the civilization itself, to serve as link between the classical period and what followed. Furthermore, the fall of Rome was not uniform; in essence, Rome fell more in some parts of the Mediterranean than it did in others. The result, among other things, was that no single civilization ultimately rose to claim the mantle of Greece and Rome. At the same time, there was no across-the-board maintenance of the classical Mediterranean institutions and values in any of the civilizations that later claimed a relationship to the Greek and Roman past. Greece and Rome lived on, in more than idle memory, but their heritage was unquestionably more complex and more selective than proved to be the case for India or China.

PERSPECTIVE

In contrast to India and China, no relatively straight line connects the classical period in Persia or the Mediterranean to the present day. A Persian tradition was established, in art, for example, but many aspects of Persian politics and culture, including the Zoroastrian religion, were disrupted or later replaced. Ultimately, both Persian and Mediterranean traditions added to the heritage but also the diversities and tensions in the Middle East.

As for the Mediterranean itself, its unity as a civilization ended with the fall of Rome. Certain cultural features remain, however, in southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. If the classical Mediterranean world did not create a full heritage for the present, it did generate many features that were revived by later societies. Greek and Hellenistic emphasis on scientific and logical thinking was later retried, as were the various Greek political forms, including democracy and the idea of a senate.

Classical Mediterranean forms were revived not only in western Europe, but also—earlier and often more elaborately—in eastern Europe and North Africa. This underscores the importance of the classical Mediterranean heritage, but its contributions to several later civilizations also complicates our understanding of it.

The impulse to regard Greece and Rome as the origins of what is now called Western civilization runs very deep. Rome’s glory and the power of Greek culture obviously impressed thinkers and statesmen in western Europe, who looked back o these times for inspiration. This was a key theme in European history after the classical period.

All the classical civilizations left strong imprints on later developments. At the same time, these imprints require careful assessment, because none of the civilizations remained static. The nature and impact of the legacy must be weighted against innovations. This general analytical requirement is doubly important when considering classical Mediterranean culture, for the simple reason that, after Rome, Mediterranean civilization split apart. Some common features remained; however, no Mediterranean civilization continued to exist as a whole.

Some historians argue that regarding Greece and Rome as the origins of Western civilization is completely off the mark. Greece, particularly, was proud of its own uniqueness, and when it sought to expand, it looked to the land of the Middle East, not the West; Rome also ended up placing special value on its eastern holdings. Not surprisingly, Greek-Roman heritage lived on more directly in southeastern Europe than in the West. Certainly, the West does not have sole claim to Mediterranean heritage.

Nonetheless, selective Greek-Roman values and institutions did affect western Europe, either immediately or in later revivals. So the debate continues about positioning the classical Mediterranean civilization in light of later developments.