Reframing the Roman Economy

This book focuses on those features of the Roman economy that are less traceable in text and archaeology, and as a consequence remain largely underexplored in contemporary scholarship. By reincorporating, for the first time, these long-obscured practices in mainstream scholarly discourses, this book offers a more complete and balanced view of an economic system that for too long has mostly been studied through its macro-economic and large-scale – and thus archaeologically and textually omnipresent – aspects. The topic is approached in five thematic sections, covering unusual actors and perspectives, unusual places of production, exigent landscapes of exploitation, less-visible products and artefacts, and divergent views on emblematic economic spheres. To this purpose, the book brings together a select group of leading scholars and promising early career researchers in archaeology and ancient economic history, well positioned to steer this ill-developed but fundamental field of theRoman economy in promising new directions. Dimitri Van Limbergen is a researcher at Ghent University, Belgium. His main areas of study are Roman archaeology and economic history. Adeline Hoffelinck is a researcher at Ghent University, Belgium. She researches the transformation of commercial infrastructure in Roman cities during their urbanization. Devi Taelman is a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. He is interested in the study of the economy of ornamental stones used in antiquity, and in human-environment interactions in Roman Antiquity.