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A comparative perspective on the determinants of the scale and productivity of maritime trade in the Roman Mediterranean

Roman ShipsA comparative perspective on the determinants of the scale and productivity of maritime trade in the Roman Mediterranean

Walter Scheidel

Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics: April (2009)

Abstract

The scale and productivity of maritime trade is a function of environmental conditions, political processes and economic development that determine demand, and more specifically of trading costs. Trading costs are the sum of transportation costs (comprised of the cost of carriage and the cost of risk, most notably predation), transaction costs and financing costs. Comparative evidence from the medieval and early modern periods shows that the cost of predation (caused by war, privateering, piracy, and tolls) and commercial organization (which profoundly affects transaction and financing costs as well as the cost of carriage) have long been the most important determinants of overall trading costs. This suggests that conditions in the Roman period were unusually favorable for maritime trade. Technological innovation, by contrast, was primarily an endogenous function of broader political and economic developments and should not be viewed as a major factor in the expansion of commerce in this period.



This meeting focuses on ship design and navigation techniques in the Greco- Roman period but seeks to contribute to a larger question, that of the relationship between maritime technology and economic performance. My paper deals exclusively with the latter issue, concentrating in the first instance on the ‘Roman’ Mediterranean, broadly defined as the history of western Eurasia’s main ‘inner sea’ from the First Punic War to the Islamic conquests. Rather than privileging shipping technology on a priori grounds, I ask which factors determined the volume of trade and its productivity in this period. As so often in the study of ancient history, comparative contextualization is essential. Changes in the volume of trade are only dimly perceptible in broad outlines, and in the absence of time series of freight charges it is impossible directly to measure variation in productivity over time. I therefore draw on comparative evidence from more recent and better documented historical periods in order to ascertain which variables were likely to have had a significant impact on the scale and productivity of maritime commerce in the Roman world. This indirect approach is designed to provide a general framework for the historical interpretation of observable details of ancient shipping techniques. I begin by very briefly considering macro-features that affected the overall scale of maritime trade before I move on to a more detailed survey of what have historically been the key determinants of shipping productivity.

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