Anyone doing a historical political or trading game should have this in ther Appendix N.
A well written account of the foreign
trade of the Roman Empire through Egypt and the Red Sea. It explores
the products associated with it's trading partners, the difficulties
merchants faced in obtaining these products and the internal and
external taxation policies effecting foreign trade.
While concentrating on the goods
obtained from East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian
subcontinent, it book also includes valuable information on balm from
Judea, the Nile to Red Sea caravan route supporting the Indian Ocean
trade and the Roman trade goods sent to the east.
Well organized, the book starts with
tables of common abbreviations, comparisons of Greek, Egyptian, and
Roman currencies and estimate of Roman government expenditures,
especially the costs of maintaining the legions. He follows this up
with an enlightening description of the various trade routes before
moving into chapters discussing the trade with the individual regions
and countries. He relies mostly on Pliny and the Periplus of
Erythean Sea for
these areas, but adds insights from a number of modern secondary
sources, as well as nuggets of information and colorful illustrations
from other sources from antiquity, such as Martial,
Philostratus and Strabo. The book ends with a brief discussion of
the Antonin embassy to China,
the authors conclusions and appendices showing the author's economic
calculations.
His
overall thesis is that many of the Roman provinces, such as Gaul and
Britania did not produce enough tax revenue to support the legions
stationed within their bounds. That these local shortfalls were made
up by taxation on foreign trade. That the foreign trade was
imbalanced in that Rome was exporting bullion acquired from previous
conquests and mining in exchange for luxury consumables and that the
foreign trade collapsed due to running out of bullion and this in
turn caused the collapse of or significantly contributed to the
collapse of the Empire.
McLaughlin
is a gifted author who writes in a clear, engaging style. He takes
what could easily be a dry scholarly dissertation and creates a
readable narrative, supported by copious footnotes. I find that his
conclusion, while plausible, is not convincing for a number of
reasons.
First
is a stylistic reason concerning his footnotes. There are many, but
he only uses the an abbreviation of the name of the work, never
including the edition nor in the case of sources from Antiquity, the
translation if he used them. This makes researching his footnotes a
matter of deduction and selecting an edition and translation. For
example, the very first footnote is simply Res Gesta, 15.
I can infer that he means the
funeral inscription of the Emperor Augustus - Res Gesta Div
Augusti, as opposed to the Res
Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus or other such works. I
used the translation available at the
Internet Classics Archive
(http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html).
While
this might seem minor, his whole conclusion rests on the statement
“Pliny confirms over 100 million sesterces of Roman bullion was
exported from the Empire every year.” The footnote supporting that
statement reads Pliny 12.41.
Now, we can infer that by Pliny,
McLaughlin means Pliny the Elder Natural History
as the likely reference. Looking up editions we find that Henry T
Riley's translation (H. G. Bohn, 1855) is available at
www.perseus.tufts.edu and
Philomon Holland's 1601 translation (Desfontaines, Paris, 1829) is
available at penelope.uchicago.edu . Holland's translation can not
be the source of the assertion, as he does not have 41 chapters in
Book 12. Now in Riley's translation we find Pliny writes “At
the very lowest computation, India, the Seres, and the Arabian
Peninsula, withdraw from our empire one hundred millions of sesterces
every year
“, looking for a similar statement in Holland's translation we find
Book 12, Chapter 18 “ India,
the Seres, and that demy-Iland of Arabia, standeth us at the least in
an hundred millions of Sesterces, and so much fetch they from us in
good money“.
This one does mention money, which would have included bullion in
it's composition, but what is the original Latin text? From
bibleotheca Augusta (www.hs-augsburg.de)
we find : “minimaque
computatione miliens centena milia sestertium annis omnibus India et
Seres et paeninsula illa imperio nostro adimunt” Which
tracks with Riley's translation much better than Holland's.
“Sesterium”
referring to money would indicate the large brass coins worth ¼ of a
silver Denarius or 1/100 of a gold Aureus. However it's most common
use in Latin literature is as a unit of accounting, indicating value.
As brass is not an alloy of precious metals, then assuming it to
refer to the coin itself would not support McLaughlin's conclusion.
As a unit of accounting, we then need to determine if goods other
than silver and gold coins were exported from Rome. And the author
helpfully supplies us with multiple references to the export of red
coral, wool and grain to India. Thi conclusively disproves the
author's interpolation of bullion into Pliny's statement. While gold
and silver coins, particularly the high quality early imperial coins
were used for commerce, we are unable to demonstrate the proportion
of the trade value they accounted for. Therefore, we can nly
conclude that McLaughlin's contention is plausible, not certain.
One
other flaw, that contributes to taking a close look at his conclusion
is his unquestioning use of the legendary Syracusia as an example of
the technology available and used by Roman merchant ships. Our
source for information about the Syracusa is Athenaeus of Naucratis
text Deipnosophistae
(http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus5b.html#c40)
– also known as the world's first cookbook. It recounts a series
of tales told at banquets; in the case of the Syracusia or Hieron's
ship; it is told third hand repeating a tale told by a man named
Moschion.
Now
the Deipnosophistae
was written in the early third century AD and Hieron lived in the
early third century BC; so any information has passed down
generations before it was written down. What caught my attention was
the description of a device called a raven “ iron
ravens, as they were called, all round the ship, which, being shot
forth by engines, seized on the vessels of the enemy, and brought
them round so as to expose them to blows
“; I immediately recognized the term and knew it to be wrong. For
the raven or corvus was a Roman invention from the Punic Wars
described clearly by Polybius as a hinged gangplank with a spike on
the end that was dropped on enemy ships in order to facilitate
boarding by Roman infantry. Quite sensible in galley based sea
battles – completely useless as a defense against pirates as
McLaughlin postulates. The last thing a merchant wants to do is
attach his vessel with a pirate ship full of armed men. I then
started looking at the description of the ship itself and started
laughing at the idea of towers with rocks and weights to drop down on
other ships, as well as gardens and tile roofed pavilions on the deck
– for so much weight above the waterline will raise reduce the
stability of the vessel and increase the risk of capsizing. As
happened with the Vasa
in 1628. The ship was said to have been built in two sections which
were launched separately – unlikely but possible. I served on the
USS Tarawa (LHA-1) which was constructed in that manner and had a
step in the middle of the passageway where the builder had misaligned
the decks. Having been launched separately, by necessity it would
have needed to be moored somewhere while the halves were joined, yet
Athenaeus goes on to relate that the ship was too large for an harbor
in Sicily so it was given to Ptolomey in Egypt. I've seen two
estimates for the size of the ship 55 or 110 meters; I've also driven
an Anchorage class LSD (169 meters) into Syracuse. The Grand Harbor
although less sheltered than the little harbor, has always been of
ample size. The more sheltered little harbor is still almost 500
meters from it's base to the current breakwater. Such uncritical
acceptance by the author detracts from the work.
I've
pointed out the flaws in the book, but it's still a worthwhile read
for anyone interested in the Roman Empire and I recommend it as a
launching point into the sources so the reader can draw their own
conclusions.
