Panel 8.5 – The economics of urbanism in the Roman West


Organiser/Chair:

  • Matthew Hobson (Leiden University)

External Discussant:

  •   Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen (University of Southern Denmark)

Panel abstract

To what extent were towns integral to the economic functioning of the Roman empire? How did the structures of Roman imperialism affect the processes of urbanisation and municipalisation within the Roman provinces? Can the distribution patterns of large-, medium- and small-sized towns across the western empire help us to identify the major factors determining their food supply and growth? Emphasis in the debate over the role of the town in the ancient economy has recently shifted from Max Weber and Moses Finley's ideal types to the use of urbanisation rates as proxies for economic performance. This panel intends to use a vast set of newly available data collected by researchers as part of the long-running Empire of 2000 Cities Project, hosted by the University of Leiden, to explore these questions at a broader scale of analysis than ever before. Geographically it will encompass the majority of the Latin west; the Greek-speaking regions, whose urban sites developed within the polis system, are intended to be the focus of a sister panel, which we hope will also be hosted by the 2018 ICCA. Thanks to the flexible web- and GIS-linked database produced by the Leiden Cities project, which it is hoped will eventually be free to access online, patterns in the size, monumentality and status of urban sites across a vast geographical area can now be observed. A number of regional specialists from within the project will be invited to respond to a discussion paper, outlining these broader patterns, to be circulated 6 months in advance of the conference (i.e. by October 2017). Individual speakers will be asked to comment upon how their provinces fit into or differ from the broader regional developments of the western empire and upon the significance of this for the overall functioning of the Roman economic system.

Paper abstracts

1. Frida Pellegrino

Models of settlement hierarchy: an evaluation of regional case-studies in selected areas of the North-Western provinces
A settlement hierarchy implies that settlements are organized in a “pyramidal” fashion according to their size, range of services, goods, and functions. However, the shape of the relationship between settlements can vary. For example, a settlement hierarchy can be characterized by a single, large city lying at its top and numerous small settlements at its bottom, with almost no intermediate urban settlements. It may, on the other hand, comprise a mix of large, middle and small settlements.
This paper will discuss the settlement hierarchy of selected areas of the North-Western provinces of the Roman Empire at a time when this area was at its peak (2nd c. AD). Given how settlement systems are likely to be subjected to path dependence, reference to their evolution from the Iron Age will be made.
Specifically, the main questions that will be tackled will be: what can the shape of a regional settlement hierarchy tell us about the economy, politics, and socio-cultural development of its region? What effect do the Roman conquest and the integration of these regions within the Roman Empire have in their settlement patterns? Why in some regions does it appear that changes have occurred slowly, allowing their settlement hierarchy to be able to adjust accordingly without major disruptions, while in others cases settlement systems have not survived the economic and political cycles that created them? Why do some settlement systems appear to be more resilient and others more fragile? In order to answer these questions, theories within the fields of economics and geography that engaged with the geometry of the hierarchical distribution of cities (e.g. central place theory, locational analysis, rank-size analysis, and urban primacy) will be considered.

 

2. Karolien Pazmany (University of Leiden)

Between mountains and frontiers. The roman urban settlement system in the northern Alpine region
The presented work is based upon results of a doctoral research which was part of the overarching project ‘An Empire of 2000 cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman Empire’(University of Leiden). How many cities existed in the Roman Empire? This was the starting question of the project, embracing further desires to investigate the processes of urban development over the whole empire, the relations between urban centers and the socio-economic implications.
The intention of this presentation is to give a brief overview of the urban settlement system in the northern Alpine region, including the Roman provinces of Germania Superior, Raetia and Noricum. It concerns a territory described by the classical author Strabo as depressing and unfruitful. The reconstruction of that settlement system will rely on a number of different aspects. These will include processes such as that of municipalisation and monumentalisation. The presence of the army and its influence on town developments will also be considered as a factor. Possible explanations for similarities or differences between the urban developments in the three provinces will be suggested. Hopefully, by looking for answers to fairly simple questions like ‘Which places performed urban functions?’, ‘What did Roman towns look like?’ and ‘How were Roman towns constructed?’, a better understanding of the urban dynamics in the northern Alpine region will be reached.

 

3. Pieter Houten (Universiteit Leiden)

Urban Pattern on the Iberian Peninsula in the High Empire
The great cities of the Roman Empire, Rome, Carthage and Antioch have drawn the attention for decades, leading to an idea of the standard Roman city in the eyes of the general public. Within the academic field the idea of a standard city has been successfully challenged and the realization has set that the Roman city was in general small and often less magnificent than these large cities. Nonetheless, the Roman city is still often taken to be the centre of the civitas, within the simple model of an urbs and territorium. When looking closely at the urban pattern of the Iberian Peninsula we observe within this sub-region a plethora of different centres for the civitates.
This paper will discuss the range of the different centres of the civitates on the Iberian Peninsula. As such, the development of the large centres, such as Tarraco, Carthago Nova and Gades will be taken into account, as well as the development of smaller, strongly monumentalized centres such as Munigua and Segobriga. In addition, we will turn to an often neglected form of ‘urbanization’: the civitates and even municipia that lacked a clear urban centre.
The range of urban settlements and their development will be further understood by regarding the spatial patterns. By taking the geographical and historical template of the Iberian Peninsula into account we can better understand the different forms of urbanism found on the Iberian Peninsula.

 

4. Matthew Hobson (University of Leicester)

The Settlement Hierarchy of Roman North Africa
Using new advances in technology related to spatial databases and geographical information systems, this paper looks at the distribution patterns relating to the size, monumentality, juridical status and administrative structure of over a thousand of the larger settlements that existed in the African provinces during the Roman period. This region is often marveled at for the great density of towns that it possessed. This is especially so for the northern part of the province of Africa Proconsularis, now modern day Tunisia, in which numerous impressively well-preserved examples of urban monumental architecture survive. In the case of the African provinces we also have an extremely rich corpus of inscriptions, revealing much about past municipal institutions. Few previous attempts have been made, however, to really understand the settlement hierarchy of this vast area, or to divide the numerous towns that existed into different types and to quantify them.
Much of the data collected for these towns and villages has been available for several decades. The ability to bring all these various categories of data together in one place, however, and to compare them in maps and figures across such a vast area, is new. Using GIS layers derived from earth-observation satellites, the obvious factors constraining and enabling the development of urban sites, such as rainfall, temperature, ruggedness of the landscape etc. can be brought into sharper focus. This also helps one to begin to separate out what was unique in the achievement of the Roman period, from what came before and what followed afterward.