Settlement, Urbanization, and Population
Edited by
ALAN BOWMAN
and
ANDREW WILSON
(OXFORD STUDIES ON THE ROMAN ECONOMY)
OXFORD
University Press
2011
Preface
This volume is a collection of studies focusing on population and settlement patterns in the Roman empire in the perspective of the economic development of the Mediterranean world c. 100 BC to AD 350. The analyses offered here highlight the issues of regional and temporal variation: Italy, Spain, Britain, Egypt, Crete, Asia Minor from the Roman republic to the early Byzantine period. Although they are by no means exhaustive, the contributions to this volume sketch out the varied landscapes in which the many general issues raised need to be further analysed. The relationship between urban settlements and their environs and the economy of rural settlements in or beyond those environs is crucial, and the authors suggest particular aspects that might repay analysis: the physical size of settlements and the relationship between size, location, and distribution. The chapters fall into two main groups, the first dealing with the evidence for rural settlement as revealed by archaeological field surveys, and the attendant methodological problems of extrapolating from that evidence to a view of population; and the second with city populations and the phenomenon of urbanization. They proceed to consider hierarchies of settlement in the characteristic classical pattern of city plus territory, the way in which those entities are defined, from the highest to the lowest level: the empire as "city of Rome plus territory", then regional and local hierarchies, and, more precisely, the identity and the nature of the "instruments" that enable them to function in economic cohesion.
We are grateful to the AHRC for its financial support of the research programme, to the staff of the Stelios Ioannou Centre for Research in Classical and Byzantine Studies, where the conference was held, and to all those who contributed to the discussion at the conference. The task of converting the proceedings into a monograph has also benefited from the interest and support of Baron Lorne Thyssen, which have enabled us to carry forward the research programme for a substantial period beyond that funded by the AHRC. Both the organization of the conference and the completion of the volume owe a very great deal to the post-doctoral research assistants who worked on the project, Drs Myrto Malouta, Annalisa Marzano, Dario Nappo, and Hannah Friedman, as also to the project administrative assistant Gareth Hughes. Dr Miko Flohr, Assistant Director of The Oxford Roman Economy Project, has helped to steer the volume into its final stages of publication and we are very grateful to him for that.
Alan Bowman Andrew Wilson
January 2011
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