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27 - The Frontier Zones

from Part VII - Regional Development in the Roman Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

David Cherry
Affiliation:
Montana State University
Walter Scheidel
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Ian Morris
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Richard P. Saller
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
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Summary

What survives to describe the frontier provinces of the Roman empire hints at a significant measure of economic development in some of the frontier zones, and perhaps especially in north Africa, until about the middle of the third century ad. But in the almost complete absence of reliable, quantitative information, it is generally impossible to determine what level of growth was achieved. There is no way even to estimate its per capita effect, which is surely what mattered on the ground. The inadequacies of the historical record are likely also to obscure important regional and even local variations in patterns of economic development. The picture described here will almost certainly need to be modified when there is systematic exploration of rural sites across the frontier zones, of the sort carried out in Tripolitania by the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey project.

locating the frontiers

For a long time the Roman frontiers were understood to be lines of demarcation that separated the civilized (Roman) world from the barbarism that was believed to lay beyond it. Hadrian’s Wall, for example, could be said to have been designed, as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae put it, “to separate barbarians and Romans” (Hadr. 11.2; qui barbaros Romanosque divideret). It is a view that has been largely abandoned, in part because none of the frontiers’ linear barriers appear to have been wholly defensive in purpose, partly also because the Romans themselves do not seem to have considered the frontiers to be lines either of defense or of demarcation. It is now widely agreed instead that the frontiers functioned as zones or borderlands, in so far as the Roman government was unable to achieve, as C. R. Whittaker has put it, “the optimum balance between its range of conquest (i.e. its military capacity) and the economy of its rule (i.e. where the military expenditure is no longer paid for by tax returns); and because the turn-over from economic viability to economic liability is necessarily gradual, uperceived, and unstable.”

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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References

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  • The Frontier Zones
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book: The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521780537.028
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  • The Frontier Zones
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book: The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521780537.028
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Frontier Zones
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book: The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521780537.028
Available formats
×