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  • 19 - The Late Republic

  • from Part V - Early Italy and the Roman Republic
  • 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
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 511-540

  • Summary

    This chapter answers questions about economic growth in the late Republic, with a focus on the per capita GDP growth, and the reasons behind the growth or the lack of it. It examines the features of the Roman world which assisted growth or impeded it. The most important thing the Roman government did for the Roman economy was to conquer vast territories; the next most important thing, in this period, was probably to found colonies. Proof positive that the traditional understanding of Roman money is mistaken appears in 49 when the credit system tottered under the impact of civil war: nervous creditors began to seek payment even of the principal in silver, that is, coin. The conditions of labor, at least in the central parts of the Roman world, were dominated by slavery. It is estimated that in the very late Republic there were always four to eight million slaves and serfs in the Roman empire.