Economic Theory and the Roman Monetary Economy

Author: Colin P. Elliott

Hardcover

Reconceptualizes economic theory as a tool for understanding the Roman monetary system and its social and cultural contexts.

Presents historians with new ways of thinking about and using economics to understand the Roman monetary system and the choices of those who used Roman money. Of interest to historians who study money in all historical periods, but especially those who study ancient Roman money.

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Hardcover

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Summary

Reconceptualizes economic theory as a tool for understanding the Roman monetary system and its social and cultural contexts.

Description

Modern economics tantalizes historians, promising them a set of simple verbal and mathematical formulas to explain and even retrospectively predict historical actions and choices. Colin P. Elliott challenges economic historians to rethink the way they use economic theory. Building upon the approaches of Max Weber, R. G. Collingwood, Ludwig von Mises and others, Elliott reconceptualizes economic theories such as the quantity theory of money and Gresham's law as heuristic constructs - constructs which help historians identify and understand the unique modes of thought and embedding contexts which characterized economic action in the Roman Empire. The book offers novel analyses of key events in Roman monetary history, from Augustus' triumph over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, to third-century AD coinage debasements. Roman history has long been a battleground for polarizing methodological debates, but this book's accessible style and conciliatory tone invites historians, economists, sociologists and other scholars to use economic theory for understanding.

About the Author

Colin P. Elliott is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has published interdisciplinary research on the economic, social and environmental history of the Roman Empire, and his next project explores intersections between its economy and the environment.