Reassesses the economic development of the Hellenistic age from the perspective of labour history, centring discussion on paid soldiers.

This book explains the military and economic developments that engulfed the ancient Mediterranean in the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods from the perspective of labour history. It examines the changing nature of military service in the vast armies of Philip and Alexander, the Successors, and the early Hellenistic kingdoms and argues that the paid soldiers who staffed them were not just 'mercenaries', but rather the Greek world's first large-scale instance of wage labour. Using a wide range of sources, Charlotte Van Regenmortel not only offers a detailed social history of military service in these armies but also provides a novel explanation for the economic transformation of the Hellenistic age, positioning military wage-labourers as the driving force behind the period's nascent market economies. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

This is the most comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy available in English. A team of specialists provides in non-technical language cutting edge accounts of a wide range of key themes in economic history, explaining how ancient Greek economies functioned and changed, and why they were stable and successful over long periods of time. Through its wide geographical perspective, reaching from the Aegean and the Black Sea to the Near East and Egypt under Greek rule, it reflects on how economic behaviour and institutions were formed and transformed under different political, ecological and social circumstances, and how they interacted and communicated over large distances. With chapters on climate and the environment, market development, inequality and growth, it encourages comparison with other periods of time and cultures, thus being of interest not just to ancient historians but also to readers concerned with economic cultures and global economic issues.

This book breaks new ground by distilling and presenting new and newly-reinterpreted evidence for the Hellenistic era and offering a compelling new set of interpretative ideas to the debate on the ancient economy.

This book examines how the army developed as an engine of socio-economic and cultural integration in Egypt under Greco-Macedonian rule.

In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.

This Companion volume offers fifteen original essays on the Hellenistic world and is intended to complement and supplement general histories of the period from Alexander the Great to Kleopatra VII of Egypt. Each chapter treats a different aspect of the Hellenistic world - religion, philosophy, family, economy, material culture, and military campaigns, among other topics. The essays address key questions about this period: To what extent were Alexander's conquests responsible for the creation of this new 'Hellenistic' age? What is the essence of this world and how does it differ from its Classical predecessor? What continuities and discontinuities can be identified? Collectively, the essays provide an in-depth view of a complex world. The volume also provides a bibliography on the topics along with recommendations for further reading.

The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity.Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century.The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.