ABSTRACT
In the descriptive discussions above we have generally avoided raising the issue of what might be termed ‘the ancient economy as a whole’, and have focused instead on particular aspects and sectors. We adopted this approach not merely for organizational convenience, however, but partly as a response to a fundamental problem, namely, that by no means is it an obvious fact that there was such an holistic thing as ‘the ancient economy’. By an economy some kind of discrete domain or unified system is usually implied, and in today’s world this is obviously connected with the sphere of industrial production and the institution of the market as well as the activities of the so-called service sector. But with antiquity it is by no means clear that we can speak of the ‘Roman market’ or, say, the ‘Mediterranean economy’, if by these something like a ‘capitalist market system’ is meant.1
