ABSTRACT
Moses Finley’s model of face-to-face societies prevailed until the end of the 1980s, during which time mobility was considered as quantitatively marginal, due to the costs and deficiency of transportation. Using archaeological data and a comparison with mediaeval and modern England, he called upon historians to better estimate the degree of human mobility in ancient societies. Nobody would seriously deny the role of migration in the making of the Roman Empire, as well as the role of the Empire in developing mobility. Studies of mobility encompass a greater number of categories – soldiers and elite but also craftsmen, merchants, slaves, students, and peasants. Freedom of movement was not a natural condition but the result of rules set up by negotiation, through interaction between actors. It is the analysis of the modes of interaction across the centuries that help to reveal the evolution of connectivity, the transformation of mobility as a societal practice, and the various and discontinuous processes of unification.
