Dominic Rathbone – författare

This book reconstructs the life and workings of the Appianus estate in the Fayum district of Egypt under Roman rule in the third century AD. Basing his study on the extensive documentary evidence of the Heroninos archive, consisting of hundreds of letters and accounts on papyrus, Dr Rathbone examines first the nature of rural society at the time, and in particular the status of estate owners, their relations with their upper-class managers and the social and economic position of the estate's workforce and outside contacts. He then looks at the organization and running of the estate, the production and marketing of its crops and centrally directed transport system, and, above all, its use of credit arrangements and its system of accounting. This was one of the most sophisticated yet known in the ancient world and the author uses this example of economic rationalism to challenge the common belief that economic thought and practice were uniformly 'primitive' in the ancient world. Appendices include an index of all the published texts of the Heroninos archive, and two of Heroninos' accounts with an English translation.

Volume XI of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History covers the history of the Roman empire in the period from AD 70 to 192, from Vespasian to the Antonines. The volume begins with the political and military history of the period. Developments in the structure of the empire are then examined, including the organisation and personnel of the central government and province-based institutions and practices. A series of provincial studies follows, and the society, economy and culture of the empire as a whole are reviewed in a group of thematic chapters. This edition is entirely rewritten from the 1936 edition. There is much more extensive discussion of social, economic and cultural issues, reflecting trends in modern scholarship, and the increase of archaeological evidence and development of new approaches to it. New documentary evidence, from texts on stone, wood and papyrus, has advanced knowledge in every chapter.