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Typically, thoughts about the economy of the ancient world hit a wall of ‘they didn’t have a solid idea of how finance works’. Similarly, talk of the Roman Empire doesn’t generally get any further away than it’s immediate political neighbors.

McLaughlin tackles both of these in a very interesting book. He starts by assembling an idea of how big the Roman budget was during the First Century. This is presented in detail in an appendix, that uses at it’s base current population estimates of the Roman world, makes a high-level assumption of the average amount of tax contributed by the population (based off a couple of reasonably solid numbers given in primary sources), then similarly estimates expenses by knowing how many legions there were, what legionary pay was like, and so on. This is all extremely problematic, but is systematically done, seems to give possible numbers, and moves the discussion into the realm where it’s possible to argue about it.

To some extent, the book was worthwhile to me just for giving a good list of currency conversions up front. I’ve never been able to keep track of the Roman money system, and this also gives conversions to Greek and Egyptian currencies. However, that allowed me to note a place where he converts a figure into Greek talents, but the math says he means Egyptian talents. Combined with another place where he makes a basic interpretation mistake of a source he just quoted shows that this isn’t as thoroughly checked over as it should be. I assume that’s at least partially the fact that Pen & Sword seems to be a smaller publisher, and probably does not have the robust editorial staff of more traditional publishers (nor as wide a circle of pre-readers and consultants as it should).

However, the bulk of the book is McLaughlin looking at the various areas around the Indian Ocean that Rome had contact with, and describing what sort of trade was going on. He actually starts inside the Empire with the grain dole, related trade from Egypt, and some knock-on effects thereof (which seem a bit speculative, but sound reasonable). He then gives an introductory essay on incense and Classical medicines before talking about the production of balsam (an ointment from a now-extinct tree) in Roman-controlled Judea. From there, he tackles Nubia, Arabia, East Africa, India and beyond in turn. The earlier parts are especially interesting as he pulls in a few early Imperial wars in the Roman East that you generally don’t hear much about, but also demonstrate the Empire’s interests in the area.

Pretty much all of this comes out an examination of one source, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Indian Ocean), a very handy guide to trade written in the mid-First Century. There are some other sources which help shore up parts of this, and are notably used for the later parts of the book, though the real annoyance is the author re-introduces us to the Periplus from scratch on a few separate occasions, which shows that this was probably originally formatted as a series of smaller separate works (and one part of this was separately published about four years earlier).

He finishes up with Chinese records of an envoy from the Roman Empire (and since there’s record of this in the Empire, contrary to the author, I suspect, actual official or no, he was acting on his own initiative, which might explain some other oddities), before turning to the Antonine Plague of 165. He posits that this as having created a military and financial crisis… that he doesn’t explicitly say dooms the Western Empire, but it’s not far from what he does say. He points out that the plague apparently shut down the silver and gold mines in Spain, and once spare silver and gold coinage left the Empire to the east in the decades after, Rome’s main export was gone (which is something he refers to during the entire book, and is a concern in some of the primary sources).

McLaughlin is putting up a fairly rickety structure with all the assumptions he has to make to put together a large-scale picture of the Roman economy. But I’m still impressed that he got it to stand up at all. As I mentioned before, this is a needed starting point for further study and argument. Just as a fuller description of the Periplus, and the bits of corroboration of it he provides, it’s well worth a read.

Peter Heather’s study of Western Europe after the fall of Rome comes in four parts, with the first three being similar, and the fourth different. Each one is about a separate attempt to restore ‘imperial’ rule to the Western Roman Empire.

Part one starts with the background of Theoderic, specifically his time as a hostage in Constantinople, and his exposure to Roman civilization. It moves onto Gothic politics, and does a good job looking at them, and how through a series of gambles, and deals, he ended up as the leader of a reduced, but cohesive group of Goths, and took on the job of expelling Odoacer from Italy. The resulting Ostrogothic Kingdom is shown as an attempted restoration of the Empire to Western territories. Despite later disagreements, Theoderic had started with orders from Constantinople, and his later effective control over Visigothic Kingdom in Gaul and Spain allowed him to dominate most of the Western Empire’s former territories, and the intent was purely to be seen as the Western Emperor.

The problem was the conjoined Gothic states did not stay so after Theoderic’s death, which leads to the second part, Justinian’s reconquest of substantial part of the Western Empire. Heather shows that Justinian attempted to legitimize his reign with a couple gambles, law reform and war with Persia, which did not work out. The expedition to Africa and invasion of Sicily were very opportunistic schemes to restore legitimacy. The eventual Justinian law code only went forward based on the political capital gained from success in the west, and the section ends with analysis of the idea that Justinian’s wars crippled the Eastern Empire in the long run, and generally comes up negative. I think he didn’t consider the impacts on manpower nearly enough, but economically, he’s on reasonably solid ground.

The third section is about Charlemagne’s crowning as Emperor in 800, and the subsequent collapse of the state over the next few generations. There’s some very good analysis in here about how the need to reward followers both allow a moderate sized state to grow quickly (when there’s plenty of rewards to give out), and forces it to come apart once that growth slows or stops. Each change in rulers requires a new round of payments to make sure of loyalties, and a few years to ‘feel out’ which members of the court are the most competent and loyal.

The common thread through the book is the idea how the Romans saw divine approval and power as intertwined. In Christian terms, if God wanted you to be Emperor, then no force on Earth could stop it, and if you were the Emperor, then obviously God wanted you to be so. And since the Emperor was chosen by God, then he had authority over the Church. The fourth section shows this being turned on its head.

Charlemagne’s administration produced a set of standard texts for education inside the Christian Church. There is a good discussion of the forgery of the Donation of Constantine, which claims the Western Empire was effectively handed over to the Pope in Rome. The idea presented here is that this was not a Roman (or Papal) forgery, but actually came out of the Carolingian churches. Until this point, the archbishops were the main authority, but if the (distant) Pope was the real head of things, then the bishops didn’t need to listen to the (nearby) archbishops. Then, a generation or two later, officials brought up in this tradition end up installed in Rome by German Emperors, and they worked to reform the Papacy into what they thought it should be, an ultimate source of ecclesiastical and temporal authority.

Trying to see this last as an ‘imperial’ project (so that it fits in with the rest of Heather’s theme) hurts this last part of the book. But overall, it is, like the other parts, an interesting look at the post-Roman/early Medieval West. Each part of the book interleaves with the rest, and while it is by no means a complete history of the period, it does a lot to examine just how the Western Empire did not manage to get reestablished.