Taxes, trade, and the circulation of coin: The Roman Empire, Mughal India and T'ang China compared

Medieval History Journal

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 231-248

  De Ligt, L ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85041112949     PISSN: 09719458     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/097194580300600204     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. M.I. Finley, The Ancient Economy, 2nd edn, London, 1985
2. H.W. Pleket, 'Wirtschaft', in F. Vittinghoff (ed.), Handbuch der europäischen Wirtschaft-und Sozialgeschichte, Bd. I: Europäische Wirtschafts-und Sozialgeschichte in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Stuttgart, 1990: 25-160
3. I. Habib, 'Potentialities of Capitalistic Development in the Economy of Mughal India', The Journal of Economic History, vol. 29, 1969: 32-78
4. See e.g., R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience, Ithaca, 1997
5. A.G. Frank, ReOrient, Berkeley, 1998
6. K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: Europe, China and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton, 1999
7. On the Ottoman Empire, see H. Inalcik, S. Faroqhi et al., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 2 volumes, Cambridge, 1994
8. P.H.H. Vries, 'Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? Kenneth Pomeranz and the Great Divergence', Journal of World History, vol. 12, 2001: 407-46
9. K. Hopkins, 'Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire', Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 70, 1980: 101-25
10. idem, 'Rents, Taxes, Trade and the City of Rome', in E. Lo Cascio (ed.), Mercati permanenti e mercati periodici nel mondo romano, Bari, 2000: 253-67
11. R. Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy, Cambridge, 1990: 189-94
12. P. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes, Oxford, 1990: 531
13. L. De Ligt, 'Demand, Supply, Distribution: The Roman Peasantry between Town and Countryside, I', Münsterische Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 9.2, 1990: 42
14. H.W. Pleket, Models and Inscriptions: Export of Textiles in the Roman Empire', Epigraphica Anatolica 30, 1998: 117-28
15. R. Duncan-Jones, 'Mobility and Immobility of Coin in the Roman Empire', Annali dell' Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 36, 1989: 121-37
16. idem, Money and Government in the Roman Empire, Cambridge, 1994: 172-79
17. C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870, Cambridge, 1983: 63-64
18. For discussions of the hundi system and its history, see e.g., L.C. Jain, Indigenous Banking in India, London, 1929: 70-83
19. B. Bhargava, Indigenous Banking in Ancient and Medieval India, Bombay, 1934: 131-52
20. I. Habib, 'The System of Bills of Exchange (hundis) in the Mughal Empire', in S. Chandra (ed.), Essays in Medieval Indian Economic History, New Delhi, 1987: 207-21
21. S. Subrahmanyan, 'Introduction', in idem (ed.), Money and the Market in India, 1100-1700, Delhi, 1994: 31-35
22. On the continuing importance of cash transactions in Mughal state finance, see J.F. Richards, 'Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy', Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 23, 1981: 285-309
23. (also in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 25, 1988: 475-91)
24. Richards' arguments are not entirely refuted by K. Leonard, 'Indigenous Banking Firms in Mughal India: A Reply', Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 23, 1981: 309-13
25. M. Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Stanford, 1973: 54-59
26. G. Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan, Princeton, 1973: 24
27. For merchants combining shipments of tribute grain with private cargoes, cf. T.G. Rawski and L.M. Li (eds), Chinese History in Economic Perspective, Berkeley, 1992: 185 and n. 14
28. L. Yang, Money and Credit in China: A Short History, Cambridge, MA, 1952: 52-53
29. Cf. J. Andreau, Banking and Business in the Roman World, Cambridge, 1999: 21
30. Cf. Andreau, Banking and Business: 20-21
31. M. Kaser, Das römische Privatrecht. I. Das altrömische, das vorklassische und klassische Recht, Munich, 1971, 2nd edn: 650-51
32. Cf. Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale, (n. 7): 42
33. Cf. Cicero, De imperio Gn. Pompei 14
34. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes: 380, 388-89
35. C. Nicolet, 'Le monumentum Ephesenum et les dîmes d'Asie', BCH 115, 1991: 476
36. Cf. M.I. Rostovtzeff, art. 'Frumentum', in Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. VII, 1912: 155
37. For these pactiones, see E. Badian, Publicans and Sinners, London, 1972: 79-80
38. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes: 366
39. Nicolet, 'Le monumentum Ephesenum': 467 and n. 10
40. Cf. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes: 388
41. It is sometimes supposed that the tax-farmers paid their annual instalments to provincial quaestors (D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, Princeton, 1950: 165
42. G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome, Oxford, 1980: 43), but there seems to be no evidence for this
43. Badian, Publicans and Sinners: 77
44. A.H.M. Jones, 'The Aerarium and the Fiscus' (orig. 1950)
45. in idem, Studies in Roman Government and Law, Oxford, 1960: 103
46. Jones, 'The Aerarium and the Fiscus': 103, confuses this money with Cicero's private profits, which were deposited with the tax-farmers at Ephesus
47. G. Maselli, Argentaria. Banche e banchieri nella Roma repubblicana, Bari, 1986: 118-19
48. For publicans acquiring landed property in Asia and other eastern provinces, see M. Crawford, 'Rome and the Greek World: Economic Relationships', Economic History Review, vol. 30, 1977: 48-49
49. S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. I, Oxford, 1993: 154
50. Appian, Bella Civilia 3.11
51. and F. Millar, 'Les congiaires à Rome et la monnaie', in A. Giovanninni (ed.), Nourrir la Plèbe, Basel, 1991: 148
52. citing Arrian, Periplus Mari Euxini 6 and 10: money shipped to the auxiliaries manning Roman forts on the Black Sea
53. Duncan-Jones, Money and Government: 53
54. Hopkins, 'Rents, Taxes, Trade': 256
55. Since most of the frontier troops depended on supplies from their immediate hinterlands (P. Garnsey and R. Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy. Society and Culture, London, 1987: 90), the actual surplus must have been much larger than 250,000 tons
56. Duncan-Jones. Structure and Scale: 193
57. Cf. also D. Rathbone, 'The Ancient Economy and Graeco-Roman Egypt', in L. Criscuolo and G. Geraci (eds), Egitto e storia antica dall'ellenismo all'età araba, Bologna, 1989: 173-74
58. and for a general discussion of fiscal sales, G. Boulvert, 'L'autonomie du droit fiscal: le cas des ventes', in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. II, (14), Berlin, 1982: 816-49, esp. 846
59. Rome was also the seat of a procurator fisci Asiatici, who must have handled cash revenues from Asia. On these procurators, see e.g. Jones, 'The Aerarium and the Fiscus': 110
60. M. Alpers, Das nachrepûblikanische Finanzsystem. Fiscus und fisci in der frühen Kaiserzeit (Berlin-New York, 1995): 198-200 and 278-86
61. Cf. Duncan-Jones, Money and Government: 177, n. 22, for the suggestion that special fisci were set up for Asia and Egypt because both provinces used their own currency
62. E. Gren, Kleinasien und der Ostbalkan in der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung der römischen Kaiserzeit, Uppsala, 1941: 144-45
63. Duncan-Jones, Mobility and Immobility of Coin'; Structure and Scale; Money and Government. Duncan-Jones' findings are nuanced but not refuted by C.J. Howgego, "Coin Circulation and the Integration of the Roman Economy', Journal of Roman Archaeology, vol. 7, 1994: 5-21
64. and idem. Ancient History from Coins, London, 1995: 107-10