ECONOMY IN BRITAIN DURING THE ROMAN HIGH EMPIRE

Although mineral exploitation played an important role in the economic life of the province, with major development of the iron (the Weald and Forest of Dean) and lead (Mendips, north Wales, Pennines) extraction and processing industries, with a lesser emphasis on gold (south-west Wales), tin (Cornwall) and copper (Anglesey), agriculture remained the pivot of all economic activity.43 The fecundity of the island may well have been an influence in the original decision to invade, but it is not clear how far production of a surplus could keep pace with the demands placed upon it by the army and the developing civilian infrastructure of the province.

Theoretically the potential was there, but there is no evidence that society was capable of delivering it from the start, or that the infrastructure was in place to manage distribution. On the contrary, there is evidence for the importation of basic requirements such as grain in the first and second centuries.44

There can be little doubt that the principal areas of consumption of resources in Britain in the first and second centuries were the military with its fortresses, forts and linear frontier schemes, the programme of townand road-building, and the support of the communities engaged in metal extraction and production. Whereas the campaigning of the Flavian period, with all its subsequent provision of fortresses and forts, was undoubtedly a costly affair, substantial investment in the frontier systems continued through the second century.While much of the work, as well as the procurement of certain raw materials such as lead, or iron from the Weald, were undertaken at the outset by the army and therefore represented no extra labour cost, the supply of other materials and the feeding of the troops involved expenditure outside the closed military circle.

Although many of the basic requirements could probably have been met from within Britain, it is clear from the evidence of amphorae and other imported pottery, that a wide range of commodities flowed into the island from the Mediterranean, Gaul and Spain in the first and second centuries. The economic irrationality of these trade or supply systems, such as the numerical superiority in Britain of the more remotely produced central Gaulish sigillata as opposed to the eastern Gaulish types, or of Baetican as opposed to Gaulish olive oil, has been observed before, and similar patterns can also be found with goods of British origin within Britain itself.45

This is most striking in the second century when the northern frontier can be shown to be at the end of supply routes, identifiable by ceramic tracers, whose origins lie in the south of England as well as the midlands (e.g. Dorset black-burnished category 1, Thames Estuary black-burnished category 2, Colchester, Mancetter and the Nene Valley). More local sources do not appear to have been much utilized. Although the distributions of the various types of pottery have this northwards distortion, civilian markets were served as well; but it is clear that the military was their most powerful magnet and was largely responsible for the coastwards location of the major industries. This seems to imply that in the balance between the development of the civilian infrastructure and the maintenance of the garrison, the emphasis was in favour of the military.

Only in the second half of the second century do specialist industries develop, such as the Oxfordshire or Alice Holt pottery industries, whose market seems to be entirely confined to the civilian sphere; but in this case the distributions are quite narrowly circumscribed. One implication which can be drawn from the developments of the second century when, for ceramic supplies, the northern frontier appears to draw on sources from as far away as the south of the island, is that this represents a situation where the whole of the urbanized area of the island is exploited for the support of the army and frontiers, and that this represents a real change from previous arrangements.46

In the first century we have greater reliance on imported goods – graphs for samian supply from London and elsewhere show the peaking of south Gaulish sigillata in the latter part of the century. The internal evidence shows the importance of London as the principal node in a centralized supply organization. Brockley Hill pottery (between London and Verulamium) can be shown to be widely distributed to the northern frontier from the Flavian periods onwards; it points to a road-based supply from London, where goods were collected for transit to the north and northwest.47 In the second century, however, marine-based supply systems utilizing east- and west-coast routes, became more important. Given its involvement in the construction of Hadrian’s Wall and the exploitation of Wealden iron, it is likely that the Classis Britannica played an important role in the supply of the northern frontier.48

By the end of the second century the military and civilian structures of Roman Britain were firmly established. After the decision to abandon the Antonine Wall, the frontier arrangements in the north remained essentially unchanged. Equally, although there may have been minor adjustments to the organization of the civitates, there was no significant expansion to their number, and, correspondingly, no new towns were founded after the first half of the second century. Emphasis on the development of the public aspects of towns and on infrastructure such as the road network in the second half of the first and early second century was followed by evidence for expansion of conspicuous consumption at the level of the individual household. The town house and the countryside are the principal areas to show substantial development later, but even here the framework for that expansion was securely in place by the elevation of Septimius Severus.

Notes

41 Fulford (1992).
42 Entwistle, Fulford and Raymond (1994); Leech (1982); Neal (1989).
43 Jones and Mattingly (1990).
44 Fulford (1984b).
45 Fulford(1991).
46 Fulford (1989b).
47 Castle (1972).
48 Cleere (1977) .

By Michael Fulford in "Cambridge Ancient History", 12 volumes, second edition, edited by Alan Bowman, Peter Garnsey & Dominic Rathbone, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2007, excerpts pp. 574-576 vol. XI. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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