Author’s Prologue thatthereforethephysicaltransportofcoinaroundtheempirewasnecessary,
howwasthisachieved?Thisissuebringsusbackonceagaintotheevolution
ofphysicalresourcesandcapacities:theconstructionofwheeledwaggons,
and the employment of animals for traction; and the role of shipping for
officialtransport,aswellasforwidereconomicexchanges.
Somebriefremarksonthemintingandredistributionofcoinsaremade
inanotheressay,‘‘CashDistributionsinRomeandImperialMinting,’’which
appearsforthefirsttimeinEnglishaschapterofvolume.Butingeneral
itwouldhavetobeacknowledgedthattheworkcollectedinthesethreevol-
umesdoesnotdealwiththephysicalbasesofhumanlifeinGraeco-Roman
antiquity,or with economic history,or with state finance, in the sense of
the exchange of value between subject and state.The only, partial, excep-
tionisthatoneessay,chapter,inthisvolume,‘‘TheMediterraneanandthe
RomanRevolution:Politics,War,andtheEconomy,’’doessketchsomeas-
pects of how this exchangeworked in the erratic,violent, and fluctuating
circumstancesoftheendoftheRomanRepublic.
WarwasinfactendemicintheGraeco-Romanworlduntilwereachthe
RomanEmpire.ThiswastrueoftheGreekcity-states,asitwasofwhatin
effectwasanunder-recognisedcategoryofcity-states,thoseofItalyinthe
firstmillennium..Warwascertainlyendemicinallthe‘‘barbarian’’soci-
eties which bordered on the Graeco-Roman area, as it was equally in the
Persian Empire and the Phoenician-Punic world of the central and west-
ernMediterraneanintheperioduptotheachievementofRomandomina-
tion in the second century..As a masterlyarticle by Michel Austin has
shown,militaryambitionwasintegralalsotothenatureoftheHellenistic
kingdoms.^16 Discussionof RomanimperialismintheRepublic,fundamen-
talthoughsomerecentstudieshavebeen,^17 hasperhapsnotbeenconducted
withsufficientlyexplicitattentiontothefactthattheRomanswerenotthe
only imperialists who were currently active: Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Philip V,
AntiochusIII,Mithridates,TigranesofArmenia,andCleopatrawereallin
thebusinessoftheactiveexpansionoftheareasundertheircontrol.Itiscer-
tainlythecasealsothat,ifwelookat‘‘theGreekcity’’asapoliticalandcom-
munalstructure,farmoreattentionhasgonetothecitizenasvoter,official,
orjurorthantothecitizenassoldier.^18
. M.M.Austin,‘‘HellenisticKings,War,andtheEconomy,’’CQ():.
. Noteesp.W.V.Harris,WarandImperialisminRepublicanRome,–B.C.(;repr.
);W.V.Harris,ed.,TheImperialismof Mid-RepublicanRome();J.RichandG.Shipley,
eds.,War and Society in the Roman World().
. NotehoweverL.A.Burkhardt,Bürger und Soldaten: Aspekte der politischen und militä-
rischen Rolle athenische Bürger im Kriegswesen des . Jahrhunderts v. Chr.().