Author’s Prologue
Suchaprosopographicalapproachevidentlyformedanessentialstarting
pointforanyonewho,likemyself,beganasadoctoralstudentunderRonald
Syme, and (as it happens) in the same year asTacituswas published. If we
lookatsuchanapproachinthelightofthemuchwiderperspectivesevoked
earlier,thelong-termdemographic,institutional,medical,andgeographical
historyofmankind,itwillofcourseappearlimitedandconventional,closely
tiedtotexts—literaryordocumentary—whichareaccessibleonlythrough
an education in Greek or Latin. And, indeed, it not onlyseemsrelatively
restricted,butis.Furthermore,amuchwiderapproach—thoughnowhere
comingclosetothewiderbiologicalhistoryofhumans—hadalreadybeen
demonstrated beforeThe Roman Revolutionwas published. By that I mean,
ofcourse,Rostovtzeff’sSocial and Economic History of the Roman Empire,first
publishedin.Onceagain,thisisnottheplacetoattempttocharacterise
Rostovtzeff’sworkindetail,ortoevoketheveryactiveandcreativestudies
of him,bothinRussiaandintheWest,inthes.^34 Butitisrelevantto
stressthatRostovtzeffbroughtintoanarrativeofimperialhistory,firstly,a
vastrangeofphysicalevidence,visitedinsituorinspectedinlocalmuseums;
andsecondly,anequallyvastrangeoflocaldocumentaryevidence,aboveall
inscriptionsandpapyri.Inthatwayheexploitedinnumerablelocal‘‘voices’’
ortestimoniesasevidenceforthewiderhistoryoftheEmpire.ButRostov-
tzeffwasnotjustassemblingdata,hewastellingastory.Butthatstory,we
shouldfranklyadmit,wasinitselfaquiteconventionalone,ofgrowingpros-
perity and stability in the Empire up to the Antonine age, followed by a
military monarchyand the beginnings of anarchy in the third century; in
short, it is precisely the story told in the last part of theRoman Historyof
CassiusDio.
Rostovtzeff’sHistorywasboththesymbolandthefirstlarge-scaleprod-
uctoftherevolutionproducedinthenatureandscaleofouraccesstothe
ancientworldthathadbeenmadepossiblebytheapparentlydrylabourof
producingcorporaof inscriptions and papyri, catalogues of coins, volumes
ofexcavationreports,descriptionsofbuildingsandcategorisationsofsmall
finds which had gone on since the nineteenth century. Rostovtzeff’s own
interests also embraced, if in very varying degrees of intensity, thewhole
geographicalareaoftheRomanEmpireand(asregardsAsia)farbeyondit.
The range and variety of possible historical approaches to the ancient
world is thus now incomparably greater than was possible even a century
. Noteesp.theexcellentintroductionbyJeanAndreautotheFrenchtranslation,His-
toire économique et sociale de l’empire romain();andalsothepapersanddocumentsedited
byG.Bongard-Levin,Skifskii Roman().