Andrew Sherratt’s continental merry-go-roundMoses Finley’sThe Ancient Economypromoted the view that long-
distance patterns of exchange were comparatively unimportant within
the economies of ancient Mediterranean societies. The down-playing of
distant exchanges as macro-economic drivers was an argument that
mirrored Finley’s insistence on social structure as the fundamental
operating mechanism of ancient economies.^42 A quarter of a century
ago, Finley’s low evaluation of material production and exchange seemed
convincing to ancient historians, whose theoretical ideas were drawn
primarily from cognate work in medieval and early modern history, and
not from archaeology or indeed from economics.^43 Discussions of mater-
ial production and distribution were thus dominated by the‘primitive’
nature of agricultural practices; the difficulties of transportation; and the
low levels of urban growth (excepting a few large cities), which limited
both mechanical production and consumption. Moreover, concern for
status discouraged investment, according to this view. The editors and
many of the contributors to the newCambridge Economic History of the
Greco-Roman Worldhave set out to show that Finley’s preoccupation
with social status simply avoided fundamental questions about produc-
tion. This new synthesis encapsulates the emphasis in much recent
research not only on per capita growth in the pre-Roman as well as the
Roman Imperial Mediterranean world, but also on the nature of demand
and patterns of consumption.^44 Although the ghost of Finley still stalks
historical narratives,^45 approaches to ancient economies have developed
in directions that render the old obsession with‘primitivist’(or sub-
stantivist) and‘modernist’credentials no longer relevant. The notion
that historians should be obliged either to assume that ancient economies
were deeply and fundamentally different from those of later periods, or
that they were somehow analogous to more recent times, short-circuits
any attempt to understand the dynamics of long-term change and the
distinctiveness of specific historical phenomena. Many of the tools of
economic transactions that we recognize today, including deeds of sale,
(^42) Finley 1985, 44–61, 65–94, 185–6, 177–8 on distance trade; see the Introduction by
I. Morris, xx–xxiii; xxviii–xxxi.
(^43) Hopkins 1983, xi–xii; reproduced inCEHGRW, 4, in order to illustrate the contrast
between the Finleyan position and these editors 44 ’own views.
CEHGRW,esp.3–6; the nexus between supply and demand is examined most closely by
M. Dietler (258–76), A. Möller (362–84), N. Morley (570–91), and W. Jongman (592–618); cf.
Bowman and Wilson 2009, 23–60, 213–65.
(^45) Andreau 2010, 21.
Introduction 25