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The effects of plague: model and evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

Roger S. Bagnall
Roger S. Bagnall*
Affiliation:
Department of Classics, Columbia University
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Extract

In the foregoing article, W. Scheidel builds on earlier work, most notably that of R. P. Duncan-Jones in JRA 9, to offer a model for the predicted effects of the Antonine plague and to argue that the model fits the evidence from Roman Egypt reasonably well within the limits of the quantity and quality of the latter. In his second footnote, he encourages critical response, suggesting that it “may either corroborate or undermine my interpretation.” The following pages are intended as a contribution to that discussion, but with lesser ambitions than either corroborating or undermining the model as a whole. They offer some of both, in fact, but more in the direction of undermining it.

There are three reasons for not claiming too much at this point and not offering any general conclusion (as I do not). The first is that I do not have any fixed views on the degree to which the plague was the prime mover behind the changes visible in late 2nd- and 3rd-c. Egypt. In the absence of any concerted attempt to formulate and test other hypotheses about the engines of social and economic change, it is hard to say if the degree of fit of evidence to model is impressive or not. The most obvious counter-candidate is the increased municipalization of Egypt during just this period, especially from A.D. 200 onward. It would be useful to generate a model of economic change from this force and see if it is equally capable of accounting for the evidence.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Roman Archaeology , Volume 15 , 2002 , pp. 114 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of Roman Archaeology L.L.C. 2002

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References

1 This may come as a surprise to the reader who has remarked Scheidel's polemical engagement with my remarks on P.Oxy. 4527 (above, pp. 112-13). I shall return to this text later, but for the moment I may simply note that it was scepticism — not yet laid to rest — about the quality of the evidence for the effects of the plague, not adherence to another hypothesis, that lay behind my earlier comments.

2 Drexhage, H.-J., Preise, Mieten/Pachten, Kosten und Löhne im Römischen Ägypten bis zum Regierungsantritt Diokletians (St. Katharinen 1991)Google Scholar.

3 It is perhaps worth repeating that for all my scepticism about claims to observe the effects of the plague, I have no doubt that the plague actually affected Egypt.

4 Lewis, N., “A reversal of a tax policy in Roman Egypt,” GRBS 34 (1993) 111–12Google Scholar (repr. in his On government and law in Roman Egypt [AmStudPap 33, 1995] 367–68Google Scholar).

5 Minnen, P. Van, “P.Oxy. LXVI 4527 and the Antonine plague in the Fayyum,” ZPE 135 (2001) 175–77Google Scholar; he is cited by Scheidel (n.92 above) with a “cf.” and no indication that he disagrees with Scheidel on this point.

6 See Lewis (supra n.4) for a convincing demonstration.

7 Rathbone, D. W., “Prices and price formation in Roman Egypt,” in Andreau, J. et al. (edd.), Économie antique: prix et formation des prix dans les économies antiques (Entretiens d'archéologie et d'histoire, Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges 1997) 216 Google Scholar.

8 See my Currency and inflation in fourth-century Egypt (BASP Suppl. 5, 1985) 43–44 Google Scholar, for the dramatic shift of A.D. 351-353. An update to the price tables in that monograph appears in P.Kell. IV, 225–29Google Scholar.

9 Van Minnen (supra n.5) 176-77.

10 Alston, R., Soldier and society in Roman Egypt: a social history (London 1995) 108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Table 6.2. Cf. my criticisms in JRA 10 (1997) 509 n.12Google ScholarPubMed.

11 I have used the same table in Drexhage (141-54) that Scheidel used, but with additional data for the Oxyrhynchite from the table in Rowlandson, J. L., Landowners and tenants in Roman Egypt. The social relations of agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite nome (Oxford 1996) 320 Google Scholar. In the discussion below, I have omitted texts that can be dated only to a century, or where the price per aroura is highly uncertain.

12 Using 600 drachmas as the break-point, apart from other difficulties, fails to account for the fact that this sum was worth less in the second period than in the first.

13 Midpoint between the third and fourth cases, 467 and 676.

14 It is regrettable that Scheidel used the table in Rowlandson (supra n.7) 332-49 only to supplement Drexhage, whereas recomputing the rents on the basis of Rowlandson's list might have yielded sounder results.

15 The figure could be slightly higher or lower with different assumptions about the treatment of the nonwheat payments, but the effect would be trivial.

16 Rathbone, D. W., “Monetisation, not price-inflation, in third-century Egypt?” in King, C. E. and Wigg, D. G. (edd.), Coin finds and coin use in the Roman world (Berlin 1996) 321–39Google Scholar.

17 The last is calculated by averaging his span of 1 dr. to 1 dr. 3 ob. for rural wages of the mid-2nd c., for a mean of 8.5 obols (using the 7-obol drachma).

18 This is BGU I 14 Google Scholar. It is by no means clear that the figures there are daily wages.