Economy (AD 284-628)

Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour and Aristocratic Dominance by Jairus Banaji (2001; 9780199226030) Advanced Economic – Banaji reassessed the rural economy of the late Roman world, going against the previous interpretation of crisis and devastation. His argument is that the stable gold coinage introduced by Diocletian in AD 301, coupled with the restructuring of the elite from the fifth to seventh centuries created a stable system, in which large estates became more resistant to issues like fragmentation through inheritance. Banaji makes extensive use of Egyptian papyrological evidence. Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean by Sarah Bond (2016; ISBN 978-0-472-13008-5) – Covers stigmatize professions like funeral works, tanners, and mint workers and how perceptions of these professions developed from the Republic to Late Antiquity. Bond has an excellent treatment of the Late Antique sources, and brings the book’s discussion later than most Roman historians typically do.