Development and crisis in ancient Rome: the role of Mediterranean trade

Abstract

'Between the second and the third century A.D., after centuries characterized by nearly continuous growth, the Roman Empire experienced a profound crisis. Evidence of this crisis comes from important economic signals, such as the fineness of coins and the number of shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea. After showing that the empire's economic decline had already begun in the second century A.D., the author will outline a hypothesis about the causes of the fall, based on the de-specialization of the Roman economic system, which prevented it from continuing its evolution towards modernity, leading it instead along a path of progressive implosion.' (author's abstract)|