Division of labor, specialization and diversity in the ancient Roman cities: A quantitative approach to Latin epigraphy

Abstract

Recent empirical studies on the division of labor in modern cities indicate a complex web of relationships between sectoral specialization of cities and their productivity on one hand and sectoral diversification and resilience on the other. Emerging scholarly consensus suggests that ancient urbanism has more in common with modern urban development than previously thought. We explore whether modern trends in urban division of labor apply to the cities of the Western Roman Empire from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE. We analyze occupational data extracted from a large body of Latin epigraphic evidence by computer-assisted text-mining, subsequently mapped onto a dataset of ancient Roman cities. We detect a higher frequency of occupation terms on inscriptions from cities led by Rome than from rural areas and identify an accumulation of tertiary sector occupations in large cities. The temporal dimension of epigraphic data allows us to study aspects of the division of labor diachronically and to detect trends in the data in a four centuries-long period of Roman imperial history. Our analyses reveal an overall decrease in the frequency of occupational terms between the first half and second half of the third century CE; the maximum frequency of occupational terms shifts over time from large cities to medium and small towns, and finally, rural areas. Our results regarding the specialization and diversity of cities and their respective impact on productivity and resilience remain inconclusive, possibly as a result of the socio-economic bias of Latin inscriptions and insufficient representativeness of the data. Yet, we believe that our formalized approach to the research problem opens up new avenues for research, both in respect to the economic history of the Roman Empire and to the current trends in the science of cities.

The service sector in the classical world: focus on entertainment and well-being

“…Two recent studies of occupations in ancient Roman cities (Varga, 2020; Kaše et al , 2022) rely primarily on large epigraphical databases such as the Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (which now covers more than 500,000 Latin inscriptions) and Epigraphic Database Heidelberg. Note that there are additionally perhaps 100,000 inscriptions from Roman times in Greek and other local languages in the eastern Mediterranean area (Beltrán Lloris, 2015), many of which can be accessed through the Packard Humanities Institute Greek Inscriptions database (more than 200,000 inscriptions).…”

“…There was a peak in the second century ad , and there were regional differences; the “epigraphic habit” varied (Beltrán Lloris, 2015). Relying on Latin epigraphical data for studying the division of labour in the cities of the Western Roman Empire, from the first century bc to the fourth century ad , Kaše et al (2022) saw a decrease in the frequency of occupational terms between the first and second half of the third century ad ; also, the maximum frequency of occupational terms shifted over time, from large cities to medium and small towns and finally to rural areas. Furthermore, the apparent Greek/Roman difference in Table 1 may arise from the dominance of inscriptions as sources of Roman occupational titles, whereas our knowledge of classical Greek occupations depends more on literary sources than epitaphs.…”

“…Furthermore, they mentioned that account should also be taken of public administration, transport and storage, childcare and catering. It is only recently, however, that the division of labour in Roman cities has been studied more closely and quantitatively (Groen-Vallinga, 2022;Kaše et al, 2022;Ruffing, 2008;Varga, 2020).…”