One result of this catastrophic decline in population was a commensurate decline in the land in the Americas used for farming. With land use per capita around one hectare, the fall in population resulted in a reduction in land use of some 55 million hectares. Much of this land returned to forest or other vegetative cover, leading to a biological dr

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While Pax Romana was appreciated by many, it remained imposed by fiat and from a central point of failure. All roads lead to Rome, they said. So, what if Rome fell? So would the entire network. Top-down institutions depend on a constant projection of strength. Ironically, this is precisely what makes them brittle. They depend on a high flow, eventu

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The provincial – or ‘native’ – elites living in these towns acted as the crucial middlemen between the Roman governor, with his tiny staff, and the provincial population at large. It was through them that much taxation was raised and that an acceptable degree of loyalty, or at least absence of trouble, was ensured. It was probably some of them too

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The stone transported from Mons Claudianus is an unusual case of the movement of goods around the Roman world. It was largely in the hands of the imperial administration, backed up by soldiers; and is hard not to suspect that it was intended in part as a display of Rome’s ability to pull off the virtually impossible – a reductio ad absurdum of Roma

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