Roman Beirut: An analysis of economic systems and maritime commercial networks

Abstract

This thesis provides the first comprehensive assessment of Berytus, in modern-day Beirut, in its context as a Roman port city. It proposes a methodology for examining the economic infrastructure of the site that begins at a regional scale, and incorporates environmental and socio-political factors through multiple lines of data. This is done through the characterisation of the ecological landscape of the city and its hinterland, the productive capacity of rural settlements within this landscape, the urban centre and its harbour, and its prevalent maritime commercial networks. The focus in this work is on viticulture and oleiculture, specifically in breaking down the supply chain of products from an agricultural site to a final point of consumption. These factors are then contextualized under the theoretical approaches of network analysis and economic theory in an effort to place Berytus in the wider region, and compare site-specific trends with those observed throughout the Roman Empire.
This involves the critical examination of New Institutional Economics and its place in the study of economic history. Specifically, this thesis stresses the importance of a micro-economic, site-specific focus as a more effective way of understanding ports and port systems. An inductive approach moves away from the harmful dichotomy of ‘market-centred’ and ‘socially-embedded’, and prioritizes small-scale socio-political and environmental institutions as endogenous variables in economic models.

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ORCID for Naseem Raad: orcid.org/0000-0002-6447-0226

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