Economic and Social History of Classical Antiquity

The aim of this course is to make the student aware of some rarely treated themes about ancient history, that is the economic structures of the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman Societies, with some necessaries allusions to Near-Eastern ancient Empires. The student will acquire knowledge of the agricultural organization and development, as well as of the agronomic thought of classical world. Then will be treated mine exploitation, banking activities and its influences on the development of "industrial" production and of the exchange, on local, interregional and international commerce and markets. The student will understand that the structure of ancient societies depend on their economic organization and development, as well as on some important cultural factors.

Knowledges: the student will acquire a knowledge of the organisation of the main sectors of the economy of classical societies and he /she will consider all this in relation with richness and status parameters of people and social groups. The student will acquire the capacity of creating links between historical events and phaenomena and the economic structures as well as some fundamental cultural elements of Ancient societies. A historiographic, as well as a methodologic approach, is a central objective to obtain, in particular through the analysis of the documents -mainly in Greek and Latin-, but in general of all the sources (papyrological, archaeological, numismatic, epigraphical, literary) and their often apparent contradictions.

Competences: the student must obtain a critical capacity of interpretation of documents and ancient sources through which it is possible to reconstruct the social and economic history of the Graeco-Roman world. For this purpose, Graeco-Roman Egypt will be a true "laboratory," being the area from where documentary material mostly comes. The critical method must be applied also to the interpretations of the historiographical thought.