Metropolis and Hinterland
May. 12th, 2020 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliMetropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy, 200 BC Ad 200 by Neville Morley
A technical and involved discussion of the relationship of the countryside and the city -- mostly revolving about food, unsurprisingly. There is math.
Discussing the views of cities' effects, good or bad; what we can tell about population; the Roman suburbium and its vast importance for perishable good; the effects of distance, such as whether you raised your lambs (distant) or sold them to the butcher (near -- and you wanted the milk); what Romans did and did not include in their calculations about profitability; the importance of a mixed farm; how one writer discussed how every farm had pigs, and their fathers would have scorned as thriftless a man who bought his flitch of bacon rather get it from his villa; and more.
A technical and involved discussion of the relationship of the countryside and the city -- mostly revolving about food, unsurprisingly. There is math.
Discussing the views of cities' effects, good or bad; what we can tell about population; the Roman suburbium and its vast importance for perishable good; the effects of distance, such as whether you raised your lambs (distant) or sold them to the butcher (near -- and you wanted the milk); what Romans did and did not include in their calculations about profitability; the importance of a mixed farm; how one writer discussed how every farm had pigs, and their fathers would have scorned as thriftless a man who bought his flitch of bacon rather get it from his villa; and more.